Our Patrons

Chair and Trustee
Trustee 2013 - 2016;
Vice Chair 2016 - 2019;
Chair 2019 - Present

A former correspondent and manager of Reuters, Marcus Ferrar was posted for a year to East Germany, where he was the only western correspondent living behind the Wall.
Now an author of historical memoir about Germany and Eastern Europe, including 'A Foot In Both Camps: A German Past For Better And For Worse'.

http://www.marcusferrar.org

Trustee and Treasurer
2018 - Present

Daniel Schieferdecker is from a well-known Dresden family and retains strong links with the city of Dresden, whilst working in the financial sector in the UK. A fluent German and English speaker, he brings youth to the Board of Trustees, as well as skills in social media and communications.

Trustee
2017 - Present

Paul Stocker taught German and French in both the maintained and independent sectors, and was Head of Modern Foreign Languages at Uppingham School for 20 years. He has organised exchanges and study visits for many hundreds of young people, and is the author of numerous German textbooks, with sales of over 250,000. He recently stepped down after 10 years as Schools Trustee of the British-German Association. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. He is in charge of the Dresden Scholars programmes. Paul Stocker is in charge of the Dresden Scholars programme.

paulstocker@gmx.co.uk

Trustee
2019 - Present

Angela Findlay is a professional artist, writer and lecturer. Through her long career of teaching art in prisons and Young Offender Institutions in Germany and England she has become an expert on the relationship between art and guilt. Her challenging family heritage as the granddaughter of a decorated German Wehrmacht General, combined with extensive research into Germany’s complex process of remembrance, apology and atonement, make her an original authority on World War II history. Angela has appeared on radio and television and spoken to a wide range of audiences. As an artist and painter, she is represented in galleries both nationally and internationally.

Her first book was published by Penguin in 2022.

http://www.angelafindlaytalks.com

Trustee
2020 - Present

Sinclair McKay is an author, literary critic and journalist whose most recent book Dresden – The Fire And The Darkness was published on the 75th anniversary of the bombing of the city. It was throughout the course of his researches that he learned about the invaluable work of The Dresden Trust. For three years, he was a judge for The Encore Prize, awarded annually for the best second novel. He writes for The Spectator and the Telegraph.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/138658/sinclair-mckay.html

Trustee
2018 - Present

Professor Rüdiger Görner (born 1957) is Professor of German with Comparative Literature and Founding Director of the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations at Queen Mary University of London. Between 1999 and 2004 he was Director of the Institute of Germanic Studies, where he founded the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature. He is a member of various advisory boards of cultural institutions, publishing houses and academic journals. In 2017 he received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz) in recognition of his achievements in developing Anglo-German Relations.

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/modern-languages-and-cultures/people/emeritus-academic-staff/profiles/gorner.html

Anna is a former Dresden Trust Scholar. Her time in Dresden left a lasting impression, and she has maintained close friendships in Germany, returning regularly. Anna is committed to strengthening UK-German relations, and remains actively involved with the British-German Association, UK-German Connection, and the Goethe-Institut. Anna holds a Double First Class degree in French and German from Magdalene College, University of Cambridge.

Professionally, Anna has experience in international relations, geopolitics, and intelligence through her work with the Cambridge Security Initiative and Grey Dynamics. She now works as a French and German specialist within the EMEA team at the private intelligence firm Barbican Advisory Group.

Outside her professional work, Anna enjoys playing squash, French rock ’n’ roll dancing, and has a longstanding love of music and the outdoors.