Tikkun Olam - Theme 4

Our History

1960s

One April day in 1960, while fishing on the majestic Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota, Gerhard Haukebo turned to his companion Erhard Friedrichsmeyer and said, “Why not start a camp for kids and teach them German? Let them have fun while they learn and put the learning of language in a natural setting.” Concordia College, where both Haukebo and Friedrichsmeyer were on the faculty, undertook the project. They named the camp after the grand lake where the idea was spawned — Lake of the Woods, or Waldsee. In 1961 Camp Waldsee’s first two-week session began at Luther Crest Camp, near Alexandria, Minnesota. Friedrichsmeyer was the camp dean, and Haukebo was the administrator. They were joined by eight counselors, a nurse, and 72 participants. Tuition was $75.

Friedrichsmeyer describes the origins of our village, and what was to become Concordia Language Villages, first-hand:

“From Aug. 20 to Sept. 2, 1961, a German language camp, as a project of Concordia College Language Camps, was held for 10- to 12-year-olds at Lake Carlos in Alexandria, Minnesota. The idea originated with Gerhard Haukebo, assistant professor of elementary education at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota. While he served as a principal in a high school for army dependents in Germany, Professor Haukebo noticed how the quality of learning was greatly improved when the children could learn a foreign language in a native environment. During my own period of teaching at Concordia College in 1959, I myself organized German classes for a hundred children. Our mutual interests prompted us to co-operate in organizing 'Camp Waldsee.'

We began to work under the guiding principle that the camp should be for the children the next best thing to being in Germany. Prior to opening the camp, the staff worked feverishly to create,

physically, first of all, a German atmosphere in the camp. Some 60 signs were painted and put up to designate all locations and facilities in German. If one wanted to get around in the camp, one simply had to know what "Parkplatz," "Fußballplatz," "Speisesaal," "Schule," "Aborte," "Mädchenquartier," "Jungenquartier" and, of course, "Krankenschwester" meant. Numerous travel posters were displayed. A "Kiosk" was set up featuring 20 varieties of German candy and records. "Lederhosen," "Dirndls" and other typically German items could be bought by the children. All purchases were made with German money which was available at the "Wechselstube." A public address system was put into every cabin as well as on the grounds for playing German music, for announcements, and informal language instruction. For instance, the children would hear at reveille: "Guten Morgen, Kinder. Steht auf. Hans steht auf. Wir stehen auf," etc. Each drill pattern was used repeatedly til the children were well familiar with it. If the pattern drill did not succeed in getting the campers out of bed, Bavarian band music, which followed the drill, usually succeeded.

The actual language instruction at our camp consisted of two formal class sessions a day, attended by all 75 participants. These mass sessions, in which new material was introduced, were followed by two group sessions a day. Our eight counselors, six of whom were graduate students in German, three of whom were native speakers, conducted the group sessions, drilling and adding to the material presented in the mass sessions. Each group met in a different spot on the camp grounds. In the mass sessions instruction had to be quite impersonal. At the group meetings, however, each child would receive personal attention. Inge, Heidi or Gretchen — the children knew one another only by their German names — would have a chance to practice those bothersome "ich" and "ach" sounds or name the items of their own clothing and the color of these items. In a geography lesson attended by all campers everyone would hear about Germany as a whole. At the group meetings the girls from "Schweiz," our southernmost cabin, or the boys from "Sachsen," which was of course farther north in our miniature Germany, would find out about their own province. The boys from "Westfalen" would have gladly traded their "Pumpernickel" for the "Mercedes" which the girls from "Schwaben" featured as their claim to fame.

The shift to German as the classroom language was gradual. Insistence on the exclusive use of German from the very beginning would have unduly impeded communication between student and teacher. After one week, however, no English was spoken in the classroom. Instruction was limited to two sentence types in the present tense, the actor-action type (Hans spielt Fußball) and the equational type (Der Kaffee ist heiß) with a variety of adverbs and prepositional phrases. The children learned to handle these types spontaneously in variations, including question and command patterns. In addition they learned about fifty fixed phrases (Es tut mir leid. Wie geht's?). Approximately two hundred vocabulary items were taught in the phrases. If this does not seem to be much, it is definitely enough material for all sounds and principal sound configurations to appear. Our main linguistic goal was thorough mastery of these patterns.

During the activities such as "Völkerball," "Reiterkampf," "Tauziehen" or "Schnitzeljagd" language instruction was less rigorously pursued. We did not insist on responses in German. The counselors, however, spoke only in German with one another. The instructions for games were given in German, if at all possible, and the children therefore quickly learned to pay attention when they heard German. After a few days of camp one ten year old girl asked excitedly, after having listened to my three year old daughter's chatter in German: "How long has she been taking German?" After a week and a half the children not only knew that they were hearing German when the staff spoke, but they could also understand some of it. As we were coming from the "Fußballplatz" in the heat of the day, the staff discussed in German an extra swimming hour before dinner. To our amazement one child all at once shouted: "Say, they'll let us go swimming before dinner today." We were even happier about this shout than the children were about the swimming hour.

Naturally, general camp activities are much the same everywhere. But whenever possible our activities had a German coloring. The music by our oompah band was German. Our little play was "Rotkäppchen," in German. The ghost stories at the camp fire were German ghost stories. The songs there and on the hikes were German songs. The favorite by far was "Ade zur guten Nacht." Each evening at bedtime the record was played over the P.A. system and the children in each cabin joined in as the lights went out in the camp. There was a German prayer at the table and whenever there was a birthday the children would stage a "Dreimal hoch," throwing the "Geburtstagskind" high in the air. Among other activities rarely found in this country, soccer, for example, caught on so well that the boys' all-stars almost licked the counselors. Our hope that the children would accept this exposure to things German was quite unexpectedly rewarded when one evening at one of the German movies, about an equestrian competition, our boys and girls broke out in wild cheers whenever a German horse would ride the course. It should perhaps be mentioned here that only very few children were of German descent.

We fostered a spirit of competition in learning, boys versus girls, cabin versus cabin. After one week a test was given in which all signs had to be known and pronounced (the only written forms that were introduced) and the children had to know some things about the regions which all cabins represented. After passing, the children were declared "Waldseebürger" and given a camp emblem button and an Alpine hat which they wore very proudly. The final examination, a combination treasure hunt and test, with German directions, pass words, and test stations in the woods, provided us with an overall view of the campers' progress, as well as with an indirect critique of our teaching.

Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the camp is the favorable reaction of children, parents, and the press. Each camper is permitted to return once more and, at the closing of the session, 30% of the campers had already signed up to return. By October 1961, our planned maximum of 75 had to be increased to a maximum of 125 campers. Parents showed themselves quite concerned about continuation of instruction in their hometown schools. Campers reported that they were asked by a number of schools to go from class to class to tell about "Waldsee." Several principals have reported that they are planning to institute foreign language programs in their schools because of the favorable reaction on the part of children and parents. In spite of very limited advertising, we had 175 visitors at the camp, in addition to an entire school board from a Minnesota town. A group of community leaders from Montana approached us to organize a camp there in 1962. The three papers that covered the camp, the "Minneapolis Sunday Tribune" in a color coverage, reacted quite favorably. KCMT Television, Alexandria, Minnesota, compiled a 30 minute documentary film which is available on loan, free of charge.

