FIFA WORLD CUP 2006
FILMSHOW – Wednesday, 15^th February  - Time:  6.30p.m.
(Documentary - English – 105 mins)

Football As Never Before  

The sun shone on Old Trafford on 12th September 1970 as Manchester United beat Coventry 2:0 in a league match. It was not an important victory; that season Manchester Utd would only be runners-up in the race for the championship. But a record was preserved of the match that is probably unique in the history of film and television. Hellmuth Costard, one of the most important experimental filmmakers in German cinema of the 60s and 70s, followed every move over the 90 minutes of the man in the red jersey with the number 11 - traditionally associated with the conventional outside left, but here worn by the mercurial George Best.

Members and their guests are welcome to come & enjoy this film. Entrance free.

FIFA WORLD CUP 2006
FILMSHOW – Wednesday, 22^nd February - Time:  6.30p.m.
(Feature - English – 93 mins)

One Day in Europe

One Day in Europe is about a fictitious match that we are never allowed to see, a Champions League Final that keeps the continent enthralled, with a finale that is unique in the history of the game - and yet it is a match that never happened. In the Lushniki stadium in Moscow, Deportivo la Coruña are playing Galatasaray of Istanbul for the title of European club champions. If this scenario seems far-fetched, it is surely no more so than Greece's triumph in Portugal in Euro 2004, or Liverpool's defeat of AC Milan in the Champions League final after being 3-0 down at halftime.

“Watercolours from Malta” is the title of an exhibition which German artist Evelyn Mittmann will set up at the German-Maltese Circle’s premises in Valletta between the 8^th February and the 3^rd March.  

Ms Mittmann, a frequent visitor to Malta, studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden and in Berlin.  She has exhibited in more than 80 art centres all over Denmark, (where she took up residence in 1978), and in 24 countries around the globe.  Evelyn Mittmann is a markedly naturalistic artist who works with a sense of poetic mood which never allows her watercolours to reach the depths of looking like commonplace photos.  Ms Mittmann has a special ability to find and to capture the essence of the motif, whether it is a landscape, an arrangement, a floral portrayal or a nude study.  

The opening of Evelyn Mittmann’s exhibition will take place at Messina Palace, 141, St Christopher Street, Valletta on Wednesday, 8^th February at 7.00p.m.

NEW LANGUAGE COURSES 

Course leading to the A Level in German – for Gozitan students:  Lessons of 2 hours each every Tuesday and Thursday starting on the 14^th February at the Sir MA Refalo Centre for Further Studies in Victoria.   The aim of this course, open for those with at least an O Level in German is to prepare interested Gozitans to sit for the A Level German in 2007.  Booking and full information is available from the Circle’s Office.  The course will not be held unless a minimum of 10 apply.

Ingeborg Beggel
Deputy Head of Mission and First Secretary of the German Embassy in Malta
Interviewed by Ingrid B. Kidder

Since summer 2005, Mrs. Ingeborg Beggel holds the position as Deputy Head of Mission and First Secretary of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Her work entails amongst others the administration within the Embassy as well as economic and trade relations between Malta and Germany.

Born in the beautiful Allgäu (Alpine region of Bavaria in southern Germany) the young child Ingeborg was transferred for four years to the Netherlands due to her father’s affiliation with the NATO Base in South Limburg. Attending the German Section of the International School there gave her access to the English as well as Dutch language. After her matriculation in her home country Bavaria she decided to study French and English in Munich. However, and she burst out into one of her characteristic laughters, during a lecture it was just ONE line of the poem “Portrait of a Lady” by William Carlos Williams: Your thighs are appletrees whose blossoms touch the sky… which gave her serious doubts on whether she had chosen the right subjects. By the end of her first year at Munich University, she knew for sure what her future destiny would be: living and working professionally abroad. One of the options was the diplomatic service, where she was accepted, and completed three years of training at the school for German diplomats in Bonn including one practical year in Barcelona.   

Subsequently and as a pre-requisite to her first posting, she studied intensively Mandarin Chinese in London for four months, which enabled her to greet politely with “Ni Hao”, read and write at least some of the 30.000 Chinese characters. Thus sufficiently well equipped, she took up her first assignment as an Attaché in the Trade Promotion Office at the German Embassy in Beijing in 1984. At that time life in China was somewhat restricted, especially for a foreigner. But Mrs. Beggel praises the omnipresent smiling helpfulness of the Chinese individuals towards the “Dabizi” – the “long-noses” of white complexion.  

So during her spare time and holidays she often travelled alone by slow going trains to other parts of this vast and mystifying country, where hardly any foreigners were to be encountered. These trips required every time an official permit by the Chinese authorities, which however was readily granted. She remembers the fun these train-rides gave her: First Class was furbished with voluptuous plush sofas and hot water would be refilled in the passengers’ cups ever so often to brew and re-brew the famous green tea. The Second Class contained a wooden type of stretchers, three on top of each other, while the Third Class offered merely wooden seats or the wooden floor to sit on during the ride lasting up to two days. But the time was filled with interesting chats with the Chinese passengers around her, always being very polite and trying to please this young woman travelling alone. Two of her most impressive destinations were Xian with its terracotta warriors, and the southern island of Hainandao where she spent one Christmas Eve utilising a palm leaf as Christmas tree and the local Baozi – a stuffed dumpling – as the festive meal. During the very cold winters with temperatures dropping as low as -15 degrees C, she used to love a game of ice curling on the Miyun Lake near Beijing. 

