DIY: German Food Specialities II

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Sarah Clark, Mary Heinz, Clara Symmes, Emma Rosenthal, Gretchen Kinkel, and Michelle McAdams.

As an event of the International Language House, about 10 students baked German Laugenbretzeln on October 14.

A typical staple in Southern Germany, these pretzels can be done easily by any home baker. The students produced nicely shaped pretzels with the typical salted tops and a glaze. The outcome was delicious. Bretzeln2

 

In addition, Clara Symmes (’18) produced a perfect Minibretzel.       — Antje Krüger

 

Talk by Dr. Larkey at the JDC (Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) in New York

Uta_JDCOn October 12, Dr. Larkey gave a talk at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in New York City.  Her talk was titled Collecting Memory/Narrating Horror: Early Post-WWII Testimonies by Jewish Displaced Persons in the U.S. Zone.
For this talk, she presented testimonies gathered by the Central Historical Commission (Tsentrale Historishe Komisye) in Munich. The Commission was charged with collecting individual stories of survival and bearing witness and chronicling the histories of destroyed Jewish communities. Her research questions concerned the treatment of subjective testimonies as historical documents, the use of languages and linguistic choices by survivors from multilingual prewar Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the specificity of ways in which eyewitness accounts were collected and narrated.

Dr. Larkey presented at the Center for Jewish Culture in Leipzig – August 2015

Screen Shot 2015-10-07 at 12.08.16 PMDr. Uta Larkey’s talk “Mehrfach gefährdet: Polnische Juden in Leipzig vor und nach der Polenaktion 1938” (Under Multiple Threats: Polish Jews in Leipzig and the Polenaktion of 1938) argues  that the mass expulsion of Polish Jews in October 1938 was the first unprecedented, vicious act against Jews in Nazi Germany. The focus on the deportations from Saxony/Germany to the German-Polish border through interviews, testimonies, letters and historical documents  highlights the brutal deportation of Polish Jews to the “green border” between Germany and Poland. The talk also details the direct connection between the expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany (Polenaktion) and the November pogrom (Kristallnacht). The talk was co-sponsored by the Polish Institute in Leipzig.

Deutschland 83 – German TV Series

Throughout this semester we will be screening the new German TV series “Deutschland 83”. Watch for upcoming screenings on this page: Screen Shot 2015-10-07 at 10.18.32 AM

DEUTSCHLAND 83 is a gripping coming-of-age story set against the real culture wars and political events of Germany in the 1980s. The drama follows Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) as the 24 year-old East Germany native is pulled from the world as he knows it and sent to the West as an undercover spy for the Stasi foreign service. Hiding in plain sight in the West German army, he must gather the secrets of NATO military strategy. Everything is new, nothing is quite what it seems and everyone he encounters is harboring secrets, both political and personal.

Episode 1: 09/24; Episode 2:09/30; Episode 3: 10/22, Episode 4: 11/05, Episode:5 11/12, Episode: 6 11/19, Episode 7: 12/03, Final Episode 8: 12/10 (6:00 pm, Welsh Hall 128)

DIY — German Food Specialties

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Gretchen Kinkel, Emma Rosenthal and Megan Schaeffer cooking Kartoffelpuffer

Käsespätzle, Reibekuchen, Spinatknödel?!  German cuisine is difficult to define as “one” cuisine as it is shaped by many regional dishes and specialties. In our German 120 class (second semester German), students learn about the German cuisine and discuss typical dishes and regional specialties. Very often, students express their love for certain dishes during these classes and find it hard just “to talk” about them. This spring semester, German 120 students did not only discuss German cuisine in class, but also cooked some of the dishes themselves with their professor Antje Krüger. During a cooking night, students tried the following dishes: Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes), Wiener Schnitzel (Viennese Schnitzel), Grüner Salat (mixed garden salad with a yoghurt dressing) and Laugenbrezeln (pretzels). Aside from a short “trial-and-error” phase with regards to frying, and weighing some of the ingredients with the metric system, all of the dishes turned out very well. The students got a good taste of German cuisine and of its reputation as comfort food in its own right.  — Antje Krüger

