Eric M. Warburg Award

Previous Recipients

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General (2024)
Chrystia Freeland, Foreign Minister of Canada (2018)
Former President of the Federal Republic of Germany Dr. Richard von Weizsäcker (2014)
Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (2012)
Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel (2009)
Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State (2007)
George Bush, former President of the United States (2002)
Retired General Dr. h.c. Klaus Naumann, former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (2000)
Otto Graf Lambsdorff, former Federal Minister of Economics (2000)
Veterans of the Allied Air Forces, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift (1998)
Former Federal Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl (1996)
Dr. Manfred Wörner, former Secretary General of NATO (1994)
Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State (1992)
Paul H. Nitze (1990)
Eric M. Warburg, founder of the Atlantik-Brücke (1988)

1988: First Presentation of the Award to Eric M. Warburg

Eric M. Warburg (1900–1990) himself was the first recipient of the prize named after him in 1988.

“Eric Warburg himself is the bridge across the Atlantic,” said then-Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker in honoring the historic achievements of this great German-American at the presentation of the first Eric M. Warburg Prize in 1988.

The banker Warburg, born Erich Moritz Warburg in Hamburg in 1900, grew up in a large, internationally minded family. Persecuted by the Nazis because he was Jewish, Warburg left his native Germany under pressure from the Nazi regime in 1938 and became a U.S. citizen. After World War II, however, he deliberately returned to Germany to help rebuild his homeland.

With the Eric M. Warburg Prize, Atlantik-Brücke not only commemorates one of its founders, but also one of the great figures of the young Federal Republic of Germany and its firm integration into the community of Western nations. At the same time, the award honors individuals in Germany and North America who, in the spirit of Eric M. Warburg, have helped secure and strengthen Germany’s place within the transatlantic community.