Well versed for her next posting she was transferred from Asia to Africa in 1988 which turned out for her the most important and personally fulfilling period of her life so far. She became Third Secretary for Consular and Cultural Affairs with the German Embassy in Addis Abeba (meaning “new flower”), capital of Ethiopia in north east Africa. This bustling city of 1.5 mill inhabitants is situated in the Schoa Highlands, nearly 2.500 m above sea level, thus offering an excellent climate although not too far off the Equator. Ethiopia is a very unique country for many reasons. It is the successor of the antique kingdom of Abyssinia dating back to biblical times, being situated more or less in the even older realm of the famous Queen of Saba. The last Ethiopian Emperor or “Negus” Haile Selassie (until 1974) claimed a descent from this queen.  

However, during the late seventies and eighties, the country was ruled by a communist president Mengistu Hailemariam, much promoted by the Soviet Union and the GDR (former East German Democratic Republic), and who represented the leading Amhara ethnic group. He suppressed the northern tribes i.e. the Tigrayans and Eritreans, who incidentally and under the auspices of colonisation had been ruled by the Italians for quite some time. Civil war was ripe, in its wake came curfews and restrictions and eventually a victory for independence of the newly formed State of Eritrea and consequently the downfall of Mengistu in 1991. Such was the environment this young single lady Ingeborg Beggel found herself in.  

Extreme hunger had ruled urban and rural life, though the people remained hospitably minded, deeply religious belonging to the Orthodox and often Coptic churches. They radiated self assurance and joy in life with much pride in their traditions. Although, she also came to learn, that the street beggars were not just beggars, there was a business like hierarchy amongst them – who of them got more and who got less - , which reduced her guilt feelings towards them as a well fed foreigner considerably.  

Mrs. Beggel’s work brought her also in contact with the nearly one hundred NGOs specialised in food and medical aid programs. Due to ever encroaching military activities in 1990 the German government advised its German nationals to leave the country. The organisation of this exodus was to be carried out by the German Embassy, with her being Head of Administration at that time. On the Embassy compound shelter had to be prepared for Germans and their families.  

The situation threatened to become crucial, however, with the assumption of power by the new Tigrayan Premier Melez Zenawi in 1991, a politically quiet period with consolidation attempts followed. Eritrea had become independent, rendering Ethiopia landlocked, and life normalised. 

Even though, she was much involved with the happenings of the country, Ingeborg Beggel also enjoyed a very meaningful private life. A few months after her arrival in Addis Abeba she met an Italian gentleman by the name of Emerigo, and the immediate mutual infatuation never left them till today! Their two sons were born in 1993 and 1994, and she recalls happy holidays in the Schoa Mountains.  

Then her term of office in Ethiopia came to an end and re-posting was overdue. As her good luck would have it, Germany was establishing the first small Embassy in Asmara, capital of the new Eritrea. Ingeborg Beggel was offered the position of Second Secretary there, which pleased the young family no end, considering that her husband originated in fact from Eritrea.  Asmara, also situated high on a plateau well above 2.000 m, with approximately 300.000 inhabitants, suited them well; in addition they could enjoy holidays on the idyllic islands of Dahlak – (about three times the size of Malta) with only a few dozen inhabitants. After thirty years of war the general atmosphere was euphoric, cities and villages were rebuilt, and people dared starting families again – thousands of babies were born. “But”, so she said, “after a while Eritrea and Ethiopia failed to live in peace with each other, war was threatening again, and eventually started over the ownership of a piece of land of approximately the size of Gozo.” This stretch has in the meantime been taken over by the UN as a demarcation belt between the two countries. One morning of July 1997, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave instructions to all non-essential Embassy staff to leave Eritrea by a specially deployed plane in the evening before dusk. She and the boys had to say good-bye, while her husband stayed behind to look after the house and his company.                 

Mrs. Beggel and the children lived for a few months in Bonn working for the Department of Legal Affairs until she could return to Eritrea, although the situation had not calmed down completely. However, after altogether fifteen years abroad she finally was called back to Germany. The following three years she worked for the Department of Human Resources in Bonn and her sons attended a German school. All of them had to get used to a totally different lifestyle and the children especially to a new language spoken outside their home. 

In 2002 she returned happily to the African continent again, having been posted to Tripoli in Libya. The country was then still restricted by the worldwide embargo, however, as from December 2003 she was able to witness the political opening, when not only the governmental approach changed but the general lifestyle too. In Tripoli she headed the Visa Section and took care of the Consular Affairs. The sons attended first a German and then an Irish/Libyan School with English as the language of instruction. The family undertook private trips into this wide and open country, even into the centre of the Sahara i.e. Sebha and to the Mandara Lakes, to the world heritage site Ghadames with its ancient Berber dwellings in the West, and to the Cyrenaica with its Roman and Greek heritage in the East. 

And now Mrs. Beggel works in her first assignment in a European country, in Malta, and for the first time as Deputy Head. She enjoys her position, Maltese climate and the Maltese style of life, and says: “I have come somewhat nearer to my roots”. Roots are very important to her, she feels like a tree, which may be blown by heavy storm, but will always stand up again when the roots are deep enough in the ground.  

Any hobbies?  She smiles happily and replies: “My children are my hobbies!” spending all her free time with them and her husband. 

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