New Year Party at Fiddlers Bonn

NEW YEAR’S EVE / SILVESTERPARTY 31.12.2009
Live Music
All you can drink
Einlass ab 20.00 Uhr mit Hot Betty Empfang im Biergarten
Vorverkauf €35 (online booking) - Abendkasse E40.  For menu details visit www.fiddlers-bonn.de or click on link below
http://news11.bookatable.de/zentral/docShow.asp?systemId=3040&linkKey=4021120094036_1

Popularity: 18% [?]

English Tango Classes

Bryan de Valdivia is offering Tango classes in english from October:

Free Beginner “Schnupperstunde”

Thursday, 8th of October in Bonn-Beuel (Tapetenfabrik)
8:30 – 9:45 pm
Siebenmorgenweg 18, Flamenco Studio “La Fragua,” Google Map

Monday, 12th of October in Bonn-Dottendorf (Al Sur)
9:00 – 10:15 pm
Stephanstrasse 46a, Entrance via Courtyard, no parking in Courtyard, Google Map

If you do not have a dance partner, please Email Bryan at devaldivia@gmail.com and I will help you find one.

Class size is limited and we try to balance partners,
call or email to make a reservation.

• Tel. 01578 1442 421
• Intl. 0049 1578 1442 421
• devaldivia@gmail.com

Popularity: 23% [?]

Kessenich is Kult!

On Sunday (27 Sept) the Bonn district of Kessenich held it’s annual Autumn Market and was determined to prove that it’s trademarked Motto ‘Kessenich ist Kult’ (Kessenich is Cult!) is more than just words.

Many of the local shops were even selling ‘souvenirs’ with the trademarked logo on: Umbrellas, T-shirts, bags, even coffee mugs.

The area has seen the loss of popular shops in recent times such as ‘Pasta e Vino’ and particularly Aldi, so the need to build allegiance amongst local shoppers is more important than ever before. Good news on that score is that the long awaited Lidl supermarket will finally get underway soon.

Hopefully things will be looking up again soon as the area has a long history of old traditional shops. A fascinating book reflecting this is available from Local Photographer Susanna Heraucourt – “Kessenicher Köpfer & Geschichte” (Kessenich faces and their stories’)

For more info on why Kessenich is more than just a sweet smell when Haribo jelly bears are in production check out the link below:

Kessenich ist Kult

Popularity: 14% [?]

New adult art classes in Bad Godesberg

Thanks to an adapted programme and rhythm for your own creative process (realistic drawing or abstract painting, from life, imagination and photographic sources), develop observation and enliven personal experimentation.

deal with figure, still-life, landscape, portrait, collage or abstraction… using charcoal, pastels, Indian and coloured inks, watercolour, acrylics, oil paints

Be part of our yearly exhibition in the premises of the Kunstverein Bad Godesberg

Develop more skills during special workshops on week ends (new themes, techniques, mixed media)

Popularity: 48% [?]

Mayday!

So, did you wake up this morning and find a tree outside the door with your name on it?  No, I didn’t either, but in case you were wondering, here is a reminder of what it’s all about…

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The Maibaum and it’s British equivalent the Maypole, probably date from German Paganism so it’s only fair that one of the oldest illustrations of a Maypole, The 1590 fresco by Hans Donauer, is to be found in Münich. The Germans, being German I guess, have always taken their Maypole  duties very seriously. From the 16^th Century whole communities would organize the cutting and erecting of a pole (usually Hawthorn or Birch) which had to be at least 100 ft in height, bolted upright and guarded night and day because stealing someones Maibaum was serious business.

Of course for this serious task the German’s appointed a ‘Maibaumchef’ and proceeded to draw up a long list of equally serious rules  – the most important being that in stealing a Maibaum “No force shall be used”. Entire villages were mobilized to prepare and protect the tree although how they would do so sans force is not documented.   One can almost hear the cries of  “You can take our horses, you can take our women, but you will NEVER take our Maibaum!”

