Germany against Poland - 1

Germany against Poland

[ The Football Talk Show ]
Germany will meet Poland in the 2006 FIFA World Cup – on June 14 in Dortmund. In conversation, we want to go through this meeting in advance. The focus will be on the past and the present of football in the two countries, its social, cultural, and sportive aspects. In two panel discussions, a moderator will talk with celebrities and experts from theory and practice: with journalists, players, sport sociologists, authors, and others. By an anecdotal approach to the common history of a match, a vivid picture of the relation between Germany and Poland shall be drawn.

The discussions are devoted to the following topics:

“Polacks and Proles”
Football and workers’ culture in the Ruhr District. An anecdotal tour into the sporting past of a region that is unthinkable without Poles.

Polish Footballers in Germany
“When they play in Poland, they don’t need a hotel: they can all crash with relatives,” so it was said about the German national team before the war. Today, with Klose, Podolski, Smolarek, and Waldoch, great talents from Poland are again represented in German football.

Boniek’s Heritage – Football in Poland
The glorious days of Polish football have long been over. Qualifying for this year’s World Cup must by itself be rated a great success. Players such as Grzegorz Lato or Zbigniew Boniek hold a firm place in Poland’s history, which is not exactly short of national heroes. And many an Upper Silesian club fosters its club legend. Other than in Germany, football is not much of a topic for the art pages in Poland yet.

German Football in Poland
Players and Fan Clubs


The discussions are supplemented by film examples and a video installation. A goal wall is, of course, featured as well.

The event is part of the series “Wszystko jasne? Europa verstehen: Polen” [“Wszystko jasne? Understanding Europe: Poland”] of the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung [Federal Agency for Civic Education]. Further information on the series can be found at www.bpb.de
Venue
Veltins-Arena auf Schalke, Gelsenkirchen

Date
8 May 2006, 6-10 p.m.

Participating Institution
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung [Federal Agency for Civic Education]
topic:
Debates
projects on the topic:
Ambassadors – Research Programme
[ Work exchange for artists and curators ]
Radio_Copernicus
[ German-Polish artists' radio ]
Jagniątków. Move the Mount
[ Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Choreographers ]
SFX: Publiczność - Spontaneous Publics
[ Exhibition project ]
baz@rt / Europe Learning - Frankfurt meets Krakow
[ Theatre festivals in Krakow and Frankfurt on the Main ]
The Mechanics of Oblivion. A German-Polish Conference
[ Phenomena of oblivion and marginalisation in visual art of the last two decades ]
Veronika Blumstein - Moving Exiles
[ Festival for invention and choreography ]
PDF / RadioSimulator
[ Polnisch-Deutsche Freundschaft ]

An event in cooperation with the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung [Federal Agency for Civic Education] as part of the series “Wszystko jasne? Europa verstehen: Polen”.
Further information on the series can be found here.