Kapelle (Chapel)

Inside 1st Bedroom

Inside 2nd Bedroom

Weinstube

Kitchen

Showroom

Musikkammer

Library

Kinderecke

VISITING AUTHOR-ARTICLE

JULY 2010

New German-American Heritage Museum

Opens in Downtown DC

Forwarded by German American Society, Portland

          The German-American Heritage Museum of the USA highlights the history of German immigration and migration across the United States via various exhibitions and events, while at the same time introducing modern Germany to an American audience. German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth visited the new museum, financed by more than $2 million in private contributions, on March 19 in Washington as a guest of honor during an official opening ceremony. Senator Richard Lugar (Republican-Indiana) and Bernd Deichmann, president of the German-American Heritage Foundation (GAHF), opened the museum for business together with Ambassador Scharioth.

          Based in Hockemeyer Hall, the former historic townhouse home of a German immigrant, the new Heritage Museum serves as both a local community center as well as a national home for German-American associations and individuals across the country.

          In a special Oral History Research Project administered by the museum, German- Americans - regardless of whether they are first or fifth generation immigrants - will be able to record their own personal stories, which will be used for wider educational purposes.

          "There are so many stories of individuals and families who came to this country to start a new life that we would like to tell," said Rüdiger Lentz, executive director of the museum with decades of experience as a German journalist and director of Deutsche Welle programming in the United States.

          The oral history research project is funded through the European Recovery Program, a German governmental program to foster transatlantic relations. "By recording, evaluating, archiving and publishing audio-visual testimonials from Americans of German descent, we are following our primary mission of preserving the rich cultural heritage of German- Americans," the museum states on its website.

          Exhibitions and Events Bring Heritage to Life

          Permanent and temporary exhibitions, such as on literary influences and on German pioneers in Alaska, will moreover illuminate contributions both past and present of German, as well as Austrian and Swiss, immigrants to the United States - from Levi Strauss (blue jeans), to Wernher von Braun (space exploration) to Heidi Klum (Project Runway).

          Among the permanent exhibitions is a striking historic timeline sprawling across an entire wall of the museum's main exhibition space tracing German immigration to the US from 1600 to the present. Another permanent exhibition highlights the role of German music and choir traditions in US history.

          Rotating exhibitions will include two separate panels highlighting the stories of German families and of German clubs across the country. These will be swapped on a continuous monthly basis.  In addition to the exhibition spaces, a modern auditorium, with seating for up to 60 people, will serve as a venue for lectures, multimedia presentations and small conferences.

          Educational programs designed for students of multiple age groups will complete the Heritage Museum's programs and allow visitors to delve deeper into the subject of German immigration

to the United States.

About the Museum

          Admission to the museum is free. A small gift shop is located near the main entrance.

          Located in the heart of DC's booming downtown Chinatown/Penn Quarter area, the museum is situated right across from the Verizon Center near several other museums, hotels, restaurants, the Goethe-Institut and the National Mall.

          Opening hours are from 11 am to 6 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 2 pm to 7 pm on Wednesdays, and from 12 pm to 5 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Closed Mondays.

http://www.gahfusa.org/gahm/gahm.html

	The German Information Center USA is provided at a kiosk inside the museum.
The new German-American Heritage Museum in Washington. (© German-American Heritage Museum of the USA)

VISITING AUTHOR-ARTICLE

JULY 2010

German Traditions

On the Road – auf der Walz

The Traditional Journeyman Years of the Craftsmen

Forwarded by German American Society, Portland

          The journeyman travels of the craftsmen have a storied tradition in Germany that has survived until today with a few modern adjustments. Starting in the late Middle Ages, in the 15th century, going "on the road" – also known as "auf der Walz" or Tippelei– was a training requirement in many towns and trades for journeymen preparing to become master craftsmen. Only as a master was it possible in those days to become registered as a citizen of a town.

          With ensuing industrialization in the 18th century, the tradition of traveling to different towns and cities to gain experience in a trade became less important; yet, even into the 1920s, it was still widespread in Germany.

          Today, between 600 and 800 journeymen are on the road in Germany and abroad and approximately 10 % of them are now women. However, travel is no longer a mandatory requirement to practice a trade or craft. Craftsmen who do spend the traditional journeyman years on the road commit to travel for three years and one day and not to come within a radius of 50 km of their hometown during this time. Because the overwhelming majority of traveling journeymen – known as Fremder or “strangers” – are skilled construction workers, many people are not aware that other crafts- and tradesmen, such as carpenters, boat builders, pottery makers, blacksmiths, tailors and instrument makers, may also go on the road to develop their skills.

          The aim of their travels is primarily to learn new trade practices as well as to get to know foreign places and countries. In addition to expanding and passing on their occupational knowledge and expertise, they also view their travels as a means of promoting mutual understanding and international relations.

Customs with Long Tradition

          Craftsmen who are on the road traditionally belong to craftsmen associations or brotherhoods, known as Schächte, with colorful names such as the Rechtschaffene Fremde, the Rolandsbrüder, or the Fremde Freiheitsschacht.

          Some of these brotherhoods have been in existence for several centuries and have a status similar to student organizations. Some of their symbols, including flags and ceremonial chalices, have been preserved since the 17^th century, and many of their customs and rituals have remained virtually unaltered since the Middle Ages.

          Given these roots, the brotherhoods have often also played a political, mostly liberal and socialdemocratic, role in the past. Particularly in the modern age, many brotherhoods represented and embodied the revolutionary principles of liberty, equality, and brotherhood. Brotherhoods, whose members often address each other with “dear brother,” have long accepted members of all political convictions, of every religion, and of every nation.

          The last remaining vestige of the past was that women remained barred from joining the brotherhoods for a very long time. In the 1980s, some brotherhoods began also accepting women. Moreover, a growing number of journeymen are now going on the road as free agents – Freireisende or Wilde – who do not join a brotherhood but who, nevertheless, continue to observe the traditional rules of the

craftsman’s journey.

Meeting the Requirements

          Regardless of whether a traveling journeyman joins a brotherhood or not, he must meet a string of conditions: Only those who have passed the journeyman’s exam, are single, and have no children or debts, may go on the road. They are allowed to travel only on foot or by hitch-hiking; public transportation may be used but is frowned upon. A journeyman may interrupt his travels only for urgent reasons, such as a serious illness, otherwise the interruption is considered disreputable and his Wanderbuch is taken away and he must “hang up” his Kluft, the traditional clothing worn by traveling journeymen. Every traveling journeyman is required to wear the Kluft in public at all times, which simultaneously serves to identify the traveling journeyman as such. It generally consists of a wide-brimmed, black, floppy hat or cylinder, a collarless white shirt – called a Staude – a vest and jacket with pearl buttons, bell-bottomed trousers, and durable shoes. The color of the Kluft varies according to the journeyman’s occupation. For example, in the case of masons and stone cutters, it is beige or gray; in the case of woodworkers, it is black.

          In the Wanderbuch, journeymen collect the city seals of the places they’ve visited after calling on the city’s mayor to present themselves as craftsmen. When they travel abroad, they often call on embassies and consulates to have the

seals stamped in their journeyman’s books.

          While on the road, journeymen may travel wherever they wish, even to distant lands, for example, by working for a berth on a ship to America or Australia. When they finally return to their hometowns after three years and one day, they can look back on an often austere, yet eventful, period of unattached freedom.

http://www.gahfusa.org/gahm/gahm.html