I was a little disappointed after reading all this stirring information. Our Maibaum in Kessenich certainly sits happily in the right place – centre of the ‘village’ – beside the Nicholas Church.  Even without a tape measure and ladder though I was pretty certain it wasn’t the regulatory 100 ft high.   When I came to photograph it  I was not wrestled to the ground by ten heavily built Morris Men bells a jangling.  An elderly man looked at me warily it’s true, he walked quickly away to return armed with nothing more dangerous than a watering can with which he proceeded to wet the nearby roses.

The Kessenich Maypole

Perhaps more emotion these days is attached to a variation of the theme – ‘Liebesmaien’.

Here the work is not team oriented but undertaken by individual, young, love-smitten men. Aim of the game being to erect a small tree (usually Birch) outside the house of the object of ones affections.  There are a fair few of these about in my neighbourhood but I never see anyone coming or going from the houses – maybe they are too embarassed to risk being asked if they are the subject of a tree declaration.  For those of you who never saw it on ‘Blue Peter’ here is how it’s done:

A heart made from wood or stiff card is attached to the Birch tree (or branches thereof) stating the name of the intended recipient (presumably so that your girlfriend doesn’t think you have a thing going for her mother?). This is collected at the end of May and is usually rewarded with an invitation to a picnic/BBQ. Women’s Libbers will be pleased to hear there are even so called “Schaltjahren” when a girl can take the upper hand (or tree in this case).

Digging still deeper into tradition (gardening pun intended)  I discovered records of village sales, with Auctions of May brides involving all unmarried girls younger than sixteen. I can’t speak for seeing any of this around here – but who knows what they get up to in Dottendorf?!

Popularity: 62% [?]

Rhein in Flammen

Rhein in Flammen Saturday 2 May 2009

Once again the Rheinau Park becomes the venue for thousands with live music, video disco and plenty of stalls and fast food on offer.  Live music starts 17 hrs onwards. More information and full programme at

From mid-day onwards, the side stalls, selling everything from jewellery, leather goods, music to fast food and drink. Funfair also open from around noon. onn,Rhine in Flames,side stalls

BonnInformation
Windeckstr. 1 (am Münsterplatz)
53103 Bonn
Tel.: 0228/775000
www.bonn-region.de
www.bonn.de
bonninformation@bonn.de

www.rhein-in-flammen-bonn.de

Popularity: 17% [?]

Rod Mason

A reminder from Sean that Rod Mason & his Hot Five are playing at the Harmonie on 27 February.

Rod might be from Plymouth but his roots are firmly in Dixieland and he is considered one of Europes leading Louis Armstrong style trumpeters.  (Also a chance to see what a Sousaphone looks like for the uninitiated!) Start 8pm tickets 21.30 Euros in advance.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Great Music in Bonn

There are some great concerts coming up in Bonn soon to warm up the cold dark evenings.

You might might even be better calling it 'Blues Town':

Walter Trout, Louisiana Red, Tony Joe White and Ana Popovic…

Just some of the great acts heading for the Harmonie before Christmas. 

Popularity: 8% [?]

Marie Kahle – Her Story

Imagine you woke up in Bonn
one morning to hear that a shop in your street had been broken into and
ransacked..   What would you do?   Offer to help clean up?   Seems a natural reaction one would
think.

Marie Kahle did just that in
Kaiserstrasse.  Months later, fearing for
her life, she fled to England where she remained  with her family until her death.  A plaque in the Bonngasse ‘Walk of Fame’  is dedicated to her, as is a Street name.
Here is her moving story.

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The year was 1938 and the Kahle family were highly respected, non-Jewish, residents in Bonn.
Professor Paul Kahle was a man of some influence and instrumental in developing Eastern Studies in
the curriculum at the University and had many influential friends worldwide. He was to need them when his
world began to fall apart.