It became evident to us that the language camp for children is a means of instruction superior to the classroom since it forms an emotional attachment to the new language. In a camp, instruction can take place in an atmosphere much more representative of the country whose language is learned. Furthermore, language instruction is linked with all those experiences which make camps popular with children. The student who has participated in a language camp may find this experience so enjoyable that it becomes a determining factor in the selection of courses in high school or college. Why should our field not compete with others in attracting students with all the means at our disposal? The language camp for children is one of them.”

Lee Mosher, one of the original campers from 1961: “I remember learning wonderful stories from Germany, learning to sing many German songs, and a boy from Detroit Lakes with a fondness for raspberry syrup. Camp Wald See showed how learning could be fun.”

The 1960s: Developing a Camp Culture and Growing the Villages

In the program’s first years, language groups focused on pre-written dialogues that the campers memorized. Here is Dialogue I for beginners from that time:

Am Wegweiser

Anna: Guten Tag! Wie heisst du?
Max: Ich heisse Max. Und du?
Anna: Ich heisse Anna. Bist du auch im Lager Waldsee?
Max: Ja, gewiss!
Anna: Ich auch.
Max: Das ist prima!

As Erhard Friedrichsmeyer later recalled, “The secret was not the curriculum as such, but the immense amount of energy expended in the teaching. It was a physically exhausting experience. What I got across, I got across by tying in with extraneous means to maintain their attention. I adapted the vocabulary to the current situation and what was viable to children.”

The results were successful, and demand soared. In 1962 a second two-week German session for older ages was added. Erhard Friedrichsmeyer served as dean in the summers of 1961 and 1962. The German program continued to grow and develop in the 1960s under Friedrichsmeyer’s successors, Hedi Oplesch (1963-1965), Norbert Benzel (1966), Dale Whitesides (1967), and Kerry Koestler (1968-1969).

Inspired by Camp Waldsee’s success, a French village called Lac du Bois — French for Waldsee — started in 1962 at Mount Carmel camp, situated next to the German camp on Lake Carlos. The first dean of Lac du Bois was Felix Wirth, a native of Switzerland who had been a trilingual counselor in the German camp in 1961. Norwegian and Spanish villages followed in 1963 and a Russian village in 1966, each adapting the same name of Waldsee translated with some variations into their respective languages. Today there are 14 language villages, as well as adult learning programs in many more additional languages.

Each village developed its own camp culture. Each also found inspiration in interactions with the other villages. In 1968 the German villagers walked ten minutes through the woods to meet the French villagers at Lac du Bois for an “International Festival.” In 1969 the Spanish and Russian villages joined in, and “International Day” was born.

Sensing the potential of the original inspiration, in 1966 Concordia College purchased 800 woodland acres on Turtle River Lake near Bemidji, Minnesota. The vision: build a mini-world of language villages around the lake, and perhaps even connect them by train.

1970s

The German program continued to deepen and broaden throughout the 1970s, beginning with a second German program in Montana, called Alpenland, which was located at Rising Wolf Ranch just outside of East Glacier Park. When Herr Koestler left the Minnesota German program in 1970 to lead Alpenland, William Schleppegrell, a teacher of German in Hibbing, Minnesota, became the dean of Lager Waldsee. He was the first dean not to be called “Herr” or “Frau;” he wanted you to call him Dieter.

For the next ten years Dieter and his wife Norma worked closely with staff and villagers to generate a positive, community-based approach to learning. Here is his 1972 end-of-summer message:

“Gemütlichkeit is a world commonly associated with the German way of life, and certainly the memory of a warm congenial atmosphere at Lager Waldsee is one that we’d like to have remain with you in years to come. But another concept which is an important part of German camp can be summed up in the word Gemeinschaft. Working and playing together as a group, whether it’s preparing a drama for the festive Theaterabend, or going on a Naturwanderung through the pines, or gathering together around the Lagerfeuer in the evening — this idea of community is one that we hope you will remember from your days spent at German camp.”

And his note to energize staff in June 1973:

“We’re still on the 'positiv' kick! That means we’re not running another school or run-of-the-mill camp! We are LAGER WALDSEE, involving ourselves and the kids in a fun-filled, language environment, which stimulates and excites, but doesn’t bore or stifle anyone! Our staff is one big, lovely family — all with German first names! No titles in camp! Have you got your name picked out yet?”

In 1970 the two-week program was supplemented by a new four-week “credit” program, where high school students could earn the equivalent of one year’s worth of German. The first group of Creditleute, as they were called, consisted of 14 participants from across the United States.

Into the mid-1970s the non-credit conversation groups were still using pre-set dialogues centered around such topics as names and greetings; foods and the camp store, numbers and the bank, activities, weather, body parts, health, time, family, clothing and colors, and plant and animal life. In 1974 Dieter, together with George Reimer (Gerhard), a teacher of German from Edina, Minnesota, and Wolfgang Schnitzler (Wolfgang), a German teacher from Wiesbaden, Germany, worked with the staff to develop curricular innovations which, in Dieter’s words, “preclude using only our Camp Dialogs this summer and instead make everything a very much activity-centered language experience. We have done this to some degree in the past with our advanced campers, but decided to organize more and go “all the way” this summer and use it with everyone…based on a 12-day progression in the activity or activities you are in charge of.” By the latter 1970s language learning at Lager Waldsee had begun to center around sequences of questions and answers called the Lager Waldsee patterns — basic communicative structures of German language that built upon each other via daily themes, or Tagesthemen, to enable campers to develop self-confidence that they could perform basic tasks in German, from buying candy at the Kiosk and asking for another helping in the Speisesaal to playing sports, learning crafts, and exchanging money at the bank.

In 1971 the German village moved from its first home at Luther Crest Camp to a new rental facility, Camp Minne-wa-kan near Cass Lake, Minnesota.

The German program continued to evolve in new ways. The first four-week backpacking trip to Germany began in 1973 with 26 participants, led by Dieter, Gerhard, and Mary Hertsgaard (Marika). The trip included a week’s stay in communist East Germany, a rare adventure at the time. Starting in 1974, the abroad trip included hut-hopping experiences in the Austrian alps.

1973 was also the first year in which German “mini-programs” were held during the academic year at the permanent Norwegian Village site on Turtle River Lake. German teachers and their students from across the Midwest, and sometimes from even further afield, would come to Bemidji for an energizing burst of language immersion for “weekend” or four day “mini-week” programs. The mini-programs, which were also held in other languages, became so popular that in 1976 Carol Pesola, a professor of German at St. Olaf College, joined the Language Villages as programmer for these sessions. She was succeeded in 1980 by Lager Waldsee staff member Brian Dutcher (Günther).

In 1974 Gerhard succeeded Herr Koestler as the leader of the Alpenland Montana program. This year also saw the Minnesota program introduce one-week sessions for the youngest villagers. Enrollment continued to soar. To deal with this increase, for the following four years the German village operated both at Camp Minne-wa-kan and at Camp Emmaus near Menagha, Minnesota, moving camp in the middle of the summer. The village moved again in 1977 to Camp Trowbridge, a Campfire Girls facility near Vergas, Minnesota, where it stayed until 1983.

In 1978 a biking program through Minnesota, called Die Wandertour, was organized to

explore the experiences of German immigrants to Minnesota.

