Newsletter    ISSUE 47
SEPT-OCT., 2004

2004 HONOREE: DAN BROOKE  

The Society will honor Dandridge Brooke at its annual awards banquet as a Marylander descended from German-speaking immigrants who has made substant-ial contributions to our state and nation. Dan has been a member of our Society for nearly 40 years, has been a director for 30 years and is currently a lifetime director. He serves as chairman of the membership committee and has personally recruited more than 50 members to the Society, more than anyone else in living memory. See page 3 for more about Dan.

ANNUAL BANQUET NOVEMBER 6TH  

Invitations to the awards banquet have been mailed to all members, containing details for reservations. The event takes place in the Patapsco Lounge of Towson University . Tickets are $50. Please make your reservations early to help the banquet committee with its preparations. Bring your family and friends.

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT  

                     JAMES D. SCHAUB, Ph.D.

The German Society of Maryland was founded in 1783 and has over 1,000 members, making our Society the oldest Maryland-based ethnic society and one of the largest. Despite our size and durability, I sometimes think our friends, the Hibernians, the sons of Italy and other organizations are far better known to Marylanders. The Board of Directors have suggested ways to get our story out. Our large display catches the attention wherever we set it up. We have a website and a newsletter. Each year we honor a distinguished Marylander of German descent. However, these things tend to reach only those people already involved in German-America heritage and culture.

            My strategic goal is to heighten our visibility throughout Maryland and outside the German-American community. We need to publicize ourselves so that Marylanders see our Society as a positive force in Maryland . This will take time, but each of our members can help by telling their friend sand relatives about the German Society and by recruiting new members. I believe that as we become more visible we will better fulfill our mission. In turn, participation in our Society should become more attractive. Your ideas for increasing our visibility are welcome. Please share your good ideas with your Board of Directors

ECUMENICAL SERVICE SEPT. 26

Please attend our Society's annual ecumenical service on Sunday, Sept. 25 at Zion Church . Meet fellow members for refreshments afterwards. We give thanks for the fall of communism and the freedom of all German peoples, especially the freedom of religion.

            KALENDER

September 26 - Ecumenical Service - Michalis

Oct. 8-10  Oktoberfest Ocean City Convention Center

Oct 9-10 - Maryland Oktoberfest  5th Regiment Armory

Oct. 18 - German Day at McDaniel College

November 6- Annual Awards Banquet

November 14 - AGAS festival at Blob's Park

 Visit the German Society's website: www.germansociety-md.com

For more local German-American happenings, check the web site of the Deutschamerikanischer Bürgerverein von Maryland:   www.md-germans.org

Tune in to the Edelweiss Hour every Sunday: Radio 750 AM  9 am

GERMAN DAY AT McDANIEL COLLEGE OCTOBER 18

Members of our Society are invited to attend the German Day for Maryland high school students at McDaniel College in Westminster on Oct. 18. The fee, which includes a special T-shirt made for the event, and lunch, is $13.00.  Representatives of the German, Austrian and Swiss embassies as well as business firms from those countries will be present. The program contains many elements of interest. The event is headed by Dr. Mohammed Esu, Professor of German at McDaniel and a director of our Society. Contact our president, Dr. James Schaub for information and reservations. For details check the website: 

http://www2.mcdaniel.edu/german/GAD/gad04.html

CONGRATULATIONS  

to DUTCH AND BETTY NIEIMANN on their 50th wedding anniversary, October 2, 2004 . They are celebrating with a ceremony at Zion Church where they were married 50 years ago

to MARIALENA WALSH for receiving the Mary Goodwillie award from the Junior League of Baltimore for significant contributions to the women's league's charitable programs for 2004, especially in the fields of communications, new technology and fund raising. Her sister-in-law, LISA POTTHAST won the award last year.

GLOCK, SCHISSLER & WERNER  ELECTED AS NEW DIRECTORS  


At the annual membership meeting, Dr. Mohamed Esa and Merle Arp were reelected to serve the three year term 2004-2007, while Jeffrey Glock, Mark Schissler and Thomas Werner were elected as new directors. Anne von Forthuber, whose terms expired, did not seek reelection due to the press of business. Arthur NIeberding and Robert Gay resigned as directors as of the annual meeting.

            Art Nieberding, who has done yeoman's work as chairman of our annual awards banquet and chairman of the annual picnic, stepped down due to demands of family; he must spend time away from home caring for his aging father, and for business (the engineering firm which he owns demands his time for supervision).

