Looking ahead
Building a bridge
After decades of silence, the cautious contact between Grünenthal and those affected began in 2007. Personal conversations led to apologies: in 2012 from the company for its long silence and in 2021 in the name and on behalf of the owner family to those affected. After that, personal talks and meetings became more and more frequent.
On this basis, the joint ‘Dialogue forum’ was established by the German Federal Association of Thalidomide Victims and the Grünenthal Foundation in 2023. It provides a fixed framework for regular exchange and solution-oriented cooperation. The aim is to jointly develop projects that sustainably improve the quality of life of those affected. The first major project: the ‘Place of Knowledge’ – a digital platform for pooling information, networking and preserving the history of those affected.
A major, important step was the establishment of the Grünenthal Foundation in 2012 to support those affected by Thalidomide. It provides individual support (for example, with barrier-free living, mobility or assistance in everyday life). To date, the Foundation has helped approximately 1,000 people affected in more than 5,300 cases in 10 countries (as of December 2025).
A cautious start in personal dialogue
The contact between Grünenthal and those affected began in 2007 with an initial meeting between Grünenthal's Managing Director and the German Federal Association of Thalidomide Victims. It was important to Grünenthal to make a further contribution to improving the daily lives of people affected by Thalidomide. For this reason, the company voluntarily paid a further €50 million into the German government's Contergan Foundation in 2009.
During the inauguration of a Thalidomide memorial in Stolberg near Aachen in August 2012, the then Grünenthal CEO Harald Stock publicly apologised for the company's long silence: “We also apologise for not having found a way to reach out to you, person to person, for 50 years. Instead, we remained silent. I am truly sorry for that.”
In November 2021, Dr Michael Wirtz, shareholder of Grünenthal, apologised to those affected and their families on behalf of his family. This took place during a personal conversation with Georg Löwenhauser, then chairman of the German Federal Association of Thalidomide Victims.
From many conversations with this community, we understand the importance of this personal statement. Therefore, we value this gesture as a further step on the path of dialogue between affected people, Grünenthal and the shareholder family.
The Grünenthal Foundation for the Support of Thalidomide-Affected People
Through our dialogue with those affected, we have learned that the existing support could still be improved in certain cases. Therefore, at the beginning of 2012, we established the Grünenthal Foundation for the Support of Thalidomide-Affected People (Grünenthal Foundation), thereby integrating the hardship initiative that had been in place since 2011.
The Grünenthal Foundation supports Thalidomide-affected people sustainably and quickly in improving their individual living situation. We provide financial support for renovations that make living spaces barrier-free. Some of our other main support fields include measures to enable independent driving and accompaniment on activities outside the home, such as travel. In this way, the Foundation complements the international support system.
“We are committed to ensuring that people affected by Thalidomide can live their lives as independently and fulfilling as possible. To achieve this, we work on two levels: we provide direct support to those affected in their everyday lives and we strengthen the work of associations representing them. Thereby, we help to improve the specific living situations of people affected by Thalidomide and the long-term conditions for their participation in everyday life.”
Dialogue Forum: For joint solutions and jointly exploring future challenges
In 2023, the Grünenthal Foundation and the German Federal Association of Thalidomide Victims jointly launched the Dialogue Forum. Following the informal liaison of recent years on a personal level, the Dialogue Forum provides a fixed framework for partnership-based exchange and cooperation. Here, we work together on solutions for ‘today and tomorrow’ – with the aim of enabling those affected to meet their needs as independently as possible.
At the second meeting of the Dialogue Forum in 2024, the first major joint project was launched: the ‘Place of Knowledge’. This digital platform aims to pool information, connect those affected, experts and supporters, and preserve the history of those affected.
“I think we shall look ahead instead of back. The exchange and dialogue with each other are very important: How will we cope with the major tasks that lie ahead of us in the future? The Dialogue Forum is thus an approach for a new level of cooperation.”
Udo Herterich
Chairman of the German Federal Association of Thalidomide Victims from 2021 – 2025 and co-initiator of the Dialogue Forum
Quote from the joint press release on the Dialogue Forum