Plans for a permanent German village on the Language Villages site on Turtle River Lake sent Dieter and architect Robert Engelstad and his wife to Germany in May 1976. Wolfgang joined them to tour picturesque German towns with the goal of identifying architectural elements to be incorporated into the future village. Momentum started to build. Engelstad donated his architect’s fee in designing the Schwarzwaldhaus, a half-timbered residence in a Black Forest style. In 1978 Bemidji residents Wayne and Bev Thorson provided $50,000 for a road leading to the new German village site.

In 1979 Don and Dagny Padilla donated a German immigrant log cabin that was located on the Crow Wing River in Camden Township of Carver County, southwest of Minneapolis. The oldest part of the log cabin, the front room, was probably built shortly after the Civil War. The loft and side porch were added during the 1870s or 1880s. Residents said that the cabin was still occupied as late as the 1920s. The cabin was moved to a spot near a Norwegian immigrant cabin just outside the Skogfjorden site. The cabin was dedicated as Haus Sonnenaufgang at International Day in 1979.

In 1970 the International Festival was held at the Turtle River Lake site for the first time. The German, French, and Russian villagers traveled by bus to the Norwegian Village to meet the Spanish villagers, who were housed at Skogfjorden during the second half of the summer. That day, German villagers and staff hiked from Skogfjorden to the intended future site of the German Village for a brief ceremony. Some years later, the decision was made to locate the German Village across the lake from the original site. That site, straight across the lake from Waldsee, is now home to the Waldsee Grüne Welle environmental adventure program.

The International Festival moved to Concordia College from 1972 to 1976, and then returned to Skogfjorden starting in 1977.

‍

1980s

After Dieter retired in 1979, former camper and staff member Joanne Tiedemann (Hanna) became acting dean in 1980. Another former camper and staff member, Dan Hamilton (Karl), joined as a second dean in 1981 as the German village expanded to offer programs from June through August. In 1982 the German village began to operate at two sites simultaneously: Camp Trowbridge near Vergas, and for the first time at new, limited facilities on the permanent German Turtle River Lake site. Former camper and staff member Andrew Staab (Gustav) succeeded Hanna and joined Karl as co-dean from 1983-1987. Former camper and staff member Erin Jennings (Ilse) succeeded Gustav and began serving as co-dean with Karl in 1988.

In 1980 participants in a special two-week Log Cabin Building adventure program built the first structure on the permanent German Village site: a small log cabin named Haus Katja. The cozy cabin was named in honor of former camper and counselor Kathy Rutherford (Katja), who died of congenital heart failure when she was a senior at Concordia College.

In 1981 Edward and Beverly Fish offered a substantial gift of $275,000 to fund the construction of the first German Village residence, das Schwarzwaldhaus, featuring typical Black Forest construction as envisaged by Dieter and architect Robert Engelstad during their tour of Germany in 1976. In August 1981 a Richtfest was held for the Schwarzwaldhaus and recognition given and appreciation expressed for Haus Katja.

In 1982 summer programming began at the permanent German village site. The only trouble was that there was no dining hall or kitchen. That summer, meals were bussed from the Skogfjorden kitchen to the Schwarzwaldhaus. During the next two summers, the meals bussed in from Skogfjorden were delivered to villagers and staff in a large circus tent that was set up next to the soccer field. Since the road leading from Skogfjorden to Waldsee was little more than a dirt path, rainy days created havoc for the food trucks, mealtimes were often delayed, and counselors learned a new village motto: “Immer flexibel.”

The village sorely needed a dining hall. In 1983 the Lutheran Brotherhood provided an initial $50,000 grant to spark further donations to construct the Waldsee Gasthof, which was dedicated in July 1985. The dirt road was paved thanks to donations from Wayne and Bev Thorson of Bemidji, and Waldsee mom Ruth Rupp. Ruppstrasse, the official street address for Waldsee, was named in her honor. Thorsonveien, the main road leading from Ruppstrasse to the highway, honors the Thorsons. The road connecting Waldsee to Skogfjorden was purposefully constructed to be winding, even though they are quite close to each other, to simulate the long trip to the target cultures represented at the villages.

The next residence building was intended to be called das Alpenhaus, featuring an external alpine design and an internal design resembling that of the Schwarzwaldhaus. The Max Kade Foundation provided a $300,000 grant for the construction. The building was dedicated as the Max-Kade-Haus in August 1985.

In 1984 all German summer sessions were held at the permanent Waldsee site. Since the permanent facilities were still being built, so-called temporary wood cabins (most of which are still at the village) were added to house the village bank, store, office, and to serve as additional living units for villagers and staff. A mobile home was brought in to house the nurse’s station.

One collection of wood cabins on the path to Skogfjorden formed an area of the village called die Schweiz, with each bearing Swiss city names, and another area called Österreich, with cabins bearing Austrian city names. A second soccer field was built and named in honor of donors Alfred and Ingrid Harrison. The first soccer field was dubbed the Schweizer Fussballplatz. A central Marktplatz space was cleared. Initially it was just a large dirt space full of stones and sticks. A memorable activity of that time was Steindienst, literally “rock duty,” which involved villagers and staff picking stones and sticks off the dusty Marktplatz. Waldsee Dean Gustav would stand by the entrance to the Speisesaal with a bucket and the cost of entrance for dinner was at least one large rock.

A further fundraising effort led to the creation of a red-bricked Marktplatz with a central stage intended for performances and large-group gatherings, such as International Day. As part of the fundraising initiative, individuals and families could buy one of the bricks or related panels and designate an inscription. Those inscriptions are visible to anyone walking across the Marktplatz. Waldsee began to host International Day in 1988, and continued as host village for the next 31 years, until the Covid-19 pandemic summer of 2020.

The Kresge Foundation stepped forward with a $200,000 challenge grant to spark additional funds for construction of the Waldsee Bahnhof, a building intended to house the village bank, staff offices, a staff lounge, and the dean’s residence. The positive response to the Kresge challenge resulted in completion of the Bahnhof in 1986. Ultimately, the fundraising effort succeeded again because of the generosity of Ed and Bev Fish. As a modest sign of gratitude, the Bahnhof roof is home to the Fish family weathervane. Its Himmelsrichtungen are not labeled north, south, east and west, but rather E, B, L, and T, in honor of Fish family members Ed, Bev, Lisa, and Tom.

Staff chose the building’s name, der Bahnhof, as a sign of positive faith that the vision of the Turtle River Lake site as a home to all the language villages, and with a train to connect them, would one day be realized. The train might not yet be there, but the Bahnhof is ready. Years later, with no train in sight, the staff discussed whether to change the name to das Rathaus, the town hall. Those ideas got a quick reality check when Karl and Heidi’s young daughter, Tiana, said, “you can’t call it a rat house. All the kids will just say, ‘that’s where all the rats live.’” The Bahnhof name stayed — and the train is yet to be seen.

During the 1980s the village’s curriculum and its programmatic offering were marked by dynamic change. In 1980 a team of staff members — Hanna, Karl, Wolfgang Schnitzler, Heidi Hamilton (Heidi) and Kay Klein (Käthe) — revised and expanded the curriculum to positively challenge villagers at their level of language ability. In 1981 a brown staff curriculum resource guide and a red villager curriculum and memory book were published. Käthe introduced the figures Max und Minna to guide us all through those pages.