            Robert Gay, who has put in much time on our Society's work, served as our first vice-president and chairman of the Ecumenical Service Committee, which has drawn large crowds under his supervision. His present position as vice president for sales of a national candy manufacturer, keeps him traveling throughout the country and prevents him from devoting time to the Society.

            Anne von Forthuber suffered a work-related injury and her slow recovery has prevented her from devoting time to the Society.

            President James Schaub thanked Mr. Gay, Mr. Nieberding and Mrs. von Forthuber for their years of service and expressed the appreciation of the Society for their contributions to our successes.

EDWIN O. WENCK TO PREACH AT ECUMENICAL SERVICE SEPT. 26

Rev. Edwin O. Wenck will preside at the Society's annual ecumenical service on Sunday, Sept. 26 at 5 p.m. at Zion church, City Hall Plaza . Ed has been an active member of our Society for more than 30 years and is a lifetime director. Besides being an ordained minister, Ed is an attorney now serving with the Legal Aid Bureau. Previously he was an Assistant State 's Attorney who supervised the division of the city prosecutor's office in charge of homicide. He is also an accomplished artist. He is the father of  grown children. His wife, Patricia, is also an attorney and a retired prosecutor. After the service, refreshments will be served in Zion 's Adlersaal. Plan to  attend.

DANDRIDGE BROOKE: HONOREE

Dan Brooke is a man whose life has been dedicated to service to the community and the country. He grew up in Baltimore and Rehobeth where he has spent his whole life. He attended the prestigious West Nottingham Academy , whose famous graduates include Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton, signers of the Declaration of Independence. In World War II, Dan served in the navy as an Ensign (deck officer) in the North Atlantic and mediterranean for three years. He has been married to Isolde Kluge for 55 years. They have four children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Dan retired from the property and casualty  insurance business after 38 years, during which he served as a director of American Consumers Finance Company of MD, Government Employees' Life Insurance Company of Washington , DC and Conrad Security Company of College Park . Dan devoted many years to Boy Scout Troop #653 in Baltimore , He is proud that his three sons and a grandson were Eagle Scouts.

Dan  is an active member of The Paint and Powder Club, a theatrical group which raises funds for charity by its annual stage review. Dan is past president and still holds office in the club.

Dan is the national President General of The Society of the War of 1812, which has dozens of chapters throughout the country. He is also a member of the Society of the Cincinnati , an organization of men who have at least one ancestor who was an officer in George Washington's army during the American Revolution.  He also holds office in The Saint George's Society of Baltimore and the National Congress of Patriotic Organizations.  He is a member of The Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland , The Ancient and Honorable Mechanical Company, the oldest civic organization in the United States still in existence.

Dan and his wife, Isolde, are seen working in virtually every event held by our Society. We are happy to be able to honor him at this year's banquet.

A CRACKER-JACK OF AN IDEA

Our member, Leon Brenner, sent us an article about Frederick W. Rueckenheim, a German immigrant, who changed the way people approach snack food, retailing and the food market. Rueckenheim created a formula for popcorn, peanuts and molasses, packed it into a box and sold it as "Cracker-Jack". His invention is memorialized after the 7th inning of every baseball game in America with the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

            Rueckenheim (1846-1934) migrated from Germany to Chicago in the early 1870's. He sold his product in Chicago and presented it to he country at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago . Then, to capture a big market, he started a national advertising campaign and was the one and only person at that time to push a snack food. He introduced a 20-car train painted with the Cracker-Jack logo and sent it through the major U.S. cities. In 1908 he brightened up the box and in a blatant attempt to lure the youth market, put cheap Japanese and German toys in each box. Previously the buying of food was the exclusive province of mothers and fathers. Rueckenheim now appealed directly to the children. It became and remains a hit with the kids. The boy in the sailor suit which appears on the box is Rueckenheim's grandson, Rob.In 1964, the Rueckenheim family sold the Cracker-Jack business to Borden. It is a best seller today of its current owner, Frito-Lay.

MERGENTHALER'S LINOTYPE

At our annual meeting, one of our members, a printing shop owner, told of the demise of his linotype machine. It became obsolete because of computers and he could not sell it or give it away. He had to but it up in pieces to get rid of it. However, another member of our Society sent us an article about a 100-year-old linotype which is still in use by the Behrens family to publish the Maryville Journal-Times of Maryville , Ohio . So our most famous member, Ottmar Mergenthaler, lives on through his invention, manufactured in Baltimore .

