Where did Rapunzel live?

Janelle Wood, daughter Elena and friend Amber © Doris Evans 

Did you know that Germany has a fairy tale road (Deutsche Märchenstraße)? And that many fairy tales were told with a specific setting in mind? And that many of these settings (castles, towns, landscapes) still exist today? Dr. Anna Bauer, DAAD-Lecturer in German School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics at the University of Auckland, not only comes from the area, where the Grimm Brothers lived and worked, she also has an abundance of knowledge about the origins of their fairy tales. She shared her insider insights with an interested audience at the Auckland University on Tuesday, September 17.

Dr. Anna Bauer © Doris Evans

Many of the fairy tales that we're most familiar with today were collected by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 19th century. The brothers had just finished their university studies in Marburg in Germany and moved back home to Kassel, about 200km north of Frankfurt, when they were asked to collect fairy tales. The people who told them the tales were from that area, and even though many tales originated from as far away as France, their stories had been adapted to fit different places and features found in the region around Kassel. 

That way some of the most famous tales are tied to specific places, e.g. Rapunzel to the Trendelburg castle, and Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty) to the Sababurg castle. The outfit of Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood) is typical of the traditional children's dress in the Schwalm area between the towns of Kassel and Marburg, and Frau Holle (Mother Hulda) is said to have shaken out her duvets from the mountain Hoher Meißner south-east of Kassel. Today, the German Fairy Tale Route (Deutsche Märchenstraße) links all these and more spots together and lets you travel the less trodden path from Bremerhaven in the north down to Frankfurt in the mid-west of Germany. En route, you get to visit all kinds of different castles, some well maintained, some with only ruins left over, little villages, small towns and much more. Many people in the area are very fond of "their" fairy tales and have organised regular fairy tale events or put together spaces where you can engage with the local lore. In the centre of the route, Kassel stands out with its brand-new Grimm World (Grimmwelt) museum, which brings together the work of the brothers Grimm and many other fairy tale collectors and even writers from across the globe.

Auckland Goethe Society

German Trivia Evening

On Wednesday 20 May the Auckland Goethe Society’s inaugural German Trivia Evening took place at the University of Auckland. With an outstanding attendance of 70 people, the venue was filled to capacity. School teams, university teams, native speakers and teachers of German all competed in their own categories for a range of attractive prizes.

© Stephan Resch

Participants first had to show their general knowledge of things German, Swiss and Austrian. Then they had to show their linguistic inventiveness with a number of intriguing word puzzles. In the picture round, participants had to identify 15 German speaking personalities from the fields of culture, politics, sports and entertainment. The music round encouraged much discussion among the groups as music from a large variety of genres had to be identified. Finally participants had to show how good they are at guessing the answers to some uniquely German questions. Care for an example? “Wie viele Zacken hat ein Kronkorken?” What would you have guessed?
 
Ten schools from all over Auckland participated. Green Bay High School won the top school prize and was first at the prize table.
 
The evening was hosted by our Vice-president Dr Stephan Resch from the German Department at the University of Auckland with the help of German tutors and members of your Auckland Goethe Society committee. We look forward to seeing you at the next German Trivia Evening!

Wendy Thomson

© Stephan Resch

Germans in the Pacific

Did you know that the German settlers around Nelson originally arrived in the hope of settling in what they thought would be a new German colony in the Chatham Islands? Or that in 1900 half the European population in Tonga was German?

© Wendy Thomson

Tracing this far-flung German presence in the Pacific has been of interest to Professor James Bade for over 20 years, and on 23 April he gave us an engrossing overview of his research, in a presentation called “German Interest in the Pacific 1840-1918 with Special Reference to Tonga”.  

James is Professor of German and Director of the University of Auckland Research Centre for Germanic Connections with New Zealand and the Pacific at the University of Auckland. 