Three levels — Grundkurs, Aufbaukurs, Fortgeschrittenenkurs — are each centered around a 10-day, progressive sequence of basic patterns of German language that can spark conversational exchanges which can be adapted and used in a variety of camp, and real-world, situations. Grammatical constructs are learned as vehicles for communication in real situations in which language is used. Villagers are first exposed to each day’s pattern in a large group setting, in which songs are also learned. They then have opportunity to practice the patterns at their level of ability. The daily patterns are then used and reinforced in all daily activities. When the familiar basic patterns appear in new situations, the villager has developed, through constant exposure to them, the self-confidence to understand what is being said, to formulate responses, and to engage creatively with the language.

The curriculum is designed to give learners courage to participate and use the language in a variety of settings. The patterns and their applications are flexible to allow for differences in language background. Karl likened it to a Ziehharmonika (accordion): it can expand to accommodate advanced learners or those who learn quickly, and it can contract to offer positive challenges to beginners and when a particular construct might require a bit more practice. It is intended to encourage learners to become invested in their own learning, in part due to a real need and desire to interact and communicate.

The curriculum team, consulting with staff, determined that other changes were also needed. The term Lager was dropped from the camp name. Henceforth, the village would simply be known as Waldsee. Käthe designed a Waldsee logo, an oak leaf with the Austrian, German and Swiss flags, and proposed a Carolingian font as the official style of text representing Waldsee. Many Anglicisms that had crept into the village’s culture, such as “Camper” and “Counselor,” were dropped. Villagers were Teilnehmer and counselors were Betreuer. The daily activity periods, which had been called Betätigungen, were changed to Veranstaltungen.

A few years later, the staff decided that daily flag-raising and -lowering ceremonies, which had been a standard feature of many camps in the United States, and which had been a daily ritual at Lager Waldsee, should be dropped, because they were less appropriate for a German-language cultural setting, especially to the many staff who were not U.S. citizens. For many years the Lager Waldsee version had included raising and lowering the flags of the United States and Germany as participants sang the U.S. and German national anthems and recited the U.S. pledge of allegiance. Flaggenhissen und Flaggeneinholen were replaced with Morgenkreis und Abendkreis, times when villagers and staff gather together to celebrate their community.

After handing out the same red Waldsee Buch to villagers for five years, in 1986 Karl und Heidi wrote separate books for each of the three curriculum levels, and published a fourth book, called Die Brücke, as a “bridge” between the patterns villagers learned in the Waldsee curriculum and practical language situations they might actually experience in daily German-speaking cultures. John Diebel (Matz) and Heidi Hohman (Anneliese) contributed illustrations.

A true revolution in Waldsee’s cultural offerings was heralded by the arrival of David Erceg as head cook in 1980. David applied his extensive experience with German cuisine to transform our mealtimes. For twenty years the camp program was German but its food was largely American. David replaced this last bastion of Americana with such authentic offerings as Sauerbraten, Rehrücken, Berliner Hühnerfrikassee, Spätzle, Wiener Schnitzel, and other delicacies. European staff were particularly ecstatic that delicious Brötchen had replaced spongy American white bread. David’s wizardry also enabled the village to generate creative new programmatic offerings. In 1980 the first Waldsee Gasthaus took place — a cultural language experience in which villagers used their German to make dinner reservations, order items from a menu, and pay in Deutsche Mark (although the funds were not really drawn from their accounts!). The restaurant experience has remained a staple of village programming for decades. Another programmatic innovation was the Waldsee Café, an afternoon café where villagers used their German to order Kuchen from other villagers serving as waiters, play German card games, and hang out with their friends.

David’s meals were such a hit with villagers that many asked their parents if they could have such meals at home. In response, in 1983 David and his wife Linda published "Guten Appetit: Recipes from Waldsee, the German Language Village."

In August of 1981 an experimental program, with Karl as dean, was launched at Camp Trowbridge: Helvetia, a Swiss village featuring Swiss culture and engaging villagers in both German and French. Cabins were named after Swiss cities like Genève, Ticino, Zürich, Bern, and Schwyz. Wilhelm Tell made an appearance, as did Swiss foods such as Fondue and Raclette. Villagers even tried their hand at an adapted version of the Swiss national sport of Hornussen, which involved one team throwing wooden planks at tennis balls being thrown across a field by another team. In 1982, Helvetia became a formal two-week program at the Waldsee permanent site, and Italian was added as the village’s third language.

In the summer of 1982 a further new initiative was launched in the Schwarzwaldhaus: das Institut für deutsche Studien, a four-week program in which high school students could earn one semester of college credit in German. Karl served as the dean, and the initial staff was composed of Heidi, Käthe, Renee Pollak, a teacher from Graz, Austria, and former Lager Waldsee dean and Concordia College professor Norbert Benzel.

In the fall of 1983, Concordia College introduced an academic year version of the Institut for college students. The two-semester program was divided into eight octomesters, each lasting one month. Students would take just one course each octomester. Students were able to earn a German major in one year. The academic-year Institut began with 18 students. In the 1989-1990 academic year 55 students were enrolled. Steven Nathe and Dorothy Robbins were the directors. Larry Saukko (Heinrich) was the business manager.

In the late 1980s staff joined the Institut and Waldsee from communist East Germany, the German Democratic Republic. Since most East Germans were not allowed to leave their country, this was an unusual experiment, and enriched the program considerably.

Songs have always been an important part of the Waldsee community. In 1988 the language villages published a book of Waldsee Lieder compiled and edited by Karl, with musical notation by Michael Polys, former Waldsee business manager and music program advisor to the language villages.

A new four-week credit program, the German Odyssey, was introduced in 1989. High-school villagers could earn a semester of high school social studies credit and a semester of high school credit in German.

1990s

The permanent village opened a world of opportunities for Waldsee. Instead of having to pack the village away each summer at a rental site, staff and villagers could build a lasting community.

As permanent buildings replaced the functions of the wood cabins on the site, those cabins were moved to serve new purposes. The original cabins on the Marktplatz were moved to form a new artists’ colony called Worpswede, named after the fabled artists’ community situated on a stretch of moorland in western Germany near Bremen. Separate cabins were set up for activities such as Bauernmalerei, Tonarbeit, Glasarbeit, Weben, and many more artistic endeavors. The arts program became so dynamic it was known as Basteln ohne Grenzen.

The summer program deepened its offerings by introducing thematic “parallel programs,” starting with a medieval program and an environmental learning program.

Der Märchenwald, or Maerlinwald, was the brainchild of Thomas Lowe (Eduard). Villagers choosing to join the program experienced the legends and lore of the Middle Ages, learning what it takes to become a Ritter. They wrote and staged a magical nighttime play, based on ancient Germanic tales, at a secret stage in the deep woods.

Those opting for the environmental learning program, die Grüne Welle, learned about the importance of nature in German culture, and how to live lightly on the planet. They created their own community across the lake from the German village. Beginning as a parallel program in 1991 under the leadership of Edwin Dehler-Seter (Eddy), Laura Dehler-Seter (Ariane) and Ann Skoe (Ella), die Grüne Welle became its own self-standing program in 1992. It offered independent sessions until 1996, and then re-integrated with the main village as an Abenteuerprogramm (adventure program) in 1997.

