Michael Bloom: The Duty Was Joy. The Life of My Great Uncle Dr. Horst Berkowitz
2025-01-28 08:00 - 21:00 UTC
Please click on this link to join
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89886032172?pwd=[REDACTED]
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February is History Month at Bristol-Hannover!
2025-02-18 08:00 - 2025-02-27 21:00
** For those of you who do not like to travel too far during the winter months when the days are short, the Bristol-Hannover Council has just the thing. During February, we are curating three on-line talks from leading academics on topics which I know will appeal to our members.
The talks are hosted by our friends at the German Historical Institute in London and the Leo Baeck Institute. You can attend as many as you like. They are all free of charge, but in some cases require you to register in advance on-line. Don’t worry, the process is very simple?.
If you have never been in a Zoom conference before, it’s pretty straightforward-the main thing is to mute your device when the lecturer is talking. There is a good primer here: https://www.ageuk.org.uk/bp-assets/globalassets/trafford/how-to-use-zoom-for-the-first-time.pdf.
Looking forward to seeing you at the sessions and hearing your reflections afterwards.
The Programme
FEBRUARY 18 – Winner and Losers, Britain and Germany after WW2 — GHIL online lecture 5.30pm
https://www.ghil.ac.uk/events/lectures#c6501
How do historical narratives and memories shape our understanding of national identity and collective memory?
Lucy Noakes (University of Essex) and Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck) reflect on how the Second World War has shaped Germany and Britain after 1945. The conversation will offer insights into the ways in which the two nations navigated the aftermath of the war and redefined their identities and roles in the contemporary world.
About the speakers:
Lucy Noakes, Professor of History at the University of Essex, specialises in the social and cultural history of early to mid-twentieth-century Britain, with a particular focus on people’s experiences and memories of the world wars. Her recent publication, Dying for the Nation, focuses on the history of death, grief and bereavement in Second World War Britain. This research places the experience and memory of death at the forefront of understanding the British war experience, exploring how death was managed and remembered during this period. From November 2024 she will be President of the Royal Historical Society.
Frank Trentmann, Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, is a historian of modern Britain, Germany and the world. His research explores the interplay between material, political and moral change. His latest book, Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942–2022, follows the German people’s journey from the horrors of the Nazi era to their moral and social reinvention, and its limits. Trentmann’s work captures the dramatic changes during and after the Cold War, the division and reunification of Germany, and the nation’s evolving and ambivalent role on the world stage.
FEBRUARY 20 – ‘Before the Holocaust’ : Leo Baeck Institute online book talk 7.00pm
https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/
Historians have traditionally argued that antisemitic violence in Nazi Germany rose gradually, from low levels during the first years of Hitler’s rule to a high point in the Reich-wide pogrom of November 1938. ?Before the Holocaust, based on research in more than ?2?0 German archives, demonstrates that this long-held assumption is wrong. During the months-long Nazi takeover of power, beginning a mere five weeks after Hitler became Chancellor, waves of antisemitic violence engulfed large parts of Germany. ?Before the Holocaust? examines the multitude of these hitherto unrecognized antisemitic attacks in the late winter and spring of 1933, as well as the reaction of German elites and institutions to this violence.
?Hermann Beck is Professor of History at the University of Miami. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles after studying History and Literature at German universities (Mannheim, Freiburg, and Berlin), the London School of Economics, and the Sorbonne. He has been a Fulbright Scholar and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. His publications include books on nineteenth-century Germany, The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia and the late Weimar and Nazi periods.
FEBRUARY 27 – ‘Cold War Games’ GHIL on line lecture 5.30 pm https://www.ghil.ac.uk/events/lectures
Maren Röger (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe)
(Cold) War Games: Scenarios on Both Sides of the Iron Curtain
In co-operation with the Modern History Research Seminar, University of Oxford
“During the Cold War, millions of people on both sides of the Iron Curtain played board and digital games in living rooms, barracks, and schools. They played classics such as Memory in the FRG and Merk-Fix in the GDR, but also games with names like Fulda Gap and Class Struggle. In this lecture, I will present games–for a long time neglected by Cold War Studies–as a relevant part of popular culture in the 1970s and 1980s. First, I will show how they played a significant role in conveying to a popular audience the fundamental characteristics of the East-West conflict. Second, I will focus on GDR board games and analyse their territorial and ideological worlds and boundaries.”
Maren Röger has been Director of the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe and Senior Professor of Central and Eastern European History at the University of Leipzig since ?2021. Her numerous publications include monographs on the gender history of German-occupied Poland, the visual history of Habsburg Bucovina, and entangled memories of post-war expulsions, and articles on board and computer games in the Cold War.
IAN TURNER/ Chair, BHC
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Rosenmontag
2025-03-03 19:00 - 21:00
Annual celebration – at the Black Swan, Westbury-on-Trym
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MAY 20
2025-05-20 19:00 - 22:00
First in a new series of German films (at Stoke Lodge): Phoenix – directed by Christian Petzold.
Petzold writes his own scripts, but the films all have a link to either periods or real events in history, so this gives them a strong feeling of authenticity. He is also a political activist and social campaigner. Many of his films have featured the actor Nina Hoss has won many awards for her performances but she also campaigns for social justice. The most successful film from the partnership between Petzold and Hoss is the multi award winning ‘Barbara,’ which we showed last year in our series on East Germany.
In this film Hoss plays Auschwitz survivor Nelly who is heavily bandaged after facial surgery. On returning home she finds that her husband has remarried. He does not recognise her but sees a faint resemblance so asks her to take on the identity of his former wife to access her inherited fortune. She agrees so becomes her own imposter.
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JUNE 03
2025-06-03 19:00 - 22:00
The latest of our popular darts evenings at the Post Office Tavern, Westbury-on-Trym, at 7pm
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JUNE 10
2025-06-10 19:00 - 22:00
Second in a new series of German films (at Stoke Lodge): Transit – directed by Christian Petzold.
Petzold writes his own scripts, but the films all have a link to either periods or real events in history, so this gives them a strong feeling of authenticity. He is also a political activist and social campaigner. In this second film of the series Georg, fleeing Paris after the German invasion, escapes to Marseille and assumes the identity of a dead author. He settles to life as a drifter but falls in love with Marie who is searching for her missing husband.
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JULY 01
2025-07-01 19:00 - 22:00
Third in a series of German films (at Stoke Lodge): Yella – directed by Christian Petzold.
Petzold writes his own scripts, but the films all have a link to either periods or real events in history, so this gives them a strong feeling of authenticity. He is also a political activist and social campaigner. In this third film of the series Yella flees her unsuccessful life in East Germany to settle in Hannover where she becomes entangled in the ruthless world of big business. She does well but her past eventually catches up with her.’
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2025 Exchange: August 6-11 - including the Balloon Fiesta
2025-08-06 08:00 - 2025-08-11 21:00

