Portrait & Abstract Painting Exhibition by Wilhelmina Micallef Valenzia 

This Exhibition will be launched at Messina Palace on Friday, 6^th May at 7.30p.m. and will remain open till the 31^st May. 

"A Schiller Hour"

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the death of the great German dramatist, poet, historian and critic Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805), the German-Maltese Circle will be organising a SCHILLER HOUR (in English) on Wednesday, 11^th May at 7.15 p.m. 
The President of the German-Maltese Circle, Albert Friggieri, will give a lecture on the subject of FRIEDRICH SCHILLER, GHOSTSEERS AND MALTA: Some of the less known connections between the work of Schiller and Malta. 

Teresa Friggieri will be reading extracts from Schiller's unfinished novel Der Geisterseher. 

 
Choral Concert

The Freundschaft choir from Hamburg under the direction of Alraune Bottcher will be teaming up with the Maltese group ‘The New Choral Singers’ directed by Robert Calleja to perform at St Paul’s Anglican Pro-Cathedral, Valletta on Thursday, 12^th May 2005, at 7.30pm.  

The repertoire will include a selection of sacred and secular music. The concert promises to be an entertaining experience for music lovers of all ages and entrance to the concert is free of charge.   

 
Bir Miftuh International Music Festival  -  The TRIO ROSSO on Sunday 5^th June at 8.00p.m. 

The Trio Rosso (Germany) delights in exploring the extensive repertoire for oboe, clarinet and bassoon on a professional level. The sound of this particular combination of instruments has its special attraction as they all form part of the family of reed instruments. During the last years the Trio Rosso has played regularly at cultural events around Berlin like the “Potsdam Schloessernacht 2004”. In spring 2005 these young artists were invited to participate in the “Easter Academy La Villa 2005” for chamber music groups, supported by a scholarship of the “Michael-Roever-Foundation” and the “Young Munich Philharmonic Orchestra”.
 
The German Embassy of Malta and the German-Maltese Circle invited the Trio Rosso for the “Bir Miftuh” Music Festival 2005.  For the concert the Trio Rosso selected various musical treasures from different European epochs and regions under the title „Trio Rosso in concert – European music for woodwind trio (Trio d´Anches)“. In the program are works written by L.v.Beethoven, C. Camilleri, J.Françaix, G.Jacob, R.Maros, W.A.Mozart and H. Tomasi. 

Tickets from Din l-Art Helwa, 133, Melita Street, Valletta.   Tel: 21220358 or 21225952, Monday to Friday between 9.00 am and noon.  

Grundstufe Examinations 

End of course examinations for the Grundstufe classes are due in the last week of June (see Noticeboard).  Please look out for the next Newsletter for more details regarding application and timetable.  Past papers of the Grundstufe examinations (where applicable) will soon be available from the Office.

Goethe Institute Examinations

The German-Maltese Circle reminds interested persons that the following Goethe Institute Examinations are due in May/June 2005:
· Zertifikat Deutsch (ZD)
· Zentrale Mittelstufenprüfung (ZMP)
Further information and application forms for both examinations are available from the Circle’s office. The Examination timetable can be viewed on the Circle’s Noticeboard or on our webpage

 New Corporate Members 

The German-Maltese Circle welcomes two new Corporate members – Bavarian Technology Systems and Hotset Malta Limited.

HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY, CONSTRUCTION AND FURNITURE-MAKING
THIRD VISIT OF FREIBURG MASTER CABINET-MAKERS TO MALTA
by Joachim Speck - Oberstudienrat PGDip

Our week started with a sightseeing and information day in Valletta and a visit to the German-Maltese Circle where Mr Olaf Rieck informed us about the Circle’s work and showed us the Messina Palace.  We spent our second day in Mosta at the Institute of Art and Design.  Here Principal Mr  Donald Friggieri and his students presented their college in a most interesting way. We were informed about the structure of the BTEC courses, the students’ work and a rehabilitation project of a 17^th century Maltese building.  On our weekend program was an excursion to the old capital Mdina and the beautiful island of Gozo. Also some master-joiners explored  the various discos and bars in Paceville. 

On Monday we continued our special program with a visit to the Valletta Waterfront Project. We were  especially impressed by the overall planning and the skillful restoration of the partly damaged buildings of the Grandmaster Pinto stores. This 25 million Euro project shall bring back to life the old harbour area. 

Also most informative was the tour of the building site of the new Mater Dei - Central Hospital the next day. We were shown around on the site and informed about  the  methods of construction and the interior layout of this modern hospital.  In the afternoon of that day we visited  the Joinwell Furniture factory.  We came there with another group of our students in 2000 and 2002. It was somewhat sad to see how the perfect production of beautifully crafted period furniture is slowly going down. Instead the company is now successfully presenting and selling more furniture of foreign manufacturers in their Joinwell-Showroom which we also visited with great interest. 

