Chronology

2006

March 8, 2006 – America Day at the Municipal Library

The Municipal Library held an America Day as part of the project America @ your library,. The project is encompasses stepped up collaboration between the American Embassy and German libraries to organize workshops, readings and lectures about the United States as well as potentials for virtual cooperation. Selected partner libraries receive books and other informational materials to develop and supplement access to the topic of the USA. One of these libraries is the Magdeburg Municipal Library, which was happy to receive a check for € 2,500 officially presented in the presence of Consul General Mark D. Scheland and Consul for Public Affairs Mark Wenig from the US Consulate General in Leipzig. The Nashville Infopoint in the international section has become an integral part of the Magdeburg Municipal Library.

March 29, 2006 – US Ambassador William R. Timken’s First Official Visit to Magdeburg

American Ambassador William R. Timken, Jr. paid his first official visit to the capital city of Magdeburg on March 29, 2006 As part of his itinerary, he met with German-American Dialog Center Chairman Uwe Küster, other board members and exchange students for a “roundtable” in the tower apartment of Magdeburg’s Grüne Zitadelle (the Hundertwasser house) where he was particularly interested in learning more about the Sister Cities relationship.

April 2006 – Georg visits Nashville

In April 2006, Dialog Center spokesman Georg von der Gablentz traveled to Nashville and met with Congressman Jim Cooper, Mayor Bill Purcell, Vanderbilt University Chancellor Gordon Gee and numerous friends in Nashville. At a meeting with Mayor Bill Purcell, Bob Bogen and Doug Berry at the Greenway Commission, the staff there revealed where the future Magdeburg Greenway would run, namely from the main street in Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood through Morgan Park to the Cumberland River. Construction should be completed in the summer of 2007. After the meeting, Georg von der Gablentz presented Mayor Bill Purcell a Magdeburg Greenway street sign.

Georg’s itinerary also included a visit to the Martha O’Bryan Center where Christoph Pross was performing his alternative service. Also along on the visit was Congressman Jim Cooper from Nashville who was visibly pleased by Christoph’s active involvement. At an official meeting with center president Marsha Edwards, an agreement was reached to continue this joint project in 2006/2007. Johannes-Peter Müller from Magdeburg will commence his service in Nashville on August 1 of this year.

August 2006 – Alternative Service

Since August 1, 2006, Johannes Peter Müller is the third young man performing alternative service in Nashville where he is working at the Martha O’Bryan Center, a charitable organization providing services to disadvantaged children and youths.

October – November 2006 – A Tree for Nashville

Our American Sister City Nashville, Tennessee celebrated its two hundredth birthday on October 1, 2006. The German-American Dialog Center came up with a special idea to mark this event. Wilko Florstedt and Georg von der Gablentz presented the city of Nashville an oak tree as a gift. Giving a tree as a present naturally also has tremendous symbolic value and in this context in particular stands for the growing friendly relations that have developed between both our cities in recent years. Moreover, an oak can grow to be a thousand years old and this tree will thus give pleasure to many future generations of Nashvillians, not least by providing shade on hot days.

On November 18, 2006, the tree was planted on Magdeburg Greenway in the Nashville neighborhood of Germantown with a ceremony in the presence of Bill Purcell and our friends from the Greenways Department.