SEPTEMBER 7
2025-09-07 19:30 - 21:30
Film: ‘ Riefenstahl’, Documentary about the controversial German filmmaker, Curzon Cinema Clevedon, 7.30pm
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SEPTEMBER 10
2025-09-10 19:30 - 21:30
BAGS talk ‘Summer on the Habsburg Trail!’ Speaker – Dr Mark Allinson. Mark will report back on the ways in which the Habsburgs’ subjects built new identities after the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed, and how some of these places look now, more than a century on. Venue: St Peter’s Church Henleaze, Meeting Room. 7.45pm
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SEPTEMBER 11
2025-09-11 12:30 - 16:30
BHC visit to the Anselm Kiefer/VanGogh exhibition in the Royal Academy London, 12.40. More details to follow.
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OCTOBER 1
2025-10-01 12:00 - 21:00
BHC will be hosting a meal for the multiplier group visiting Bristol from Hannover.Venue: Trinity Centre Bristol. Volunteers welcome. More details to follow.
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OCTOBER 2
2025-10-02 12:30 - 21:00
October 2 – Joint event with BAGS and Bristol University German Department, on the eve of German Unification Day. Evening. Venue: Bristol University (details to follow)
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OCTOBER 11
2025-10-11 12:30 - 17:00
Excursion to Hauser and Wirth, Bruton, Somerset to view the Nana sculptures. Arrive around 12.30 (details to follow)
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OCTOBER 15
2025-10-15 19:00 - 21:30
Language change: ‘Is German under threat?’ Dr Anna Havinga, Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics, University of Bristol: German could become a language increasingly used only for social purposes, rather than for culture, economy and science. But is German really under threat? Anna will look at the use of anglicisms and the introduction of gender-inclusive language in German. She will explore their impact on language and society and critically evaluate reactions to both features. Venue: St Peter’s Church Henleaze, Meeting Room. 7.15pm (time tbc)
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OCTOBER 16 - agm
2025-10-16 18:30 - 21:00
BHC AGM, City Hall 6.30 pm. Come along and hear what we have been busy doing this year
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NOVEMBER 12
2025-11-12 19:30 - 21:30
The future of remembrance in united Germany: Illustrated Talk with refreshments. Speaker – Dr Debbie Pinfold; University of Bristol. When Germany reunited in 1990 East and West Germany had very distinct memory cultures of the National Socialism and World War II. The years following unification were marked by efforts to create a unified culture of remembrance which would also support a sense of cohesive national identity. Yet as these events pass from lived memory and the past becomes contested again, Germany’s culture of remembrance is at a transitional moment. Venue: St Peter’s Church Henleaze, Meeting Room. 7.45pm
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March 7: Werner Bischoff exhibition (Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, NT)
2026-03-07 08:00 - 17:00

April 18: Ken Stradling Collection visit
2026-04-18 08:00 - 17:00

MAY 13-18 BHC EXCHANGE VISIT TO HANNOVER
2026-05-13 08:00 - 2026-05-18 17:00

JUNE 9: DARTS EVENING
2026-06-09 08:00 - 17:00
