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The former Vice President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Norbert Zimmermann, is dead. He died last week in Berlin at the age of 75. Zimmermann served the foundation for almost three decades, even leading it as interim president for several months between 1998 and 1999 following the departure of Werner Knopp.

"Norbert Zimmermann was a veteran of the SPK. With his characteristic clarity as a lawyer and at the same time with a great affinity and passion for literature, music and art, he steered the fortunes of Germany's largest cultural institution with federal and state responsibility. He was also held in the highest esteem in the political environment of the funding organisations and worked with great internal determination and efficiency. One of his great life's achievements was that he played a decisive role in reuniting the collections, which had been separated for decades, after German reunification. And he ensured that colleagues from East and West became one SPK family. We mourn the loss of Norbert Zimmermann as a formative figure in the history of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and will always honour his memory. Our condolences go out to his family and next of kin," said Hermann Parzinger, President of the Foundation, in an obituary.

Norbert Zimmermann joined the main administration of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in July 1984, initially as Head of the Budget, Organisation and Internal Services Department. In April 1997, he was appointed Vice President of the Foundation.

His work at the SPK focussed primarily on securing a solid budget and the Foundation's extensive planning and building activities, in particular the expansion of the Kulturforum, the renovation and extension of the Museum Island and the Staatsbibliothek's Unter den Linden building. The organisation of the integration of the foundation's institutions after German reunification also bears his unmistakable signature to this day. During his many years of work, Norbert Zimmermann devoted particular attention to the subject of the loss and expropriation of cultural assets during the Nazi era; he played a key role in developing the SPK's basic stance on issues relating to the restitution of these works.

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