SAGSE 50th Anniversary 1967-2017

Professor Dr Keith Leopold, Head of the German Language Faculty at The University of Queensland, assisted by his staff, undertook to develop the Queensland Branch. Success was soon evident: more than 100 Queensland students applied for the SAGSE scholarship and stringent examinations and interviews were needed to select two scholarship winners. Unfortunately, more scholarships were not available in Queensland, as few of the German firms providing funds for the scholarships had Head Offices in the state. In 1984, Fritz von Einem-Joosten was asked by the-then SAGSE Qld President Detlef Sulzer whether in Queensland the Society could allow parents to contribute to the costs of the students’ air travel, now much cheaper than 1967. Fritz approved this change, which gave the Queensland Branch the opportunity to annually send around 50 Queensland students to Germany, likewise receiving 50 students from Germany. (In his letter to SAGSE in September 1996, Fritz von Einem-Joosten highlights the Queensland arrangement as an acceptable alternative if no other preferred sources of funds are available.) SAGSE Queensland Inc. operates as a non-profit organisation. The cost of airfares, travel insurance, a SAGSE Qld jersey and a seven-day sightseeing bus tour (through middle and southern Germany as far as Salzburg in Austria) are payable. The six- to seven-week stay with the host family and attendance at school requires no payments as the exchange is entirely reciprocal, with the German exchange students staying for a similar period with the Queensland host families and attending local schools here. For the German students, a 10-day trip into the Outback and the Great Barrier Reef is organised. On the SAGSE Queensland exchange, all students are accompanied, assisted and supervised by two qualified adults. For several years in the 1990s, SAGSE Qld also operated a long-term stay (six to 12 months) exchange program in both countries, and also helped several Queensland schools to establish their own exchange program with a partner school in Germany. SAGSE Queensland Fritz’s generational legacy

SAGSE’s founder Fritz von Einem-Joosten

Fritz von Einem-Joosten was born in New Zealand to German parents, but returned to Germany with the outbreak of World War I. During World War II, while fighting on the Russian Front, he was seriously wounded, losing his right arm. Soon after the war, Fritz emigrated to New Zealand, then Australia, and believed such global conflicts could be avoided if young people from different countries could meet and learn to understand one another. Under his leadership, the Society for Australian-German Student Exchange (SAGSE) was founded in Melbourne in 1967 by a group of people involved in trade, commerce and cultural activities between Australia and Germany. Their experience of the past and optimism and expectations of the future gave them the desire to further the understanding between young people of both countries. An exchange scholarship was initiated for Australian and German senior school students to fly to each other’s country, stay with host families and attend school for a period coinciding with their respective summer holidays Fritz sought sponsorships from a number of German firms operating in Australia to cover the students’ (then) very expensive air tickets. Accommodation and board for the students was to be provided by the Australian and German host families free of charge on a reciprocal basis. Shortly after the Society was founded, increasing numbers of Australian and German companies operating in Australia, together with other ethnic and cultural organisations, were encouraged to join the Society, offering students from both countries a scholarship for a return air ticket. From Victoria the Society expanded to New South Wales, New Zealand, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia – and in 1971 to Queensland.

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