A life swept along by the tide of history

Anyone who would like to understand Wilhelm Sander must understand the century that shaped him. He was born in 1897 in Roth near Nuremberg, the son of a doctor and grandson of a lime works entrepreneur; two life stories which, each in their own way, demonstrated what entrepreneurial energy and perseverance mean in a time of rapid change. Industrialisation had swept through the Franconian middle class, railway lines opened up the countryside, towns grew and new sectors of the economy emerged. Sander grew up in an environment that regarded achievement and personal responsibility not as an ideal, but as a way of life.

Yet the first half of his life was characterised less by upward mobility than by the struggle to hold his ground. The early death of his father in 1916, the years spent at the front during the First World War in Alsace, and the loss of the family fortune in the
hyperinflation of 1923 were life-changing experiences for a young man at a crucial stage of his life. By this point, Sander had already made several attempts at higher education: agriculture in Hohenheim, business studies in Nuremberg, where he briefly shared the academic grade with Ludwig Erhard, and finally political science in Erlangen. He was not a hesitant soul, but rather someone searching for his own path in a world that itself lacked a clear direction.

The inflation of 1923 became his peculiar teacher. Whilst it largely ruined the middle class, it offered – for those who knew how to look – the most brutal yet clearest lesson of the market economy: that tangible assets endure when paper currencies collapse and that entrepreneurial activity in a crisis unfolds its greatest impact not in spite of, but because of the uncertainty. Sander witnessed how determination and the courage to take risks favoured those who were prepared to act when others hesitated.

The entrepreneur: the courage to strike out on one’s own

As late as October 1923, at the peak of inflation and unemployment that reached 25 times the pre-war level in his home town of Nuremberg, Wilhelm Sander founded his first company, the Vogtländische Saitenfabrik GmbH. This was no reckless move, but a deliberate one – and one that demonstrated character. Sander had no university degree, no inherited wealth left, nor any family connections in industry. What he did possess was commercial acumen, which he had honed as a sales representative, as well as the willingness to seize an opportunity where others saw only risks.

From this rather small Nuremberg backyard firm, Sander gradually developed a company of national significance. In 1927, he acquired the name and structure of the Dr Ruhland, a public limited company, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, and made it the backbone of his entrepreneurial life. The company Dr Ruhland Nachfolger specialised in sterile catgut – a surgical suture material made from sheep’s intestines – which was indispensable in medicine at the time.

When the Second World War destroyed the Nuremberg factory, Sander once again demonstrated his entrepreneurial flexibility. He agreed to relocate his business to Neustadt an der Donau, where he rebuilt the company under the most difficult
conditions – securing official permits with a persistent pursuit while keeping a tenacity that even overcame government resistance. Following the currency reform in 1948 came a second major chapter in his business life: the systematic development of a property portfolio, which he built up with the instinct of an experienced crisis manager at precisely the time when others were still hesitating. The housing shortage of the post-war years was, for him, not a matter of fate, but an opportunity.

Wealth as a responsibility: the foundation as a logical conclusion

Wilhelm Sander had no children. He had no heir to whom he estate in its entirety. He did, however, have the fortune he built up over a long life of entrepreneurial work, as well as an education that had taught him not to regard money as an end in itself, but as the result of achievement that deserved to be passed on. His time as a student at the Nuremberg School of Commerce had familiarised him with the ideas of a school of economic thought that understood economic activity within a macroeconomic context. His tutor, Wilhelm Rieger, the founding rector of the University, had argued that making money was not an ignoble motive, but neither was it the ultimate goal.

Remarkably, Sander had already been exposed to the idea of a foundation as a child. His father had received part of his salary as a doctor in Roth from the assets of the Städtler Foundation, a charitable foundation dating back to the 18th century. Later, when he himself was an entrepreneur, he operated within the medical sector – an enviroment from which generations of researchers and clinicians had laid the foundations of modern medicine. Against this backdrop it is no coincidence that he dedicated his fortune to an organisation designed to promote medical research. Coupled with the first-hand experience of the rapid death of his long-serving housekeeper Lina Burkhardt, who died of cancer, this decision rose of his own life story.

Sander was not a philanthropist in the traditional sense. He was not a man who had dedicated his life to social engagement or whose name was associated with charitable projects. He was a Franconian entrepreneur: level-headed, strategic, with a sense of what was feasible and a businessman’s instinct. But it was precisely this instinct that made him realise that a fortune losing its purpose is heading for its own demise. The foundation, which was established from his estate following his death on 31 December 1973, was thus the final and most consistent business decision of his life: the decision to give the accumulated capital an everlasting direction.

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An approach that makes a difference

Today, the Wilhelm Sander Foundation is one of the most significant medical research funding bodies in Germany and Switzerland. This success is a testament to those who rebuilt the company after Sander’s death and have supported it ever since. The wealth, which Sander accumulated over decades with his company, buildings and land was not a mere result of favourable circumstances. It was the product of entrepreneurial consistency under the most difficult historical conditions of the 20th century.

From the inflation crisis of 1923 to the currency reform of 1948, from reconstruction in the provinces to the development of a supra-regional property portfolio: Wilhelm Sander always acted whenever action was possible, thereby demonstrating that
entrepreneurship is not merely an economic category but a mindset. An attitude that does not shy away from change, but rather perceives it as an opportunity for creativity.

The foundation that bears his name continues this tradition – not as a museum piece, but as a vibrant institution that today facilitates research which expands our knowledge of (cancer) diseases and prolongs life. In this sense Wilhelm Sander was not merely shaped by his century. He used the means his century provided to leave behind something that has an impact beyond his century.