|
|
 |
| March 2004 Newsletter |
|
Forthcoming
Events at Messina Palace • Throughout March –
An exhibition of photographs taken in 1995 showing Maltese landscape
and architectural features. • Tuesday, 30th March
at 7.15p.m.Lecture on Intercultural Communication (in English) |
Important notice to students: No lessons will be held on Friday, March 19th and Wednesday, March 31st – both Public Holidays. No lessons will be held also on Friday, 2nd April (Our Lady of Sorrows). The Easter holidays are between Thursday, 8th and Tuesday, 13th April (both days inclusive). |
|
|
|
Dr
Hermann Otto Solms, Vice President of the German Parliament
(on the right) paid a courtesy visit to Messina Palace. Dr Solms
seen here talking to the Circle’s Librarian, Mr Olaf Rieck
(on the left) was leading a delegation which attended the 4th Conference
of Speakers of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliaments held in Malta
late in February. In the centre of the picture is the Head of the
Department for Parliamentarian Relations at the Deutscher Bundestag,
Mr. Everhard A. Voss, a member of Dr Solms delegation. Members of
the Executive Committee led by Vice President, Mr Andrew Pizzuto
as well as the German Ambassador, Mr Georg Merten were present during
this visit.GermanWine.de |
 Germany has
about 100,000 hectares (240,000 acres) of vineyards. About 81 % of
this area is planted in white grape varieties; only 19 % in red grape
varieties. By contrast, the worldwide ratio of white to red wine cultivation
is almost exactly the opposite. The most demanding black grape variety
in Germany is the Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir). Red wines from
Pinot Noir can be called the aristocrats of red wines. They have a
full flavour, they are smooth, have much body, and are high in alcohol
and are of a ruby red colour typical for Pinot Noir. A specialty of
Baden is Weissherbst made from Pinot Noir grapes which are fermented
without the skins just like white wines. The colour is reddish gold
or pale red. Rosé wines from Pinot Noir in Baden have a pleasing
warmth, rich body with a delicate fruity and elegant character. A
third variant is made from a blend of Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris (called
Grauburgunder or Rulaender) grapes. It is called Badisch Rotgold (Baden
Ruby Gold). A wine with the typical traits of the Pinot family. The
nose is dominated by Pinot Gris, the taste combines the full flavour
and fragrancy of the Pinot Gris and the elegant character of Pinot
Noir to yield a special type of Pinot wine.Riesling (a German word
we should remember) enjoys a world wide reputation as the king of
white wines. In the Ortenau district of Baden it is called Klingelberger.
It is the latest variety of all grapes. Therefore, it can only be
grown in the very best vineyards. Baden Riesling expresses a very
typical regional character, it is racy, with fruity acid and has a
highly refined nose. A perfect Riesling is a unique delight with its
star-like sparkle when poured in the glass.–
|
| The Stasi Puzzle (courtesy of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft) |
 Piecing
together a part of German history: At the Ministry for State Security
(Stasi) in Berlin and its district offices, an unprecedented event
took place during the political transformation of the former German
Democratic Republic (GDR). Between fall 1989 and January 1990 while
the Berlin Wall was being dismantled, files were systematically destroyed.
Because there were not enough sufficient functioning electric shredders,
some of the documents had to be manually torn apart. The result was
16,000 bags full of torn and tattered confidential information on
Stasi informants and victims. Staff at the responsible German Federal
Agency (BStU) have been working for years sifting through, sorting
and piecing together these fragments by hand - a centuries-long task.
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and
Design Technology IPK had the idea to automate the process. Facing
stiff competition, the IPK - together with its partner Lufthansa Systems
- was awarded the contract by the BStU.
First the fragments must be digitized. Lufthansa Systems wants to take over the requisite scanning process. Through its subsidiary GbD (Gesellschaft für beleglose Dokumentenbearbeitung), the company is one of Europe’s largest providers for document processing solutions, management and archiving, processing up to 100 million documents per year. “We can now scan material of any size and quality,” emphasizes Dr. Gunter Küchler, managing director of Lufthansa Systems Group GmbH. “The Stasi fragments are different from other typical documents such as airline tickets in that they are extremely small and rarely have square corners. We therefore have to sort them and insert them in transparent plastic pockets so that our scanning equipment accepts them.” The second step involves piecing the fragments together
to form complete pages. This is accomplished by a prototype pattern
recognition application developed at the IPK. By analyzing the shape,
color, texture, line spacing, typeface and font style of the fragments,
similar pieces are grouped together. “This allows us to continuously
pare down the search,” says Dr. Bertram Nickolay of IPK, “and
speeds up the reconstruction compared to other search methods.”