A revised and expanded teaching handbook for the village curriculum was prepared. The Waldsee credit program deepened its offerings as villagers prepared portfolios, much like those of artists, to display for their schools upon returning home the full range of language skills and cultural experience they had engaged in. The college credit program for high school students returned, taught by Karl.

In the early 1990s, Haus Sonnenaufgang was moved from its location near Skogfjorden to the permanent Waldsee site, next to Haus Katja, thanks to a grant from an anonymous donor. Staff and villagers had been trekking to the previous location for “immigrant evenings” showcasing the lives of German immigrants. Those programs continued, now at the German village itself, and included overnight stays in Haus Sonnenaufgang and Haus Katja.

In November 1992, the Gasthof suffered a major fire. It was quickly rebuilt, with new features, and ready for use again in the summer of 1993.

Waldsee’s enrollment continued to surge in the 1990s. Wait lists were common. To accommodate demand, starting in 1995 Waldsee again began operating at two sites, this time the permanent village site and a second site, first at Camp Patmos near Hackensack, Minnesota, and then again at Camp Minne-wa-kan near Cass Lake, Minnesota. To help manage the new arrangements, Carl-Martin Nelson joined Ilse and Karl as a co-dean of Waldsee. When Brian Dutcher (Günther) became assistant director of the language villages, Larry Saukko (Heinrich) became the dean for academic-year German programs.

In 1995 the Bahnhof was renovated and extended to include a living space for families and senior staff, more credit classrooms and credit teacher offices, as well as a larger dean’s residence. The unique tunnel through the building provides a dramatic entrance to the Marktplatz. In 1998 Käthe and Anneliese, hoisted on a large cherry-picker, hand-painted an artistic motif around the clock on the front of the Bahnhof reminiscent of that on the Rathaus of Waldsee’s partner city of Bad Waldsee in southwestern Germany. A Marienkäfer hiding in the design brings good luck to those who can find it!

The spring of 1998 saw completion of a new structure, affectionately labeled das Wasserschloss, or water castle, in honor of the various castles in Austria and southern Germany boasting hidden water games and sprays. Das Wasserschloss houses shower facilities and a large indoor sauna. It was originally intended to be the ground floor of a much larger structure containing staff and villager lounges and a villager kitchen. Those elements are part of the long-term vision for the village.

In 1998 the Waldsee Gasthof was re-christened Gasthof zum goldenen Hirschen to commemorate Karl’s 25th anniversary as a member of the staff. An artistic rendition of the name, designed by Käthe, adorns the outside entrance.

In 1999 die Waldhütte, also known as Heidis Hütte, a small wooden hut in the Waldsee Stadtpark, was built in honor of Heidi’s 25th anniversary as a staff member. The Waldhütte has been the scene for late-night Gute Nacht Geschichten, small learning group activities, and Swiss Raclette dinners.

Waldsee was gaining greater attention in Germany. On July 26, 1999, Waldsee credit program facilitator Silke Wiechers explained Waldsee’s approach to German readers of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in her article “Bahnhof, Gasthof, Marktplatz und noch mehr Vokabeln:“ „Trudi und Gustav werden nach wenigen Wochen in Waldsee nicht fehlerfrei Deutsch sprechen. Möglicherweise haben sich in ihre Sprachkompetenz gar ein paar Fehler eingeschlichen, die in diesem Immersionsprogramm nicht ausreichend korrigiert werden konnten. Aber immerhin haben sie Geld aufgehoben und Einkäufe erledigt, sie haben telefonisch Plätze im Restaurant bestellt oder Fahrkahrten reserviert. Sie haben entdeckt, dass die Beherrschung einer Fremdsprache die Tür zu einer anderen Welt öffnet, und sie haben Freundschaften geschlossen mit Menschen aus anderen Ländern. Das Interesse an Deutschland werden sie mit nach Hause nehmen.”

Meanwhile, Eddy was busy creating magical nature learning paths. For the entire language village community, he forged a nature trail with 21 learning stations around a small lake near Skogfjorden that Waldseer have dubbed der Chiemsee. Closer to home, he created Waldsee’s own dwarves’ swamp path, or Zwergensumpfpfad, a nature trail leading through the Wald from behind the Schwarzwaldhaus to the path leading to Skogfjorden. Along the way wanderers encounter 10 different nature stations, including a beaver’s home, medieval plants and, perhaps, die Zwerge vom Zwergenwald: the dwarves themselves. He added a pathway from the Wasserschloss down to the lake, which villagers named Eddys Weg. He then formed a Sinnespfad, a sensory path, through the woods behind Haus Sonnenaufgang. Along the Sinnespfad, blindfolded participants use their German skills to truly see, hear, smell, taste and feel the forest. Barefoot paths, “touching walls,” soundpipes, herbal collections, and other elements invite rich sensory experiences.

2000s

When Erin Jennings (Ilse) resigned as dean in 2000, former villager and staff member Jon Berndt Olsen joined Dan Hamilton (Karl) and Carl-Martin Nelson in 2001 as co-deans of Waldsee. Berndt became dean at Camp Trowbridge in the first half of the summer, with Carl-Martin serving as dean during the first half of summer at the permanent village, with Karl following in the second half of the summer. A Waldsee staff alumni reunion was held that summer, marking Waldsee’s 40th anniversary. In 2007 Waldsee returned to operating only at one site when additional residential capacity became available at the permanent village. Carl-Martin became director of marketing and communication for the language villages. After Larry Saukko (Heinrich) resigned as academic-year German dean, Edwin Dehler-Seter (Eddy) assumed the position, in addition to serving as environmental specialist for the language villages.

In 2001 the Max Kade Foundation provided support for construction of the Erich Markel Haus, a two-cabin residence facility named after the Foundation’s former president. The Foundation also began to provide annual needs-based scholarships for villagers attending a Waldsee credit session, which have enabled hundreds of young people to join the Waldsee community.

In 2003 Germany’s Robert Bosch Stiftung provided a grant to build the Robert Bosch Health Center and Residence. The Health Center, named Heilbronn, cares for villagers and staff, reflecting the Robert Bosch Stiftung’s major interests in health care. The residence, named Stuttgart in honor of the foundation’s home town, houses 12 individuals and has its own bathroom facilities, in addition to a common space, which doubles at times as a classroom.

Construction of the village café and store also moved forward. Café Einbeck was named after the German city of Einbeck by donors Georg and Reidun Gauger, parents of Waldsee villagers. Georg grew up in Einbeck before moving to Minnesota. The cafe is a central element of village life, just as it is in many German towns. Villagers can enjoy a wide assortment of authentic German and European candies, ranging from Gummibären, Toblerone and Zotz! to drinks such as Afri-Cola and Almdudler. Each afternoon they can order freshly-baked Kuchen from other villagers serving as waiters at the Waldsee Café. Next to Café Einbeck is the Waldsee Laden, also known as KaDeWa (Kaufhaus des Waldsees), where villagers can purchase souvenirs. The Laden was made possible by a donation from the Foreign Candy Company and several private donors. Kay Kallos (Käthe) designed Buntglasfenster (stained glass windows) for the Laden in recognition of these donations.