"OUT OF MARYLAND ": POEMS BY INGEBORG CARSTENS-MILLER

A booklet of poems in English and German by our member, Ingeborg Carstens-Miller has been published by the German-American Studies Institute of the University of Cincinnati                                 

Born in Pomerania , she fled Soviet occupied Germany with her family in 1945 to Hamburg . After studying in Florence and Barcelona , she returned to Germany to work for the U.S. Foreign Service Office where she met and married U.S. Foreign Service Office Bradley Miller. They lived in Seoul , London , Bonn , Paris and in Washington , where she taught German at the Foreign Service Institute. Ingeborg has published many works of poetry and has many poems included in anthologies. She has served as president of The Society for Contemporary American Literature in German and is the founder of the Fairland Library Literary Salon. The current publication, "Out of Maryland" contains poems which she read at the conference of The Society for German American Studies, held in Baltimore .

            One of the poems, titled "By the Chesapeake Bay", reads as follows:

                                           Oh,
                                the ocean wind-
                                fresh and salty-
                               sails floating by-
                       steered by invisible hands.

                         The late afternoon sun
                                 in deep orange
                               glides slowly into
                              the calm mirror of
                                  the tame sea.

                         Only the seagulls scream.
                                Human screams
                                  do not belong
                                   in this world
                                  of forgetting.

 PORTRAIT OF A MEMBER

REV. G. RICHARD DIMLER, S.J.

Father Dimler, a Jesuit priest, has been a member of our Society for a dozen years. Born in Baltimore , he attended Loyola Blakefield and Loyola College . After joining the Jesuit order, he received an A.B and an M.A. in teaching from Fordham University in New York, an M.A. in German from Middlebury College, Vermont, a graduate degree in theology from Woodstock College, Maryland, a Ph.D. in Germanic Languages from the Univ. of California, Los Angeles and took post-graduate studies in Innsbrook, Austria. He returned to Loyola, Blakefield to begin his career in teaching German. He was an assistant professor of German at Loyola College and went on to become an associate and finally a full professor of German at Fordham. For nearly 20 years he served as editor-in-chief of Fordham's prestigious journal of philosophy, Thought Magazine. He authored or edited eight books on German literature and philosophy, translated six books on theology from German to English, and wrote more then 80 articles and reviews published in scholarly journals. He has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Canada as well as in Scotland , England , Germany , Belgium , Hungary , Poland , Spain and India .

            His scholarly activity and public service includes appointment to New York State academic boards and membership on the International Research and Exchange Board of the Wroclaw Conference and on the board of the German American Academic Exchange Service. Father Dimler has also been listed in Who's Who in German Studies in the USA , Who's Who in Education, the Directory of German Faculties in the USA , Who's Who in the USA Writers, Editors and Poets and finally, Who's Who in America . He has retired from teaching and now serves as a consultant to the faculty of Fordham University , is a researcher and sometime lecturer and in the freezing winters of New York , he works as a parish priest in sunny southern California . He makes periodic visits to his family and friends in the Baltimore area.

 MENCKEN & OUR OFFICE

Mencken and his wife, Sara, lived for five years at 704 Cathedral Street, where from his front steps he had a view of our office, less than 50 yards away, on the corner of Cathedral St .and Mt. Vernon Place. After Sara died, Mencken moved back to his house on Union Square . (Last month Cathedral St. was closed due to a 15 ft. sink hole next to our office.)

DIRECTORS & MEMBERS ATTEND RESISTANCE SEMINAR IN GERMANY  

          Our directors, Prof. Dr. ArmIn Mruck, Brigitte Fessenden and Dr. Maureen Helinski participated in a conference and study in Oldenburg and Berlin German, which was also attended by members Nicholas Fessenden, Marlene Mruck and Mary Upman. Other teachers and students from Maryland also attended.  The topic was "Democracy and Anti-Totalitarian Resistance in 20th Century Germany ." Prof. Mruck lectured on German-American relationships during the Third Reich.

            The group spent five days in Berlin   which included a visit to the German Resistance Museum where they heard a lecture about resistance efforts such as "The White Rose" and the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944 . Another high point was a tour of the renovated Reichstag Building with a lecture on specific architectural features and its use as the meeting place for the German Parliament. They also went up to the glass cupula at the top of the building for a splendid view of Berlin .

            Of special interest was a day of study of the totalitarian East German government and resistance within the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), Of great interest were the archives of the East German secret service, the STASI. These archives are now available to people who were affected by STASI surveillance as well as to historians and scholars. The extent of these archives was astonishing and the section devoted to postal surveillance was especially interesting. Included was a tour of the STASI prison Hohenschünhausen where a former STASI prisoner gave a gripping account of his experience in the lowest level of the prison, dubbed the "U-Boot."