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Michelle McAdams and Gabriel Engfer preparing Schnitzel

 

 

German Pop Music since 1945

Birgit2The German Program presents a lecture by music journalist Birgit Reuther, Tuesday, April 14, at 7 p.m. in the Batza Room, Ungar Athenaeum 448.
When thinking of Germany, pop music might not be the first thing that comes to mind. In her lecture, Reuther explains how the history of the country delayed and influenced Germany’s pop culture. What music did the German post war era listen to? How did the artists in East and West Germany act differently? And what does the reunited country sound like?
Learn how it became more and more common to produce pop music in the German language and how the lyrics reflected the political and social situation of every decade. The lecture also addresses whether or not pop these days affirms or criticizes the mainstream.
Birgit Reuther is an editor for the culture section of the daily newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt. Her specialties are pop and subculture.
Sponsored by the Evelyn Myers ’37 endowed lecture fund.        — Antje Krüger

Movie Screening: This Ain’t California (04/06)

CaliforniaPlease, join us for the screening of This Ain’t California on April 6th(7:00 pm in the Pinkard Room).

The movie will be introduced by         Dr. Johannes Birke.

 

 

(2012, directed by Marten Persiel)

“A spirited not-quite-documentary portrait of the skateboarding subculture that flourished in East Germany in the early 1980s.”
(Scott Foundas, Variety)

Screening of Ritchie Boys, November 18, 6:00 p.m., 448 Batza Room, Athenaeum

The Ritchie Boys tells the story of American soldiers who used their German language skills and cultural knowledge of Germany to fight against Nazi Germany. Many of them were persecuted by the Nazi regime and had to leave Germany in the 1930s. They were trained in Camp Ritchie, MD, in intelligence and psychological warfare and then send to Europe. The surviving Ritchie Boys are in their eighties and nineties now. They never met for reunions; they did not join veteran associations. In the end, the Ritchie Boys quietly left the war behind them and went on to enjoy quite remarkable careers – in arts and politics, in business and academia. In ”The Ritchie Boys” these remarkable, funny, sharp, brave men share their memories with us.

The event will be followed by remarks from Wolf Thormann (Professor Emeritus). He served in the US Army as one of the “Ritchie BCaptureoys.” Professor Thormann was a Professor of French at Goucher College from 1960-1989. In addition, he served as chair of the Modern Languages Department for numerous years. Wolf Thormann was born in Frankfurt, Germany, emigrated with his family to France in 1933, and came to the US in 1941.

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25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Nov. 13th, 7:00 pm, Soper Room (JR 227)

Screen Shot 2014-11-10 at 7.24.09 PMPlease join us for a presentation that will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. We will screen a documentary  that explores the history of the Berlin Wall and how the STASI (secret police) observed, oppressed and persecuted GDR citizens. We will follow the short documentary with a look at three graphic novels that tell different personal stories about the GDR. You will hear about an escape attempt via tunnel, the story of a teenager who was observed by the STASI for his involvement in the GDR peace movement, and the autobiographical account of an artist who left the GDR with his parents in the beginning 1980s. The presentation will also feature an exhibition of one of the graphic novels (translated into English).
presenters: Antje Krueger, Justine Ruhlin (’15)

Remembering the Holocaust: A Multi-Disciplinary Student Commemoration of Kristallnacht , Nov. November 12 at 6:00pm to 7:30pm

Join us for a commemoration of Kristallnacht, featuring Holocaust oral history storytelling performed by Gabrielle Spear, Nadav Marcus, Katie Mowrer, and Hannah Spiegelman. All of these students took Dr. Uta Larkey’s class “Oral Histories of Holocaust Survivors” in the past.

The program will also feature a musical performance of “Voice From The Annex”, Opus 46 – a song-cycle for Mezzo-Soprano and Piano, composed in 1990 by Jose A. Bowen with words from “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank, performed by Goucher sophomore Charlotte Khuner, soprano and Goucher Professor of Music Lisa Weiss, piano.  Justine Ruhlin (’15, History/German) organized the program for this event.