In 2005, Waldsee received a grant of 522,000 euros (over $600,000) from the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (German Environmental Foundation) for construction of the Waldsee BioHaus, the first certified structure in North America to be built and certified according to the German Passivhaus standard, a world-class example of high-performance building design (beyond that of the U.S. LEED standard) which improves quality of life inside the building while using 85% less energy than comparable U.S. structures. Other contributors included Amvic, BASF, Bosch-Siemens appliances, the Cherne Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the Home Depot Foundation, Optiwin, Rehau North America, and STO.

The BioHaus was completed in 2006. The building, topped with a green roof, houses 24 individuals in four dorm spaces and provides for two additional staff housing units. It contains classroom space, a kitchen equipped with low-energy appliances, an environmental laboratory, and a large group activity space. Even the mechanical room is part of the immersion experience — villagers can take the building’s “vital signs” and learn first-hand from daily experience what sustainable living is all about. Stephan Tanner, a Swiss-American architect with the company Intep in Minneapolis, worked with three core German language concepts — Durchblick, Einblick und Ausblick — to unite the themes of new insights and outlooks on the world gained from deeper understandings gained from immersion learning. Das BioHaus won the Minnesota Environmental Award in 2007. It is a low-energy home for a high-energy program.

Part of the BioHaus design included building a Baumhaus (treehouse) adjacent to the building and next to Heidis Hütte, to provide a high-level outlook onto the BioHaus green roof.

The BioHaus was dedicated in 2007 at a ceremony that included Klaus Scharioth, Germany’s ambassador to the United States. Scharioth visited a second time in 2010 for Waldsee’s 50th anniversary. Several German ambassadors have visited Waldsee over the years. Ambassador Günther van Well visited Concordia College and the Institute for German Studies in 1987. Ambassador Jürgen Chrobog helped to dedicate the Wasserschloss in 1998, placing items in a time capsule within the walls of the structure.

Chrobog’s successor, Wolfgang Ischinger, visited the village in 2003. After the villagers had performed and various speeches had been given, the ambassador was asked to speak. He stood and said, “Now I know ambassadors are always expected to make long speeches. I’ll try to resist that temptation.” He told the villagers about German games he played as a child on alpine ski vacations. He called a villager out of the audience. The boy was placed on the edge of a plastic deck chair and Ischinger explained he, the ambassador, would play the role of a chicken. The boy’s task was to slap Ischinger’s head between his hands. Ischinger got on his knees and began loudly clucking like a chicken. He would bring his head down from above the boy or below from the surface of the stone patio in front of Café Einbeck. The game was played a handful of times and the boy was successful only once. The game, however, was a howling hit with everyone in the audience.

The Waldsee curriculum was significantly deepened and broadened during the early 2000s, in part thanks to support from the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany for capital campaigns, need-based scholarships, and curriculum development.

The credit program curriculum was refined around the expectation that credit villagers create a multimedia portfolio encompassing a minimum of five thematic units that they complete over the course of four weeks. Three of those units are completed by small-group classes of similar language ability led by a credit teacher. Two of those units are completed in two different electives of differing language ability led either by a different credit teacher or another staff member with particular skills or background in the topic at hand. For any given session, the electives, known as Arbeitsgruppen (AG), opened up many possibilities for villagers to learn more about such topics as the environment, life in Berlin, Austrian and Swiss culture, and the role of soccer in German society. As part of their electives, villagers have baked and cooked, formed a German rock band, written and performed theater pieces, designed and produced a village newspaper, and engaged in village service projects. High school participants in the two-week program were also able to choose to join an AG.

New materials for the credit program included a teacher handbook, including a framework with assessment rubrics; a portfolio outline for villagers; and curricular materials for Waldsee’s credit abroad program in German-speaking Europe, as well as two new thematic credit program offerings: Der Märchenwald and die Grüne Welle. These two adventure programs each deepened their offerings with four-week credit options. Märchenwald credit villagers created a personality from the Middle Ages and used their German to develop their character while experiencing the legends and lore of the Middle Ages. They organized ein Tag im Mittelalter for the entire village, and joined with the two-week Märchenwald villagers to write and stage a magical nighttime play, based on ancient Germanic tales, at a secret stage in the deep woods. Participants in the Grüne Welle credit program learned about the importance of nature and sustainable living in German culture, and took a week-long canoeing adventure along Minnesota’s rivers and lakes.

The success of these two initiatives led to further adventure program innovations. Swiss flavor returned to Waldsee with the Helvetia adventure program. Radio Waldsee participants learned how to be radio disc jockeys and create radio and social media programming auf Deutsch. Those joining the biking adventure program Radsee undertook various excursions, including overnights at nearby Bemidji State Park. Das Stadttheater offered villagers an adventure honing their theatrical skills. For grammar wonks and studious villagers, an adventure in German grammar, die Kollegstufe, was launched. Die Kollegstufe adventure program was aimed at those looking for a greater emphasis on reading and writing beyond that which was already a part of the core curriculum.

Curricular materials were developed for each of the adventure programs. Bernie Schlafke (Bernhard) worked with Waldsee staff to write Sprache im Haus, a staff guide to using language effectively in the cabin. David Poytinger created a curriculum for Radio Waldsee. A Waldsee credit class drafted the curriculum for the Sinnespfad.

Das Matterhorn, a low-ropes challenge course, was installed to offer real-hands community-building skills and great practice with German prepositions and other language constructions. Das Kino, das Radhaus, and das Kostümhaus were set up in wood cabins no longer needed as residences.

Waldsee reached out to new participants young and old. One-week summer programs were expanded to reach across most of the summer months. In August 2006 Waldsee’s one-week summer Familienwoche program began, offering families the chance to enjoy the Waldsee community together. Familienwochen were then supplemented by one-week summer programs for adults, Erwachsenenwochen. In 2007 Waldsee Adventure Day Camp began, introducing our youngest learners to German games, sports, and food. Specialty day camps in soccer and in science were later introduced.

In 2007 Waldsee introduced a new apprentice program for a select number of villagers with advanced language skills. Die Lehrlinge applied their German in many hands-on situations — serving as interns to staff members, working part-time in the kitchen, bakery, Café or Laden, maintaining the green roof of the BioHaus, operating the village recycling program, and helping counselors with learning groups. Building on Germany’s time-honored guilds tradition, the apprentice program offered a new leadership track for villagers interested in joining the staff in future summers.

In August 2008 Helvetia returned as a one-week program for kids 8-18 and family adventurers of all ages. Helvetia Swiss Week offers great experiences in Switzerland’s three major languages —German, French, and Italian — together with exciting discoveries in Swiss culture and cuisine.

These program innovations were complemented by several efforts to “bottle” Waldsee and CLV methods and make them available and useful for classroom teachers. In September 2004 Heidi Hamilton (Heidi), together with Cori Crane (Monika) and Abigail Bartoshesky, published "Doing Foreign Language: Bringing Concordia Language Villages into Language Classrooms" with

Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall. In 2005 the third edition of the Waldsee Liederbuch was published, with songs compiled and edited by Karl, musical notation by Roy Shi (Raphael) and Jennifer Wang, and musical notation/original songs by Brent Bruning (Ulli). In 2006 Bernhard wrote and published TPRS Storytelling and the "Songs of Waldsee: A Classroom Manual for Teachers of German." Berndt prepared a "Handbook of Global Awareness Activities" and a "Handbook of Simulations and Role-Plays" as resources for staff in all the language villages. In 2008 Eddy and Ariane wrote and published "Natur! Bringing Nature and the Environment into German Language Classrooms, A Season-by-Season Handbook for Teachers of German." In 2009 Blake Peters (Björn), Lisa Christiansen Graefe (Birgit) and Karl wrote and published "Gute Idee! A Handbook of Best Practices from Waldsee German Language Village for Classroom Teachers of German." Waldsee staff were invited to present at various conferences of teachers and educators.

