Philippine-German Relations (XII)

    Klaus

December 26, 2007 by Klaus  
Filed under Klaus

There are political and economic ties but also social and cultural understanding between the Philippines and Germany.

The German Cultural Center, popularly known in the Philippines as “Goethe Institut”, since its foundation in 1961, has played an important role not only spreading the German language and culture among the people, but also in monitoring the Philippine national language Tagalog and culture among the Germans and other nationals residing in the Philippines, as we can learn in Father Gene’s (Hermogenes E. Bacareza’s) thesis.

The Goethe Institut is a society registered in the Federal Republic of Germany with the full title: “Goethe Institut for the Promotion of the German Language and Culture”. It is active in pursuing German cultural policy by promoting cultural exchanges also with other countries in the world. Although it receives financial support from the German government.

The institute operates as an autonomous organization and was founded in 1932 to mark the centenary of the death of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe, the famous German poet, was really a universal personality, a dramatist, novelist, philosopher, lawyer and much more.

In Manila, the Goethe Insitut, one of the 115 institutes worldwide, was inaugurated on the 7th April 1961 in Pasay City.

(To be continued!)

About the Author:  Klaus is from Germany, but has been living in the Philippines since the late 1990’s. Klaus is a journalist by trade, having written for a number of newspapers, studied also Publishing House Management and Marketing and has also been a Radio Host here in the Philippines.