Information in English
Quakers in Germany
Friendly Greetings from German Yearly Meeting.
We are offering you here some basic information about Friends in Germany, but please feel free to contact us if you have any further queries (see contact details below).
This short overview is directed towards Friends from other countries who already have some knowledge about Quakers in general and are interested in Quakerism in Germany. If you are looking for more general information on Quakers or introductory reading in English, please have a look at the homepage of Quakers in Europe (www.fwccemes.org) or contact us.
German Yearly Meeting
German Yearly Meeting (Religiöse Gesellschaft der Freunde e.V. – Quäker) covers the German-speaking areas of Germany and Austria, and has around 260 members as of 2015. German Friends have different theological beliefs, but in general, German Yearly Meeting is liberal and unprogrammed. German Yearly Meeting is part of FWCC-EMES.
Our only historic meeting house is located in Bad Pyrmont, south of Hanover. The main office and city-centre meeting is in Berlin, close to Fredrichstrasse station (and the Kindertransporte memorial).
Weekly Quaker meeting takes place every Sunday at 11:00 in Berlin and two times a month at Bad Pyrmont – all Friends are welcome.
There are also Local Meetings (“Andachtsgruppen” and “Andachtskreise”) in a number of German cities, which meet once or twice a month. These Local Meetings are organised in six Area Meetings (“Bezirke”), you can find information about these Local Meetings by browsing the pages of the Area Meetings:
Bavaria/Austria (Bavaria and Austria),
East (Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thuringia),
Hesse (Hesse, without Kassel),
Northwest (Kassel, Hamburg, Bremen, Lower-Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and parts of North Rhine-Westphalia),
Rhine-Ruhr (parts of North Rhine-Westphalia) and
Southwest (Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland).
The clerks of the Area Meetings will be glad to help you find the Local Meeting closest to you. Don’t hesitate to contact them in English, if you do not speak German – many members of German Yearly Meeting do speak at least some English (and some of them are expats from English-speaking countries), and Friends at all Meetings are happy to welcome you! It is recommended that you contact the clerk before attending a smaller Meeting, as sometimes there are last-minute changes to the dates and/or times.
Gatherings and events
Area Meetings hold gatherings between two and four times a year.
Our Yearly Meeting (Jahresversammlung) is held once a year, usually in late October or early November. It takes place on a biennial basis either in the town of Bad Pyrmont (near Hanover), where the only Quaker Meeting House of German Yearly Meeting can be found, or elsewhere in Germany (for example at Bonn).
There are some other regular events as well (e.g. a Family Gathering in the summer, an annual retreat in late spring and various events for Young Friends). Please see our Calendar to find out what is happening!
Publications
German Yearly Meeting publishes a bimonthly journal, “Quäker”, as well as German language books on Quaker themes. The Richard-L.-Cary-Lecture is held at the Yearly Meeting Gathering and published in print and electronically afterwards. Some of the Cary-Lectures are available as bilingual .pdf, including an english translation.
Contact
If you want to contact German Yearly Meeting, here are some useful addresses:
Area Meetings – and via them, Local Meetings:
Bavaria/Austria Area Meeting Clerk: bayern-oesterreich@quaeker.org
East Area Meeting Clerk: ost@quaeker.org
Hesse Area Meeting Clerk: hessen@quaeker.org
Northwest Area Meeting Clerk: nordwest@quaeker.org
Rhine-Ruhr Area Meeting Clerk: rheinruhr@quaeker.org
Southwest Area Meeting Clerk: suedwest@quaeker.org
Quäkerbüro Berlin (office, administration, information; the office manager will forward your query to the right person): Quäker-Büro, Planckstraße 20, 10117 Berlin. Tel: +49 (0)30 208-2284, Fax: +49 (0)30 2045-8142, berlin@quaeker.org. Office Manager: Friedhart Hauskeller.
Quäkerhaus Bad Pyrmont (Meeting House with library and cemetery): Quäkerhaus, Bombergallee 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Tel: +49 (0)5281-4413, pyrmont@quaeker.org, Warden: Leonie Glahn-Ejikeme.
If you are looking for information about the service committee of German Yearly Meeting, called Quäkerhilfe, see http://www.quäker-hilfe.de.