On 10 November a Pogrom took place in Bonn
(as it did in many German Cities around this time). Jewish residencies were systematically ransacked
and their occupants beaten. Only days before, the Bonn Synagogue had been set ablaze  with firemen standing by only
to ensure that the flames did not spread to nearby houses. Marie Kahle’s children had tried to warn
local shopkeeper Emilie Goldstein (22 Kaiserstrasse) that the Nazis were on the
march but had not found her; half an hour later they returned to find the shop
door ripped open and the shop itself a shambles.

Site of the Goldstein Corsetry Shop (Kaiserstrasse 22) today.

Marie’s son, Wilhelm, spent most of the following day helping clear up.  It was forbidden by the Nazi authorities to enter Jewish shops but Marie had many Jewish friends and, to show moral support, she often visited them after dark. Whilst she was at Emilie Goldstein’s however the shop was also
visited by a policeman and both Marie and Wilhelm were reported to the local Right Wing Press. A week later the aptly named ‘Westdeutsche Beobachter’ (West German Observer) included the headline  A Traitor To The German People and the lives of Marie, Paul and their family
fell apart. The house was watched day and night. By day stones broke the
windows, by night thugs hammered at the front door. A caricature of Marie with hangmans noose was erected in the street and  ‘Here lives a Jew Loving Traitor’ painted on the pavement before her house. Compounding the danger was the fact that the Kahles also had an unregistered Jewish student staying at their house.  Marie herself fled to a nearby Convent; her husband (who also had a Polish Rabbi
Assistant) was forced to vacate his post at the University. Wilhelm was expelled from the University and could have fared worse had the Duty Policeman reported that he had not conclusively seen the boy cleaning up in the shop – which would have merited a much greater punishment.

Possibly the lowest point was reached when a former family friend, probably on Nazi Party orders, told Marie the only hope of saving her family lay in committing suicide. He ‘graciously’ even offered to provide the poison if throwing herself before a train was too traumatic! She was ‘requested’ to attend a hearing at the Nazi Headquarters and there possibly only escaped being tortured  through the intervention of a local, lowly paid policeman, two of whoms children had been clothed from head to foot through Marie’s local charity work.

Site of the Kahle House today

Due largely to the many internationally influential friends that Marie and particularly
Paul had, an escape to England was planned. Under the guise of a holiday, first Marie and later her husband and children, all fled to Holland and then on to England. The children arriving only hours before a new
rule forbidding all but Hitler Youth members travel outside Germany.

Marie herself never again returned to Bonn.
Suffering a long time from ill health, she died at only 55 years of age in 1948.
Her husband became an honorary Doctor at Oxford University and only returned to Germany at the request of his son Theo.  He died in Düsseldorf in 1963. John Kahle returned to Bonn in 1950.  William (Wilhelm), the eldest of the brothers, cared for Marie until her death and became a priest at Westminster Cathedral.  He died in 1993.  John Kahle became a ‘Post-War’ German as he himself said – “Charged with the task of rebuilding the world-view of the German people” The youngest brother, Ernest, also settled back in Germany after the War.  He studied Economics in Bonn and married here.

Marie Kahle published her story in England under the title ‘What would you have done?’ in 1945.

It took fifty years for the book to first appear in German language and even now it has only been sporadically re-published, last time in 1996 along with a chapter by her son John and a longer article by husband Paul detailing the rise of Nazism in Bonn
University up to his departure to England in 1939. The English version has long been out of print but if you see one in German it makes a fascinating (and rather
frightening) read.

Having found out what Marie Kahle endured after her and her sons act of kindness on that black day in November 1938 ask yourself, truly – would you have done?

Popularity: 37% [?]

Fancy some chess, mate?

The Godesberger Chess Club were busy thinking hard in Münsterplatz on Saturday.  Next week in Bonn will see the use of smaller chess pieces but much bigger games as the World Championships take place at the KAH.  From 14 October until 2 November India's Viswanathan Anand will be face to face over the chequered board with Russia's Wladimir Kramnik.   Anand has already been named Sportsman of the Year in India where he has raised the status of chess to a mass pastime, but can his quick, impulsive style upset the cool strategic thinking of Kramnik?  The games will be live on the internet if you want to find out.

 more details

Popularity: 7% [?]

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