Peter Raue Preis 2021 für HANGARMUSIK

HANGARMUSIK wurde am 3. November 2021 in den Räumlichkeiten der Societät RAUE in Berlin mit dem erstmals verliehenen PETER RAUE PREIS geehrt.

Laudatio von Dr. Wolfram Hertel, Geschäftsführender Partner der Societät RAUE

Liebe Frau Weber, lieber Herr Knapp, liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen, liebe Journalisten und Gäste und vor allem: lieber Peter! Ich begrüße Sie alle sehr herzlich zur erstmaligen Verleihung des „Peter Raue Preises“. Da der Preis „neu“ ist, möchte ich zunächst ein paar Worte zur Erläuterung des Preises sagen:

Die Sozietät hat den Preis anlässlich des 80. Geburtstags von Dir, lieber Peter, gestiftet. Er soll künftig jedes Jahr vergeben werden. Das Preisgeld beträgt 10.000 Euro. Konzipiert ist der Peter Raue Preis als „Förderpreis“. Wir wollen mit dem Preis nicht etwa Prominente auszeichnen, oder Institutionen und Initiativen, die auch sonst im Rampenlicht stehen und Preise einheimsen – Peter Raue ist kein „Bambi“ und keine „Goldene Kamera“.

In unserem Beschluss heißt es: „Dieser Preis ist Ausdruck der Dankbarkeit gegenüber Peter Raue und soll sein herausragendes und beispielhaftes Wirken als Bürger der Stadt Berlin, als Rechtsanwalt und als Förderer der Künste und des Gemeinwohls würdigen. […] Preisträger sollen Personen oder Institutionen sein, die für ihr soziales, bürgerschaftliches oder kulturelles Engagement vorbildlich sind und das Preisgeld für dieses Engagement verwenden werden.“

Zur Auswahl des Preisträgers haben wir eine Kommission gebildet, die aus den eingegangenen Vorschlägen eine Shortlist von drei Vorschlägen erstellt. Welcher der drei Vorschläge als Preisträger ausgewählt wird, entscheidet die Partnerversammlung auf ihrer jährlichen Partnertagung, die traditionellerweise im September stattfindet. Die Arbeit der Preiskommission ist naturgemäß vertraulich und auch ich weiß nicht, wer sonst vorgeschlagen wurde. Mir wurde nur zugesteckt, dass es die Kommission sehr schwer hatte, da nahezu 50 wirklich großartige Ideen und Initiativen mit ganz unterschiedlichen Zielsetzungen vorgeschlagen waren. […]

Liebe Frau Weber, lieber Herr Knapp: Als uns die Vorschläge auf der Partnerversammlung im September vorgestellt wurden, war sofort klar: Wir haben mit HANGARMUSIK einen geradezu idealen Preisträger. Wir waren von Ihrem Engagement geradezu überwältig und haben uns mit großer Mehrheit für Ihre Initiative als ersten Preisträger des Peter Raue Preises entschieden. […]

With HANGARMUSIK we honour an initiative that believes in the power of idealism and culture and implements it where it is uncomfortable - no more: where it really hurts. You use art to ask very fundamental questions about the nature of our culture, about humanity and about our self-image as a prosperous society in the middle of Europe. And at the same time, you open the way to art for destitute - yes: even hopeless - young people. You give them the opportunity to discover their musicality in the first place and to feel moments of joy and happiness despite the catastrophic circumstances in which they live. You enable the children with whom you make music to have key experiences in their personal development that they will never forget and give them hope.

With this initiative, you are proving yourselves not only as true humanists, but also as true artists. As lawyers, we learned in our training: art is not definable, but it differs from entertainment in that it has relevance for our coexistence, that it can be uncomfortable, that it holds up a mirror to us and gives us impulses. In this sense, you are great artists. What you do is (first) uncomfortable, it has (second) relevance and (third) it holds up a mirror to us and gives us impulses:

1. what you are doing is uncomfortable. It is no pleasure to deal with the misery in the refugee camps. It is no pleasure to go to the refugee camps on the Greek islands and see for yourself the misery and hopelessness in which the people there have to live. And it is also no pleasure to realise that we also have misery and hopelessness here among us in Berlin, in the "hangars" of this city. In the midst of us who live in warm, comfortable flats and houses. It is uncomfortable to realise that the world, but also not our city, is as we repressively imagine it, but that we have prosperity and hardship so close together. But it is not only uncomfortable for you to look at all this. It is also uncomfortable for us, because you help us to recognise these grievances.

2. what you do has relevance - because you make a lasting difference. It has relevance for the children you help, who you help to laugh and become fulfilled human beings. Hardly any of the children you work with had ever known what a violin was or what Beethoven was - and so these children will never forget what you have taught them. But what you do has relevance for us and our society above all. With your work, you show that things can be different. That we can help. That it is possible for each of us not to simply simply accept the conditions in the camps and hangars with a shrug of the shoulders, but to do something about it.

And therefore 3: They also hold up a mirror to us. They help us all to realise through art that the conditions in the camps in Greece, in other countries and here with us are unacceptable. That by not changing these conditions decisively enough, we are violating our own values on which our society is built. You have children in refugee camps in Greece playing not just "any" music, but Beethoven's final movement of the 9th Symphony. With this final movement, Beethoven set Friedrich Schiller's poem "Ode to Joy" to music - which he wrote in 1785 (shortly before the French Revolution). Beethoven chose this poem for his final movement in 1824 because it expresses the utopia of world peace, the longing for an end to war and tyranny, for fraternisation, for joy and for happiness experienced together. And I believe that you too have chosen precisely this piece of music for similar reasons: When you have the children in the camps play this piece, you underline that overcoming war, tyranny and misery is still on the agenda - the hope for the fraternisation of all people that Schiller addressed in the poem has unfortunately still not been realised. When you have this play performed there by the children, you remind us that the goal Schiller describes in his poem has still not been achieved today and that overcoming war and misery through fraternisation is still a task we have to work on today.

And then I would also like to address a point that seems somewhat cynical at first glance: this music - Beethoven's setting of the Ode to Joy - is what the European Union gave itself as its anthem in 1985. They let the children play the European anthem in the misery of the refugee camps on the Greek islands and in the hangars of our city. They are holding up a mirror to Europe. Where we Europeans are currently failing with our fundamental European values, because we are letting people - especially children - degenerate in mud, dirt and misery, you let the European anthem play. With this gesture, you show what Europe wants to be and what it is doing in contrast. Now, this can be considered an expression of cynicism. But we know that you are not acting out of mockery, but as humanists. Because they are mercilessly optimistic and believe that music and culture have power to achieve the values addressed in the Ode to Joy.

This optimism in turn connects you with Peter Raue, whom - this is my personal impression - I know as a basic optimist. Unlike many lawyers who become more and more cynical in old age (increasing cynicism is a certain "professional disease" among lawyers), Peter is always interested in new things and looks ahead with confidence. Peter Raue and you have in common the firm conviction that a preoccupation with culture can give and fill a person's life with optimism.

Therefore: We are awarding you the Peter Raue Prize today because you are using art to help desperate children to find happiness, because you are showing us that there is still a lot to be done to realise our European values and ideals, because we have great respect for the optimism and humanism you have demonstrated and want to thank you for it, and because we hope that you will continue in this way for a long time to come and infect many more children with this optimism.

Im Namen der Sozietät Raue: Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum erstmals vergebenen Peter Raue Preis!