Waldsee was indeed eine schöne Kur. As one villager exclaimed in 2004,
“Waldsee isn’t a place – it’s a way of life.” Betreuerin Sarah reflected that the summer „hat so viel Spass für mich gemacht. Jeden Tag war ich von neuen Kleinigkeiten in Waldsee beeindruckt. Es ist unglaublich, was man alles hier machen und erleben kann.“ A villager contributed the following in 2008: „Ich finde es immer noch unglaublich, das ich an diesem grossen Spiel im kleinen Deutschland teilnehmen durfte. Das Essen war köstlich, mein Haus gemütlich; sogar Grammatik (mit der Kollegstufe) hat nie zuvor so viel Spass gemacht. Obwohl ich seit einem ganzen Jahr nicht mehr in Waldsee war, und dort nur zwei kurze Wochen verbracht habe, ist Waldsee immer noch ein zweites Deutschland für mich!”

2010s

In 2010 Waldsee celebrated its 50th anniversary. Events included a major Waldseefest on July 24 and six different alumni weekends. Klaus Scharioth, ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United States, visited Waldsee for a second time to join the festivities. Heinz and villagers constructed a wood and drywall wall; Scharioth joined them in painting slogans on the wall about “walls still to fall” in our world, and then everyone took hammers to knock down the wall. Festival participants also dedicated Liesls Waldkapelle, donated by Carolyn Lee (Sybille) in honor of former villager and staff member Lisa Fish (Liesl), and helped to install a Buntglasfenster in honor of former villager Holly Hamill, whose family created an endowment to award Holly Hamill scholarships to young girls seeking to attend Waldsee. The Waldseefest coincided with a conference of leading educators of German to discuss the future of German language in America.

Germany is a world-class soccer powerhouse with multiple World Cup and European Cup Championships. Beginning in 2012, Waldsee partnered with Auf Ballhöhe, a youth soccer organization in Germany, to bring German soccer coaches to Waldsee for special soccer adventure programs and day camps. The program was initiated by Karl and Matthias Eiles of Auf Ballhöhe. The German coaches and Waldsee villagers used their German to engage in the same training German kids receive. The program, which ran through 2019 and spawned similar soccer camp programs in other parts of the United States, was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

2012 marked the 25th anniversary for Martin Graefe, Eddy, and Berndt as staff members. A fundraising initiative to support academic-year scholarships was launched in honor of Martin. Bike racks in the form of large German letters — ä,ö,ü, and e — were installed in the village in honor of Eddy. And a large program stage was constructed near the BioHaus and the Stadtpark in honor of Berndt.

2013 was the 25th anniversary year for Carl-Martin, Ella and Birgit. That year die Lehrlinge built Ellas Waldzimmer, an outdoor nature classroom, to honor Ella’s service. The Waldzimmer was moved behind the Max Kade Haus in 2018 to make room for a new family cabin. Fundraising began to honor Carl-Martin with a Spielplatz idea. Since then a large Spinnennetz has been set up in the Stadtpark. Fundraising was also initiated to honor Birgit with a fairy-tale themed installation as part of the Waldsee fountain. Needed repairs to the fountain have delayed these plans.

Master baker Brian Dutcher (Günther) personally built an outdoor Backofen (baking oven) next to Haus Katja and Haus Sonnenaufgang. This opened additional program options. Villagers and families began to enjoy making their own baked goods. Pizza-baking became a special hit.

In 2014 a new credit program was introduced in which participants could use their German to explore what Americans call STEM themes (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and Germans call MINT: Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaft und Technik. In 2017 the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, the original donor responsible for construction of das BioHaus, provided a grant to Waldsee staff to created integrated curricular units integrating German and STEM skills. For this initiative Waldsee partnered with The Language Farm in Thuringia, Germany, a unique immersion program in English for German and other European participants. The Language Farm is led by Sven Seifert, known as "Bob" at the Language Farm and Sven at Waldsee, where he was a long-time staff member and leader of the Grüne Welle. In 2019 a new curriculum book containing 20 units was published: "GREEN STEM: Umweltbezogene MINT-Themen im Deutschunterricht."

In 2016 Waldsee staff member Peter Schmitt (Peter) launched a successful crowd-sourcing funding effort to equip the Radsee program with sturdy mountain bikes.

In 2017 two family cabins in the “Austria” section of Waldsee were built to accommodate growing interest in family programs. Haus Innsbruck was made possible by Waldsee mom Claire Ehernberger in honor of her husband Gerry. Käthe led a team of Waldsee artists to paint an alpine floral landscape on the front of the cabin. Haus Salzburg was made possible by Waldsee parents David and Audrey Olsen, in honor of their son Berndt’s 30th anniversary as a staff member. In 2018 Heinz built a third cabin, Haus Wien, which was made possible by Kathleen and Tom Jacobsen and family, all of whom were participants at Waldsee. In 2019, a fourth family cabin, Zell am See, was built thanks to a gift from Rick and Spielman in honor of Ted Taylor, a regular participant in Waldsee’s academic-year adult programs.

2018 marked the 25th anniversary of Robb Westawker (Jupp) as a staff member. The Waldsee deans initiated an annual family program scholarship in his honor.

In May 2018 we unexpectedly discovered that the name Waldsee was associated with a murderous period of German history. Although this episode from World War II has been known to historians, we were unaware of it. We were stunned and shocked. We immediately committed to address the many issues and questions associated with this period of German history and its implications for our village name and the community it represents. More about our efforts is here. One result is the Waldsee Tikkun Olam gathering space.

2020s

In 2020, Waldsee’s 60th anniversary summer, the village was empty, except for a small and hardy band of Betreuer who braved Covid-19 to organize Virtual Waldsee sessions as we were forced to close the village site due to the worldwide pandemic. Waldsee’s 60th anniversary celebration was cancelled. So was International Day. In a burst of creativity and organizational wizardry, the small on-site band of counselors joined with other staff around the world to put virtual programs for villagers who still wanted to experience Waldsee yet could not attend in person.

Virtual programs may have been “the next best thing to being there,” but villagers and staff really wanted to return to in-person programming in the summer of 2020. Limited on-site programming was offered that summer, but with strict health, sanitary and safety rules in place. Staff could not leave the site. No buses from the Twin Cities were offered. Parents had to drop off and pick up their kids in front of the Bahnhof and leave right away. Meals were held outdoors and many traditional Waldsee activities had to be adapted to new realities. Virtual sessions were offered during the summer as a complement to the small on-site programs. They continued throughout the academic year as the mini-programs suffered a collapse in enrollment due to health concerns in school districts.

During the summer of 2020, staff members initiated a process to review procedures and curricular offerings in Waldsee and across the language villages, with a focus on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion. A staff task force began to explore ways to promote anti-racism and proactively identify and act on opportunities for minorities to participate in our programs.