One of his publications, Zehn Jahre auf den Inseln der Südsee 1887-1897: Aus dem Tagebuch der Paula David, was offered for sale to members and guests after the presentation. Paula David was from a German Jewish family in Sondershausen in Thuringia, but spent a decade in Tonga and Samoa before eventually moving to Australia. Meanwhile several of her siblings settled in Auckland, followed several decades later by other family members fleeing Nazi Germany. This critical edition (in English and German) of Paula David's diaries from her time in the Pacific includes many photos from her own collection, as well as fascinating background chapters on her family history and the links between Germany and Tonga.

Felix Delbrück

Lectures on Alexander von Humboldt and W. G. Sebald

The Auckland Goethe Society was very fortunate to host two guests from the University of Washington, Seattle in March. 

Internationally renowned specialist in German colonialism, Professor Sabine Wilke gave a very interesting lecture entitled “Von Humboldt: Mapping and Envisioning Geographic Spaces” on 18 March. The following week we heard from Professor Richard Gray, who is a world authority on nineteenth and twentieth century German literature. Richard gave a most informative address entitled “Fabulation and Metahistory: W.G. Sebald and Contemporary German Holocaust Fiction”.

We are grateful to Auckland Goethe Society member and former president Professor James Bade for inviting these two leading researchers and scholars to speak to us.  It is wonderful to have these opportunities to broaden our horizons and to meet such interesting people as Sabine and Richard. 

Wendy Thomson

An intercultural video exchange

Judith Geare, from the Goethe-Institut, and three Auckland school students were our guest speakers for a great start to the Auckland Goethe Society’s 2015 programme on 18 February. 

We heard about their recent project, an exchange between these Takapuna Grammar School students of German and students in Senegal, Mexico and Germany. The start of the project was an intensive week in 2013 with two visiting German sociologist film-makers, who taught the basics of film-making. The outcome was two short films about the teenagers’ lives – films which the students exchanged with students in Senegal and Mexico who then sent feed-back, questions and their own films to the Aucklanders.  

© Judith Geare

It was great to see excerpts from the films, and to hear from the students in person how this project had given real meaning to their study of German (German was the language of communication between the students from the countries) and also about the effect this cross-cultural project has had on their lives.

Many thanks to Judith Geare, teacher Elisabeth Avram and students Tina Price, Pip Charlett-Green and Holly Sharplin.

Wendy Thomson

A special Christmas musical event

The Auckland Goethe Society’s 2014 Christmas event was a very special and enjoyable one - four singers from the early music group ‘Age of Discovery’ sang a special repertoire for a gathering of about 30 society members and friends.  Included were modern songs, renaissance pieces and of course some German Weihnachtslieder.

Luana Prictor, student of German and Classical Performance Voice at The University of Auckland, introduced the items, which were performed by herself (soprano), Wendy Chen (alto), tenor Lachlan Craig (tenor) and Warren Kilham (bass).

Many of us were so taken by the beauty of the singing that we went the following week to the full choir Age of Discovery’s performance “Celebration of Carols” at St Patricks Cathedral. Magnificent evenings, both of them!

Wendy Thomson

© Astrid Wolter

How to succeed in the globalised job market - panel discussion and networking event

Three professional experts from DB Schenker NZ and Turners&Growers came to University of Auckland City Campus for a panel discussion and Q&A with students, on what they expect from graduates applying for a job with an international company. Followed by drinks and German pretzels, the event went on until 8.30pm, and the students had a great many questions for the professional experts and the representatives from the German Chamber of Commerce and the German Embassy. The event was co-organised by the Auckland Goethe Society, the NZGBA, the DAAD, and the German Embassy.

Auckland Goethe Society Exams Prizegiving 2014

© Astrid Wolter

About 300 school students from the greater Auckland area took part in the in the 64th Auckland Goethe Society exams, our annual German language competition. Congratulations to Andrew Thompson, from Westlake Boys' High School, who was placed first, and to all those who took part!

We wholeheartedly agree with Dr Anna Bauer, DAAD representative, who spoke at the prizegiving: „Speaking more than one language is simply really good for the brain - getting into the nitty-gritty of another language also makes you understand your native language better.” And “there are tons of opportunities with German”!