Hamburg, Munich and Zurich
| By: Dr. Ted Baehr; ©2000 |
| T. Peirce Baehr, Dr. Ted Baehr’s son, details the ministry opportunities he and his father had on their way to attend this year’s Cannes Film Festival. |
Contents
Hamburg, Munich and Zurich
We arrived in the Frankfurt airport just a little late but passed through customs quite easily. As we rounded the bend to exit the international section of the airport, we were warmly met by our dear friend, Mr. Kurt Sprenger.
Mr. Sprenger hosted us the entire time we were in Germany. Sacrificing his own time, he took wonderful care of Dr. Baehr and me.
Our first destination, after a short stop over at Mr. Sprenger’s house, was the charming harbor city of Hamburg. The drive from Frankfurt to Hamburg took approximately six hours on the speed-limitless autobahn.
When in Hamburg, we went directly to a small, charismatic church sitting above a supermarket, for Dr. Baehr’s first speaking engagement of the trip. With the help of an interpreter, Dr. Baehr gave his traditional Media-Wise Family message to an evening Sunday service of about 50 people, many of whom are involved with the media in Hamburg.
The next day, Herr Sprenger showed Dr. Baehr and me around Studio Hamburg, one of the three major media centers of Germany. Dr. Baehr met with Richard Schops, managing director of production, Gerd Richter-Kiewning, managing director of television distribution, and Peter Just, the managing director of dubbing, and presented to them his Report to the Entertainment Industry.
That night Dr. Baehr spoke again to a sizable gathering of Studio Hamburg media people, trying to demonstrate for them the importance of producing, distributing and acquiring worthwhile, moral movies.
All of the meetings went well, with the Hamburg media people visibly as affected by Dr. Baehr’s message and Report to the Industry as their counterparts in Hollywood.
It must be noted, however, that everywhere Dr. Baehr spoke, the statistics on Church attendance were commented upon as being irrelevant in Germany. Sadly, this is due to the decline in the number of even nominal Christian believers in Western Europe.
On Tuesday, we returned to Mr. Sprenger’s home, in the tiny hidden village of Burmol. Just prior to returning to Mr. Sprenger’s home, however, Dr. Baehr was interviewed, in Wetzlar, by the Christian News Agency, Idea, by KEP Evangelical Journalists, and later by the Christian German Radio station, ERF.
The following day we traveled to Münich and Dr. Baehr met with the creator and producer of the TNT, live-action, Bible series, Dr. Heinrich Krauss.
Later that same day, after saying goodbye to the extremely hospitable Mr. Sprenger, we were off on a train to Zürich.
The breathtaking train ride through the German and Swiss countryside brought us into Zürich in the early evening. We were met at the train station by Mrs. Leonhard, the organizer of the Family Conference Dr. Baehr was to speak at on Saturday.
On Thursday, after a sound night’s rest at the Wauldhaus Dolder, Dr. Baehr participated in the press conference organized for the event.
On Saturday, Dr. Baehr was one of two keynote speakers at the Symposium 2000 “Family is Future” Conference on the Family, organized by Swiss Foundation for the Family. The conference was organized so that each keynote speaker was followed by a few lesser speakers lecturing on related topics. Dr. Baehr held a workshop for teenagers after lunch to complement his well-received morning message. After a dinner for the speakers that night, we made our quick good-byes and were off for Cannes, by train, early the next morning.