The highlight on our departure day were the hours we spent at the German company Brandstätter-Group-Malta, manufacturer of the popular Playmobil figures.  After an introduction into the company’s philosophy and the figures´ history we saw the perfectly organized production. Afterwards we had  the possibility to invest our last Maltese money in the latest playmobil figures in the kids fun park nearby.  The return flight with Air Malta back to Frankfurt was hard after all these  impressions.  Apart from Malta´s history and the stormy development of the new EU-member  we were especially impressed by all the friendly and helpful people we met on this island. 

Special thanks to Mr Olaf Rieck (German-Maltese Circle), Architect Christopher Falzon (CEO VISET MALTA), Ms Mary Rose Grima (Health Planner New Hospital Project), Mr Lawrence Faruggia (Joinwell Furniture) and Mr Noel Borg (Playmobil Malta).  They all made it possible that we had such an exciting stay on Malta.  Finally, we have to say many thanks to Mr Donald Friggieri who made our program possible. We hope to welcome him and his wife soon in Freiburg at the Friedrich-Weinbrenner-Gewerbeschule.  We also hope that a Leonardo exchange can take place with some of the students of the Institute of Art and Design in the near future. 

And we ourselves would very much like to come back to Malta again!
Information about our college can be found on our website at www.fwg-freiburg.de

Bernhard M. Baron
Director for Cultural Affairs of the  City of Weiden, Bavaria
Member of the German-Maltese Circle
Interviewed by Ingrid B. Kidder

“I am a professional reader”, was the first thing which Bernhard Baron told me, when I asked him to talk about himself, “For example during these two weeks I have spent in Malta I have read seven novels. I read up to four papers on a normal weekday.” And what is more, he remembers every detail about any literary event, writer and publication that he ever came across.  Already in the sixties he started to collect information and reviews of contemporary writers. This collection has grown into a first-rate archive of more than 3.500 names of authors and their works, and it is being updated constantly. 

Bernhard Baron has also made a name for himself as a prolific writer on literary and historical subjects. He compiled many radio programmes and features for television and is a regular contributor to daily papers. His area of specialisation is unique. He researches the work of writers and composers of bygone centuries who had lived in or passed through the market place of the Bavarian town of Weiden (presently 50.000 inhabitants). This quaint municipality was situated “in der Mitte des Reichs” (in the middle of the empire) at the time of Emperor Karl IV. The intersection of the medieval Goldene Straße (the ‘Golden Street’ extending from Nuremberg in the West to Prague in the East) and the Magdeburger Straße (extending from Venice in the South to Stettin in the North) marks the centre of Weiden to this very day. People like Max Reger, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, to name but a few, have been to Weiden during the centuries. Bernhard knows every detail about their stay in the town. 

After having worked for the Bavarian State in Regensburg for twenty years, Bernhard Baron became Director of the Department for Cultural Affairs in Weiden in 1984. He created immediately the “Weidener Sommerserenaden”, offering one concert per week during the summer months. Another brainchild of his, the “Weidener Literaturtage” (Literature Days in Weiden), became an annual event and has been held every spring since 1985. The programme contains readings of contemporary authors, podium discussions, theatre performances and exhibitions – all well attended and extensively covered by the media. Bernhard’s aim was to enable authors and literary enthusiasts to meet to deal with specific themes, mostly of current significance to Europeans.  In 2004 the title of the twentieth Weidener Literaturtage was “Mitten in Europa – Eine Chance für die Literatur?” (In the Middle of Europe – A Chance for Literature?). Coinciding with the accession of the new EU member states and the exhibition “Viva Europa + EU-Beitrittsländer + Goldene Straße” (Viva Europa + New EU Members + The Golden Street) this event was opened by the Maltese Ambassador to Germany H.E. William C. Spiteri.  Bernhard Baron has been decorated with a number of high honours and medals for his extraordinary achievements in the literary field as well as for his research and publications about the historical background of the region. 

You might ask: does Bernhard Baron have a private life at all? Indeed he has, and that is most pleasantly connected with Malta. But first of all, let me tell you about his childhood and upbringing.  Bernhard was born in 1947 as the fifth child of a police officer from Kattowitz in Oberschlesien (Upper Silesia) and a brave mother who fled with the children from the East to Regensburg while father was still a prisoner of war. Bernhard was privileged to grow up in a slightly better-than-average post-war environment, in a strictly Catholic household. Slowly he started finding out more and more about his father’s private acts of heroism. This man – like many others – had been forced to serve the regime during the war; yet, on the quiet, he was working for an underground group helping and saving people from persecution and sure death. “He did not talk about it”, said Bernhard, but for quite some time after the war letters and  parcels kept arriving, and sometimes people knocked on their door, wanting to meet and thank his father for his risky and courageous efforts to help them. Apart from this their house was always open to people and influences from all over the world. Some family members had lived in East-Africa, a great uncle had been a trader in Tsingtau in China, which had been a German colony until 1918.   

Due to this cosmopolitan family background it is not astonishing that, already at the age of sixteen, Bernhard made his first trip abroad, as Scout Leader to the then Czechoslovakia, which in 1963 was still behind the Iron Curtain. He became a member of the Young Christian Workers, and served as an altar boy.   

