Prof. Dr. h.c. Klaus Dieter Lehmann

Klaus-Dieter Lehmann was born in 1940 in Breslau (today Wroclow, Poland). He studied mathematics and physics at the universities of Cologne and Mainz. Upon completion of studies he worked as a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, investigating the first American Lunar probes. After studying library science (taking the public service examination in 1970) he became director of the City and University Library in Frankfurt am Main at the age of 33. In 1988 Professor Lehmann was appointed the German national librarian, becoming director general of the Deutsche Bibliothek in Frankfurt am Main. With German unification in 1990, Klaus-Dieter Lehmann managed the fusion of the Frankfurt facility and its East German counterpart, the Deutsche Bücherei. He was the first director of the new German National Library. The board of the Foundation Prussian Heritage named Klaus-Dieter Lehmann its president in 1998. The Foundation is Europe's largest cultural organisation, encompassing seventeen museums, the Berlin State Library and the Prussian Central Archives in Berlin. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann has been awarded honorary professorships by the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankurt. He also received an honorary doctorate from the Ludwig Maxmilian University in Munich. Among his current responsibilities are the reconstruction of the Museum Island, including the Pergamon Museum, and the expansion of the Foundation's contemporary art collections. From early on Klaus-Dieter Lehmann has successfully brought together the worlds of culture, politics and economics. An important example of his initiative is the public-private partnership, "Museum Island Trustees."