Update to the project “Integratation sets a precedent”
We are delighted to have received the news today that we have been able to gain another patron for our above-mentioned project. Dr. Judith Marquardt (councillor for culture and sport) agreed to do this in response to our request. Many of our members also know and value Dr. Marquardt due to her diverse activities and appreciate this second patronage to the same extent.
Receipt of a donation in kind
Today we received a donation in kind from Switzerland, which we were very pleased about.
It is the rare book “The Sea Devil’s Fo’c'sle” by Lowell Thomas in a 1929 edition. Lowell Thomas (author of “With Laurence in Arabia” among others) had already written the book “The Sea Devil” in the early 1920s, which formed the basis for Luckner’s popularity in the USA. In 1959 Thomas ensured that the count was honored in the program “This is your life”.
The book donated today deals with stories of the count, which he described in German, for example in the book “Seeteufels Weltfahrt”. The program also included signed pictures and a great newspaper clipping that we had not seen before.
We were very pleased about the donation in kind, thank you very much for the support of our museum and send our warmest greetings to Beinwill am See in Switzerland.
Update to the project “Integratation sets a precedent”
Today, July 15, 2024, Ms. Katharina Brederlow, Councilor for Education and Social Affairs of the City of Halle (Saale), officially took over patronage for our project. We are very pleased about this and would like to thank you very much for the trust you have placed in us!
Museum of the seafaring
Today we had the opportunity to take over part of the “Museum of Maritime Travel”. For this reason we drove to Geiselhöring (near Regensburg) and met the operator, Ms. Hella Meister, daughter of the museum’s founder, Mr. Hellmut Osten, who incidentally founded the museum under the name “Graf Luckner Museum”. We are very grateful for the offer to take over the part of the collection relating to Count Luckner for a fair price and promise to continue to manage what has been transferred to us in the spirit of Hellmut Osten.
X–Mas in the Yard 2023
It was a wonderful evening – thanks to all the helpers and our special guests, the “Seeteufel” choir – we are proud of you all!!!
Matthias J. Maurer
Our president is Matthias J. Maurer. His namesake, who worked as an astronaut for a long time on the International Space Station ISS, is probably better known throughout Germany. Incidentally, he had a copy of the famous Nebra Sky Disk (the oldest known depiction of the sky) with him, which is on display in the State Museum of Prehistory, which is based in Halle. In the autumn of this year, he brought the disk back. A second visit included a visit to the new planetarium in the Saale city, where the astronaut presented his book “Cosmic Kiss”, in which he reports on his time on the ISS, among other things. Our president made an effort to attend the event not only because of the similarity in names. There he was able to hand over “fan mail” to his namesake that had been sent to him in error. He also asked him about his attitude to international understanding, because promoting this is a goal firmly anchored in the Graf Luckner statutes. The astronaut answers this question as expected, saying that he obviously sees himself as an ambassador for peace and that we could all see ourselves as astronauts, because we are all basically astronauts and our spaceship is the Earth. What a fascinating perspective!
Of course there was an autograph in the book that was purchased, and a very special one at that, because the astronaut also has a “J” between his first and last name, which he does not use, contrary to our president’s habit. But he did use it for the autograph!
Integratation sets a precedent
WE are Luckner!
This is our new motto with the aim of complementing, expanding and adapting our previous work to the challenges of our time. And our current project concerns integration.
This is as follows:
Many people in the country are concerned about the question of integrating new people. Whether everyone welcomes them or not, these people are there and we (and they too) have to master the interaction and the new situation in every respect. It’s not just politics or the police that are in question here, and despite these really pressing questions, politics in particular is unfortunately still lacking answers to us – across Europe, by the way.
Therefore, as a civil society, let us tackle these problems wherever we can, because it cannot and must not be the case that people get “under the wheels”.
It’s about people!
These are, first and foremost, the citizens of our country who live here!
It is the people who built our country who maintain it every day; those who make their contribution to the community every day, through paid work or charitable work, to enable the functioning of our state; in schools, kindergartens, on the railway, in the power plant, in large industry, in supermarkets, in medium-sized businesses as well as in one-man businesses, yes in all companies and institutions and there in employed, self-employed, freelance or other activities.
They are also those who volunteer their time and often their hard-earned money to make our community function! In the end, all those people who think, work, act, lead, get involved, pay taxes and with their efforts create the substance so that we can ultimately somehow afford to help in many ways!
We are sure:
If we don’t forget any of “our” people, each of them will be ready to help…
… for example the new fellow human beings in our country who deserve a chance if they have the honest will to integrate into the country and society. We as the Graf Luckner Society have taken it upon ourselves to help prepare the ground so that such an opportunity has a real basis and that the new fellow human beings ultimately become an enrichment for our community.
They and we deserve it – let’s get it done!
WE are Luckner!