BACKGROUND
This year Houston and Leipzig celebrate 25 years of sister city relationship. It all began when a young student from Leipzig, now Dr. Stefan Roehrbein, approached Sister Cities International in Washington, D.C., in 1990 with the idea of establishing a sister city relationship between his hometown and Houston. The inquiry came by phone to Angelika Schmidt-Lange, who spontaneously agreed that yes, Houston was interested in pursuing a sister city relationship; after all, she was born in Leipzig. Her husband Wolfgang Schmidt became involved and pursued the idea with Mayor Lehmann-Grube of Leipzig and with Mayors Kathy Whitmire and later Bob Lanier of Houston.
Fortuitously, Rotary International sponsored five students from the five former East German states for a six-week group study exchange in Houston in 1990. Dr. Frank Rohrwacher was a young ophthalmologist in that group and also pursued the idea of a relationship between Leipzig and Houston. A reciprocal Rotarian group study exchange team from Houston in Leipzig the following year reinforced that request. Alas, the priorities at Leipzig’s City Hall did not include such a relationship.
In 1992 the Houston-Leipzig Sister City Association was founded; it included many persons with an interest in Leipzig, especially the members of the Rotary Friendship Exchange who spent time in Leipzig, and a number of Rotarians. It took three years, endless letters and requests, and the intervention of Germany’s President Richard von Weizsäcker, but on July 14, 1993, the sister city agreement was finally signed in Houston during the annual convention of Sister Cities International.
Since then many exchanges between the citizens of both cities have filled the relationship with life. The Covenant of Mutual Commitment between Christ the King and the St. Thomas Church is the latest. Before that all mayors of Leipzig (Dr. Lehman-Grube, Wolfgang Tiefensee, and Burkhard Jung) came to Houston several times; Houston’s mayor Sylvester Turner visited last year. Mutual exchanges included medical students and doctors (Baylor, MD Anderson, University of Houston, Universitaetsklinikum Leipzig), SWAT teams, artists, student musicians from the Leipzig Conservatory with their counterparts from the Shepherd School of Music (Rice U) and the Moores School of Music (UH). Several high schools send their students regularly, etc. Dr. Robert Moore brought many persons from the congregation and elsewhere for many years to the Leipzig BachFest.
The most spectacular arts event came early: the loan of 83 magnificent paintings of the highest quality from German painters of the 18th and 19th century, many of which were little known in the United States, by the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. This loan came about because the museum in Leipzig was moving and therefore could loan the paintings during the interim. Instrumental in choosing the paintings were Baron Wolf-Dietrich Speck von Sternburg, whose family owned most of the paintings, and Dr. Helga Aurisch, European Curator at the MFAH. Most Texans still remember the grandeur of Max Klinger’s Beethoven, a statue that weighs several tons.
Another grand event was the visit of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Houston in 2014 on the occasion of their U.S. tour commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall. Done in absolutely short time, Prof. Schulz, Managing Director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mark Hansen, CEO of the Houston Symphony, and Wolfgang Schmidt, whose efforts brought in large donations, succeeded to make the concert a reality on November 3, 2014. President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker III were honorary chairs; President and Mrs. Bush and in his absence, Mrs. Baker attended the concert in a sold-out Jones Hall.
The greatest benefit of all to the citizens of Houston and Leipzig are the life-long friendships that have been formed over the years. During his recent visit, Houston City Council Member Mike Laster was very impressed with the heartfelt friendship among the members of both associations that he witnessed. One of the early members recently said that “The times I spent with and on behalf of the city partnership between Leipzig and Houston are among the most defining periods of my life.”
Please join us in our monthly meetings; if you wish to receive our newsletter, please write to angelika@houstonleipzig.org.
GOALS OF SISTER CITIES
Sister Cities International is a worldwide organization that seeks to pair cities from two countries to establish a unique relationship between their citizens and to pursue the following goals:
- The promotion of international understanding and cultural appreciation between the citizens of the two partner cities;
- The fostering of artistic, academic, youth, business and scientific exchanges; and
- The conducting of local programs to support and further these goals and ideals.
As established by the program, Houston can only have one sister city in Germany, and Leipzig only one sister city in the United States. Thus, the special nature of this relationship.
AWARDS RECEIVED
The Houston-Leipzig Sister City Association received the 2010 Arts & Culture Award for Population over 500,001 in Sister Cities International’s Annual Awards Program for that year. The award was given to HLSCA for sponsoring the Peace Window in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, the Peace Cantata, and the multi-media presentation of rare books in Houston on the occasion of the 600th Anniversary of the University of Leipzig.
HOUSTON-LEIPZIG BOARD/OFFICERS
Please take a look at our officers and directors here.
| Name | Officer Title | |
|---|---|---|
| Michael H. Laster | Immediate Past President | michaelhlaster@yahoo.com |
| Numan Oezguen | President | numan_oe@yahoo.de |
| Kathryn “Kathy” Kennedy | President-Elect; Treasurer | kathryn.a.kennedy@gmail.com |
| Ben Remmert | Vice President | benremmert@ctkelc.org |
| Angelika Schmidt-Lange | Asst Treasurer; Webmaster | angelika@houstonleipzig.org |
| Chancey Hurt | Secretary | chanceyhurt@gmail.com |
| Steve Braun | Sister Cities of Houston Liaison | stephenbraun@hotmail.com |
| Rustin Buck | rustinbuck@comcast.net | |
| Mark Buehler | walterbuehler1@gmail.com | |
| Ursula Felmet | ufelmet@yahoo.com | |
| Pat Gilmore-Maass | maassm@aol.com | |
| Rodney Koenig | rodney.koenig@nortonrosefulbright.com | |
| Walter Konrad | walter@rollac.com | |
| Karen Schmidt | klschmidt@alethic.net | |
| Ute Schneider | ute.a.schneider@gmail.com | |
| Susan Teich | steich1@comcast.net | |
| Michael von der Osten | KVDO@aol.com |
Emeritus Board Members
| Ute Cezeaux | Emeritus Board Member | utecez@gmail.com |
| Wolfgang Schmidt | Founding President, Emeritus Board Member | wolfgang.schmidt@imecpvf.com |