From one of his well travelled uncles he heard for the first time of the British Colony MALTA in the Mediterranean. It was during courses he followed as a Scout that he learned about the cultural and economic influence of the Order of St. John on the Maltese islands. Yet before this knowledge about Malta could be utilised, some more decades had to pass. Bernhard Baron travelled extensively, even spent six months in a Kibbutz, read hundreds of books – mainly travelogues, history books, many studies on contemporary history…  For his compulsory military year he served in the German Air-Force, thereafter graduating as an administrative officer in the civil service.  

He got married, however, soon divorced, but cared for an affectionate relationship with his two sons, Alexander now a mathematician in Munich and Tobias a school teacher in Bremen.   As already mentioned, Bernhard eventually settled in Weiden, which meant special fate for him personally, as within months he met the Maltese lady Mary Muscat. She had also been married and divorced from her German husband for a long time. Her son Marcus who lives in Malta, is the goalkeeper of the Maltese Ice-Hockey Team “Malta Pirates”.  

Bernhard and Mary married a year later. Mary is an acknowledged painter. One of the highlights of her career in the mid-80’s was an exhibition of paintings organised as part of the programme entitled “Malta – Land und Leute” (Malta – Its Country and People) which was held in Weiden in March 1986. Her exhibition was opened by the then Maltese Ambassador to Germany, H.E. Albert Friggieri, who is now President of the German-Maltese Circle.  In the near future, Bernhard Baron will be retiring and hopes to start “a new life as pensioner”, and the couple will move to Zejtun. “Malta”, he says “is my great love and I am looking forward to living here, integrated in the Maltese way of life. I will read and write and enjoy the time without any pressure.”  Mary’s nine siblings and their families will undoubtedly be a great help as far as Maltese traditions are concerned, and – Bernhard Baron promised - the German-Maltese Circle and our Newsletter will gain an interested contributor on literatary subjects.
  

They say that all roads lead to Rome.  Since the year 1999 they seemed to be pointing to a small town in northern Bavaria, Weiden in der Oberpfalz. I have already been in Weiden three times due to my friendship with a teacher I  had met on a seminar in Dillingen/Donau.  Meanwhile, the Augustinus Gymnasium in Weiden was looking for a partner school in Malta for an exchange project.  Mr. Bernhard M. Baron, whose wife is Maltese, asked Mrs. Ingrid Kidder for help and as she is my colleague at University, she made the proposal, only to be astonished by my acquaintance with Weiden.  So during my stay in August 2004 I met the Assistant Head Mrs. Edith Lippe and we started the ball rolling. 

In February this year I led a group of eleven students from Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary School, Naxxar, together with the school’s Assistant Head Mrs. Pauline Miceli.  The warmth of our hosts compensated for the icy weather.  Mrs. Lippe and the other Assistant Head Mr. Helmut Matejka, who was also kind enough to host a Maltese student, organised a very interesting programme.  On the first day our students were shown around the school and attended some lessons.  We were taken around the centre of Weiden by Mr. Baron.  We also visited Regensburg on the Danube, where our students were intrigued by the torture chamber beneath the Town Hall.  During the weekend each host family made its own plans for their guests.  Some went sledging; others traveled to Nuremberg and watched a Bundesliga match under a constant shower of snow.  On Monday the whole group of students and their partners visited the Czech capital Prague, with its splendid castle and historic centre. On the last day at school our students were taught a Slovenian folk dance by the music teacher, after which we were received by the Vice-mayor of Weiden, Mrs. Elisabeth Kraus, in the new Max Reger Town Hall.  In the evening the Weideners organised a farewell party with music, a presentation on Malta by the Maltese students and a mouth-watering buffet of Bavarian and Maltese food and cakes.   

The Augustinus students and Mrs. Lippe paid the return visit between 18 and 25 April.  An intensive programme of cultural excursions and two visits to the school in Naxxar made up the programme. This great experience for our students proved to be a wonderful exercise in inter-cultural relations and in the appreciation of different ways of life.  I am sure both sides have learnt a lot from each other and from the experiences gathered during their stay in a foreign country while staying with either a Maltese or a German family.  I hope that these contacts will be strengthened and similar exchanges will take place in the future.
 

Neuer Internetauftritt der Deutschen Botschaft in Malta 

Sie suchen verlässliche und umfangreiche Informationen über  Malta oder Deutschland? Sie möchten mehr über die bilateralen Beziehungen zwischen diesen Ländern erfahren?  Sie haben die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit und wollen z.B. etwas zum Thema Beglaubigungen/Beurkundungen, Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht usw. wissen? Oder sich über das kulturelle Leben in beiden Ländern informieren?  Dann lädt die Deutsche Botschaft Valletta Sie herzlich ein, einen Blick auf ihre neue deutsche Internet-Seite zu werfen:  http://www.valletta.diplo.de

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