The program locates potential adjoining fragments using a combination
of different characteristics. When all of the parameters match,
the next piece of the giant jigsaw puzzle has been found. Piece
by piece, each page of the destroyed files is reconstructed on the
monitor. |
| Olaf Rieck’s Library Corner . . . . . . |
Contemporary German Literature Online – Litrix.de Especially in the field of fiction, Germany is a net importer of literature with around 2,000 works coming from English-speaking countries and translated into German annually, with on the other hand, only around 40 titles translated from German into English. A little upward development could be established because of current trends in contemporary German literature and of efforts by various institutions. The Federal Cultural Foundation initiated the project Litrix.de in order to boost this trend. The website www.litrix.de started operating in July last year through the support of the Goethe-Institut and in cooperation with the Frankfurt Book Fair. The two main aims are to promote an appreciation of contemporary German literature and its translation. Generating private and professional interest from many internet surfers, the website offers extensive specimen texts and translations of around twenty pages of each work presented online in order to instantly get an impression of the particular German literatary work. Furthermore portraits of the authors and their works along with general information about the German literary and publishing scene are included. Given that a lack of knowledge of the German language is often a barrier for gaining access to German literature, translations are essential to create a linguistic bridge. The translation promotion programme does not only fund translations, this year also into Arabic, but also acts as the organisation for further-training courses for literary translators. The website is in English and in German and every year in another focal language, this year it is Arabic. Neue
Bücher in der Bibliothek Information
about Germany Das allseits bekannte Taschenbuch ‘Tatsachen über Deutschland’ kann auch online abgerufen werden. Auf der vom Auswärtigen Amt herausgegebenen Internetseite www.facts-about-germany.de können Sie Informationen in deutscher und englischer Sprache zu folgenden Themen finden: Land und Menschen, Geschichte, Staat, Recht und Bürger, Außenpolitik, Wirtschaft, Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung, Gesellschaft und Kultur
|
| Kerstin
Platsch Cultural & Consular Attaché at the German Embassy in Malta Interviewed by Ingrid B. Kidder |
|
She was born and grew up in Bad Dürkheim an der Weinstrasse in the Federal State of Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate). Having a flair for languages, she started with Latin, English, French, Italian and Russian already at the Gymnasium. She then read French and Spanish at the University of Saarbrücken, however, after one year she noticed, by chance, an article dealing with professions in the Auswärtiges Amt (Department of Foreign Affairs). A career in foreign affairs looked very enticing to her, and even the fact that of the three thousand applicants per annum, only one hundred are accepted, did not stop her from trying. And to her great pleasure she was chosen and became a student at the specialised training institution by the long name of: “Fachhochschule des Bundes für öffentliche Verwaltung, Fachbereich auswärtige Angelegenheiten, Aus- und Fortbildungsstätte des Auswärtigen Amtes”. - Somewhat shorter, the bus stop in front of this venerable building in Bonn is simply called ‘Diplomatenschule’ (School for Diplomats).
After the stipulated period of four years within this type of job, a new appointment became due, and from a short list of possibilities, Kerstin Platsch applied for a position in Malta. She had heard about our Island State, liked what she was told, and made her choice – also to the great pleasure of her husband, who is an ardent SCUBA diver and who was very keen on enjoying the clear waters around the archipelago. And
when I asked, what she liked most - a very fast answer was given:
“Those wonderful, always freshly-made Maltese Ftiras
in a street café somewhere on the sea shore”. Guten
Appetit! |
|
© 2006 German-Maltese Circle. All rights
reserved. Terms of Use - Disclaimer
|
Kerstin
Platsch arrived in Malta last year in order to fill the vacant post
of Cultural & Consular Attaché at the German Embassy.
Apart from her duties in the field of Culture, which means that
she works very closely with the German-Maltese Circle, her duties
include also matters concerning passports and visas, legal and consular
affairs. Her wide spectrum of work has already provided her with
many private and official contacts, helping her to feel at home
and to settle down quickly in her new surroundings . Kersten resides
in Sliema accompanied by her husband Thorsten. 
At
this college she studied for three years, spending six months thereof
in Münstereifel, a quaint small town in the Eifel mountains,
seat of a specialised school for civil law, international economy,
etc. A further nine months were taken by a practise period of cross-exposure
training at the German Consulate General in Barcelona, Spain. Recollecting
her experiences there, Kerstin Platsch emphasises with a slight
sigh that these months were very beneficial for her, having to live
on her own in a completely foreign environment, and not knowing
a soul. Yet she liked it, not for a minute thinking of giving up.
Then, after her successful final examinations in 1998, she was offered
a position in the office for Hilfe für Deutsche im Ausland
(Assitance to Germans abroad), soon moving to Berlin, when the seat
of the German Government left Bonn.