Birkbeck German Society

Activities

CALENDAR FOR 2011-12 »


Stammtisch

Join us for our monthly Stammtisch, for a chance to speak German over a glass or two of wine. These usually take place on Thursday evenings during term-time, after lectures. We meet at 9.00pm in the bar of the Tavistock Hotel, in Tavistock Square.


Christmas and summer parties

The Society holds two parties each year - one at Christmas and one in the Summer (in the gardens, if weather permits).

the German Society summer party

Read about a past Christmas party


Reading Group

Keep going with your German during the long summer recess - join our reading group that meets weeekly on Wednesdays during the summer holidays. This could be a novel, play, some poetry or a short story, for example we have read:

  • Duineser Elegien by Rilke
  • Romulus der Große by Dürrenmatt
  • Bunte Steine by Adelbert Stifter
  • Vergänglichkeit (On Transience) by Sigmund Freud
  • Schwere Stunde by Thomas Mann
  • Lenz by Georg Buchner
  • Poems by Heine and others
  • Reigen and Anatol by Arthur Schnitzler
  • Der Goldne Topf by E T A Hoffmann
  • Die Marquise von O by Kleist
  • Hinkemann by Ernst Toller
  • Emil und die Detektive by Erich Kästner

Read a review of the 2008 experience!

Film showings

We organize the occasional film showings in one of the lecture theatres at Birkbeck.

Recently shown films include:

  • In A Year of Thirteen Moons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
  • Der Hauptmann von Koepenick
  • Das Spinnennetz
  • Die Manns: ein Jahrhundertroman ('docudrama')
  • Sophie Scholl - die letzten Tage
  • Effi Briest (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
  • Herr Lehmann ('Berlin Blues')
  • Das blaue Licht (a Leni Riefenstahl film)

Visits

We arrange occasional visits to plays, exhibitions, concerts and films - see our Visits page. As a member of the Society, you will be on our mailing list for cultural events in London and elsewhere, and we will keep you informed of film festivals, plays, concerts etc and other cultural events of interest that we have heard about.


Travel to Germany

The rebuilt Frauenkirche in Dresden

Members of the Society have in the past arranged some most enjoyable short trips to Germany, to Dresden and Leipzig, for example. Read about the weekend in Dresden in 2010.