            The last day of the seminar was devoted to a tour of historical sites in the city of Potsdam . Participants visited Cecilienhof, the English Tudor-style manor house where the Potsdam Accord was negotiated at the close of World War II. The also visited Sanssouci, the summer palace of Frederick the Great.

            For future study tours, contact Prof. Armin Mruck at Towson University . E-mail address: AMruck@Towson.edu.

(Thanks to Mary Upman for this information.)

 GERMAN P.O. TO PRIVATIZE

Germany plans to privatize its post office in the near future. Its post office is the owner of DHL, the international competitor to UPS and FedEx. DHL delivery trucks are often seen on Maryland roads.

ADS NEEDED FOR BANQUET PROGRAM - PLEASE HELP

The name of every member of the Society is printed in the program of our annual awards banquet. This publication constitutes an archival record for posterity of our membership for each year. We need ads, patrons and sponsors to help pay for the printing of the program. Many of our members also use the ads to honor their parents, grandparents and ancestors who immigrated to the USA , knowing that the programs will be maintained in our archives for (hopefully) centuries to come. The ads also help pay the cost of the event, since, while ticket prices cover the cost of the meal and hall rental, they do not cover other costs such as the band and the expenses of invited dignitaries and subsidies for student. Please solicit ads for the program from business and organizations, and consider placing an ad of your own to honor your family. Full page $125; half page $75; quarter page $40; business card $25.

  GERMANY : A DIVIDED NATION

An article in the Los Angeles Time reported that despite reunification, Germany is still a divided country. A recent poll had 25% of West Germans wishing for a new wall between the east and west. Unemployment is high: 8.4% in the west and 18.3% in the east.  Chancellor Schroeder wants to change Germany from a socialist country to one which is competitive by cutting excessive  social benefits, which has cause great resentment, especially in the east. Former chancellor Helmut Kohl, who presided over reunification,  recently said that the economic turmoil has forced him to retract his prediction that East Germany would become a "blossoming landscape." Right wingers and former communists are gaining a foothold in the east.

SEELOS, MARYLANDER FOR 12 YEARS, HONORED IN CHURCHES

A stained glass window has been placed in the National Catholic Basilica in Washington , DC honoring
Francis Xavier Seelos, a pastor for twelve years in Baltimore , Cumberland and Annapolis . He was born in Füssen , Bavaria on February 11, 1819 . He was ordained as a Redemptorist priest at St. James Church on Aisquith Street in Baltimore . He died in New Orleans while serving the victims of a plague on October 4, 1867 at age 48. A statue has been commissioned for placement at St. Mary's Church, Annapolis .

ARE ALL HOLOCAUST VICTIMS JEWS?  NOT UNDER MD. LAW

The State of Maryland exempts from taxation any awards made to Holocaust victims and their descendants. Section 7-203 of the Tax-General part of the Md. Code defines a Holocaust Victim as "an individual who died or lost property as a result of discriminatory laws, polices, or actions targeted against discrete groups of individuals based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or national origin, whether or not the victim was actually a member of any of those groups, or because the individual assisted or allegedly assisted any of those groups, between January 1, 1920 and December 31, 1945 in the country of Nazi Germany, those European countries aliied with Nazi Germany, areas occupied by those countries allied with Nazi Germany, etc." 

Some reports claim that Hitler killed as many Christians, gypsies, homosexuals, etc. as he did Jews.

IS CANDIDATE JOHN KERRY GERMAN, FRENCH OR IRISH?

Amerika Woche, a New York newspaper in German, reports that John Kerry's paternal great-grandfather , whose name was Benedikt Kohn, came from German Schlesis, now part of Poland . His grandfather was Frederick (Fritz) Kohn, who lived in Vienna where he met Kerry's grandmother, Mathilda Fraenkel. They moved to New York in 1905 and had a son, Richard who is John's father. Fritz' brother had come o the USA earlier, and selected the name "Kerry" by closing his eyes and putting a pencil to a spot on the map of Ireland . Kerry's grandfather also adopted that name. Baltimore Sun Writer, Elizabeth Bryant, writing from Saint-Briac Sur Mer on France 's Brittany coast, tells of Kerry's French connection. He spent his summer's there with his French cousins. Kerry speaks fluent French. Bryant wrote that the French are strong supporters of Kerry. Bryant also refers to Kerry's grandfather Fritz Kohn as a jewish brewery worker who changed his name to Frederick A. Kerry. Kerry's maternal grandparents were James Forbes, an international lawyer and banker, and Margaret Winthrop, of blue-blood lineage with ancestry back to Massachusetts ' first governor. Kerry's Cousin, Brice Lelonde, ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of France . Although Kerry is an Irish name, he does not appear to have any Irish ancestry.