In 2021, the summer sessions were able to offer a semblance of normality. Even though health concerns continued, villagers and parents continued their commitment to Waldsee. One parent wrote us at the end of the summer about their daughter: “She grew up. I think it is independence and responsibility that she gained.” Another said, “She tried new things, heard new sounds, ate new foods, met new people, and thought about many new things.”

In 2022 Karl and Heidi retired, each having spent a half-century at Waldsee. Heidi Draheim (Julia) and Justin Quam (Julius) served as acting deans in the second half of the summer. In 2023 Angela Schneider (Johanna) joined Berndt as co-dean of Waldsee.

Waldsee’s future story is still to be written... whatever community you create, we are confident it will be full of Begeisterung — excitement — about the joy of learning and living together, in ways that inspire us all to be courageous global citizens.

Staff and Parent Voices

Wolfgang meets Günther

by Wolfgang Schnitzler, The Village Interpreter, April 1976.

“Are you really from Germany?” the new camper asked me curiously. He had just passed the impressive looking, very efficient German customs at the Lager Waldsee border, not without having his transistor radio and a week’s supply of American candy confiscated by some customs officer, who explained in guttural German why such things must not be imported into Lager Waldsee.

While we were taking our first tour of Lager Waldsee, the camper seemed impressed rather than confused at the sight of all the German signs and posters, and or the counselors in Lederhosen or Dirndlkleider, who came our way to shake hands with us. When we finally ended our tour at the “Kiosk” to buy some refreshments with German money, he very soon found out that the German candy would easily make up for the loss of American candy at the border, and when, after a short checking of the German marks in his banking account, he had figures out the daily allowance of “Schokolade” he could afford. I knew that he was already feeling at home.

“You know, you are the first real German I ever met,” the camper confessed, obviously satisfied to have filled that information gap. “And Wolfgang is your real name over there?” he continued, emphasizing the world “real” again and giving me one of those pitiful glances (I have often been given in the U.S.) that implied: How can anybody live with such a funny name?

He found out soon, by himself, for I helped him to decipher his name tag, which he would be wearing around his neck for the next two weeks, and when he had managed to pronounce his name for the first time — Günther (with a terrible German “ü” sound and a “th” that is different from the English “th”). I’m sure he felt as funny about his new identity as he thought I must have been feeling all my life. We had something in common!

Günther had just met what they call a “native” in camp, one of those specimens of foreign culture that are imported from abroad like beer mugs, dictionaries, cuckoo clocks and candy bars to make Lager Waldsee more real, more like Germany, with obvious success, to judge from Günther’s reactions.

It’s not easy to be a “native,” but it sure is a lot of fun, as long as you are prepared for everything. Be prepared to be considered as a walking dictionary, and to function like a cuckoo clock when it comes to repeating or working on pronunciations. Do show self-confidence when 30 American counselors insist that the gender of “Floss” is “der” and you know that it is “das.” Do not get frustrated about the awful German articles when instead of eating your dinner you try to explain during a meal that the gender for the spoon in German is masculine, for the fork is feminine, and for the knife is neuter. Don’t cry when you are supposed to demonstrate how the Germans eat their egg at breakfast, but instead of cutting the tip of your egg, you hit the tip of your finger.

Also, be prepared to laugh a lot, to make a lot of real friends, to get to know constructive criticism, to write about 50 Christmas cards to campers and staff, to welcome campers and staff back home in the old country, to learn a lot about yourself, about your own language, and about the specific difficulties American speakers have when learning German.

In the light of all this, you very soon start tolerating the rather amusing drawbacks which are the result of the efforts at camp to be real and authentic. Who cares — apart from the “natives” — that the rolls in the morning, the only claim to fame of the otherwise pitiful, frugal German breakfast, are as hard as brick and even taste that way. As long as the campers believe that these rolls are the way they are in Germany, the “natives” eat them with a heroic amount of devotion, self-denial — and toothache.

And yet, it is truly great to be at camp. Concordia College’s slogan for the language camps is “It’s the next best thing to being there,” and right they are — except for the “natives.” For the “native,” it’s the best thing to be there.

Three Waldsee Villages: A view using the wings of history

Alex Treitler, Worldview Blog, February 2019

Note: Alex first brought the Waldsee-lie to our attention in 2018.

In my second language, Swedish, the expression “historiens vingslag” (“the wingbeats of history”) gives a vivid, multisensory image of the passage of time that has become so frequently used in Swedish language tourist brochures as to have become the object of satire. Yet it is how I best can describe what I and many others felt just over a week ago. The wingbeats of history stirred up winds that brought back the stench of Holocaust slaughter: on Jan. 27, it had been 74 years since the locked gates of Auschwitz were opened once and for all.

The wingbeats of history are also what I felt in discovering that before being used to name the Concordia German Language Village, “Waldsee” was the euphemism given to Auschwitz, the Death Camp in German-occupied Poland during WWII. Concealing their true destination was part of a ruse to coax Hungarian and Greek Jews onto trains that would carry them to their death.

For many readers, news of the earlier “Waldsee” will be familiar. Through the website, emails, letters, and public gatherings, Concordia Language Villages’ leadership has openly shared information and invited input.

In June last year, I was invited to join a diverse advisory group made up of scholars, teachers, and stakeholders of various kinds. This group continues to discuss the ramifications of the discovery of “Waldsee” history. Concordia Language Villages Executive Director Christine Schulze strikingly describes the issue, “We have begun pulling at a loose thread — and that’s been good — but we don’t want to unravel the whole cloth!”

This is where “wings of history” are helpful. Donning them, I rise above the horrors of the Holocaust to be able to see two places from two different tines that share a name. On one side I see Auschwitz, on the other I see a very different place.

There is Waldsee, the German Language Village, when it opens in 1961. Just two years later, JFK would visit Germany and give his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, welcoming a new alliance with Germany. With the horrors of war past, Germany and America looked purposefully forward rather than back. U.S. financial support helped West Germany rebuild its infrastructure, economy, and government. During the '50s, West Germany was becoming a prosperous “social market economy” and parliamentary democracy. By 1961, there would have been no reason in either the U.S. or Germany to wonder if “Waldsee” referred to anything other than a forest glade.

With the wings of history, I fly higher still and see three villages: Waldsee, 1945; Waldsee, 1961; and Waldsee, 2019. Each Waldsee has its own history with which its name is inseparably associated. Somehow the most recent Waldsee has absorbed the meaning of both of its predecessors: it is neither the Nazi death camp, nor is it any longer an idyllic, innovative home of language learning; it embodies associations with both. This new Waldsee bears scars. It is older, perhaps wiser. Through its scars, perhaps it can also show a path to healing — though this new Waldsee is nothing if it is not both 1945 and 1961.

As part of the Waldsee Advisory Group, I have agreed with other members that changing the name “Waldsee” would mean losing the dual associations of the name. And yet, I fear that 2019 Waldsee will be absorbed back into 1961 Waldsee and end up obscuring 1945. We need this older, wiser Waldsee. We need to be able to communicate to villagers now and into the future that paradoxically, the hateful past thrives when buried, and that the whole point of language learning is to foster communication, dispel ignorance and encourage an understanding of difference. The advisory committee has more work to do in helping to build this new, more complex Waldsee identity. Yes, Waldsee is older and wiser, yet it is also being born again.

Ich und du und Waldsee dazu!

Me and You and Waldsee too!