Thanks to its previous organisation, the 'Brother and Sister Scholl Foundation', the roots of the foundation "School of Designing HfG Ulm" go back to the post World War II time: Still under the impression of the National Socialist dictatorship, Inge Scholl and Otto "Otl" Aicher, at the founding of the Ulm Institution for Adult Education, committed themselves to a new democratic beginning. A new beginning which was to anchor humanistic educational principles in the hearts of the Germans and which, on the basis of tolerance in a democratic system, was to prevent any kind of future totalitarism.
This basic premise of political responsibility and of democratic acting of the individual ultimately led to the formation of the Brother-and-Sister-Scholl-Foundation. With this foundation, Inge Scholl intended to keep alive the remembrance of her sister Sophie and her brother Hans who, because of their membership in the reistance group "The White Rose", had been executed by the National Socialists in 1943.
The money for the project of a foundation - the period of conceiving and financing the project lasted from 1945 to 1952 - came from John Jay McCloy, the then American High Commissioner for Germany, from the German Federal Financial Directorship and from the European Aid to Europe.
The Foundation became the body responsible for the legendary "hfg ulm", which in agreement with the purpose of the Foundation made it its task to put into practice the new educational ideal. This private school was "to convey an education dealing with current issues which was to combine professional competence, cultural designing and production as well as political responsibility into one unit. Thereby the focus should primarily be on those spheres of designing with strong social effects such as the styling and designing of industrial products, architecture and urban planning, journalism, broadcasting system, TV, film and advertising" (Statutes and Articles of the Brother-and-Sister-Scholl-Foundation). On April 1st, 1953, the Bauhaus educated Max Bill was nominated the first president of this private School of Designing which was concentrating on the field of humanities and designing.