Historical note:

ALFRED MARSHALL MAYER, SCIENTIST, GERMAN MARYLANDER

Charles F. Mayer, whose family immigrated to Baltimore from the city of Ulm , was a member of our Society in the Mid and late 1800's. He was a  prmonient lawyer who had high hopes that his son, Alfred would follow in his footsteps. When Alfred declined, his father disowned him. Alfred wanted to be a physicist. After two years of high school, he did not have funds to continue and at age 16, his formal education ended. He took a job as a machinist's helper, but his inventive nature kept him working on his private projects. In 1846 the Secretary of The Smithsonian Institution, a friend of his father visited the Mayer home and went to Alfred's room to see his latest invention. Impressed, he encouraged Alfred in his pursuits. He found a job at the University of Maryland and by 1856 was made an Assistant Professor of physics and chemistry. He told a fellow faculty member that the first  college lecture he ever heard was the one he gave to his first class at the university. During his career he held professorships at Gettysburg College , Lehigh University and the Stevens Institute of Technology. In 1872 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Science. His works were acclaimed in Europe and in America . The current issue of The Maryland Historical Magazine contains a most interesting article on Mayer by Prof. Joseph F. Mulligan, founder of the UMBC graduate school.

ELEPHANT VS. DONKEY SURGERY

When our editor, Ted Potthast , learned that his three main coronary arteries were each 95% blocked, he was given the choice of Republican (a la Dick Cheney) or Democrat (a la Bill Clinton) procedures, i.e. stents vs coronary bypass surgery. He picked the stents.

FIRST STEP TO SAINTHOOD FOR AUSTRIAN EMPEROR CHARLES I

Pope John Paul will "beatify" Charles I, Emperor of Austria-Hungary during World War I, at a ceremony in Rome on October 3. This is the first step in the process of canonization in the Roman Catholic Church, by which a person is declared to be a saint.  He died in his 40's in 1922 in Portugal , where he lived in exile after the war. It is a rarity for a king or ruler to attain the state of holiness required for sainthood.

HOW MANY MEMBERS REMEMBER BALTIMORE 'S DEUTCHES HAUS ?

It was just down the street from the B&O Railroad's Mount Royal Station. The building started out as the Brynn Mawr girls school. It became the social center for Baltimore 's German population, where the beer flowed abundantly. Law students from the University of Maryland and the Mt. Vernon Law School stopped by after night class to relax and savor a brew. It all came to an end when the City of Baltimore exercised its power of eminent domain, took it and gave it to the group which then built the Meyerhoff Symphony Orchestra building in its place. The photo above shows it in its glory days, with the tower of the Mt. Royal Station (now an art center for the Maryland Institute) off to the right.

We started asking some of our older members to recount the history of the Deutches Haus, without any significant results. A few recalled stopping by and hearing German spoken in the bar. There must be some of our members with some memories of the place. We would like to hear from you. We ask, for the purpose of preserving some local German history for posterity, that you sit down and write your recollections of the Deutsches Haus and send them to us. We have a book, in the planning stage, in which the Society will feature German persons and institutions, to assure that our ethic heritage can be passed on to future generations.

VISIT MARYLAND OKTOBERFEST

A German celebration is set for Baltimore 's Fifth Regiment Armory on Saturday and Sunday, October 9 and 10, sponsored by several of our fellow members of the Deutschamerikanischer Bürgerverein von Maryland: the Baltimore Kickers, Club Fidelitas and the German Radio Klub. This is always a fun event, featuring German food, beer and lively entertainment with German bands and dancing. It's a great way to spend an afternoon or evening with friends and relatives and meeting others from the community with an interest in German culture.

PLAN NOW FOR CHRISTKINDL

On the last Saturday and Sunday of November, Zion Church and the Baltimore Kickers hold a typical German Ckristkindlmarkt in the church hall and garden. Wurst Glühwein and Kuchen are available outside to provide a Nürnberg atmosphere. Plan to buy your Christmas wreath and greens. Choose from a great selection of German cookies imported from the "Fatherland." You will also find many Christmas decorations and a wide variety of Christmas presents for children and adults. Recorded German Christmas music creates a festive holiday atmosphere. ns.

STUDENTS EXPECTED AT BANQUET