Trip to Ulm - Visit the Südwestpresse & the Museum of Bread Culture

                                Report: "The Newspaper Südwestpresse" by Lynn Nowers

Germany seems like a good place to be a publisher, especially of news. The busses are always on time, so the newspapers must be too. The people are efficient, so companies must run well. There's a lot of bread so? well actually there's no parallel to journalism there, there's just a lot of bread. Anyway, I'm studying Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, so when I heard we were going to be visiting Südwest Presse I was excited. The company consists of 18 publishing houses joined together, and they are the publisher of the most read newspaper in Baden-Württemberg. Having only a basic knowledge of German, I was struggling to get a grip on what the German media is like, since everything I have been exposed to has been completely in German. I've worked for small locally-based papers in South Africa, so I was looking forward to seeing how a company of this size is run.

After being welcomed at the Südwest Presse headquarters in Ulm on a freezing cold day with a table of delicious eats and a goodie bag, we were allowed to ask any questions we might have. The discussion ranged from media law to how Südwest Presse portrays Africa in its papers. The company has a good reputation for reporting trustworthy and reliable news, which explains the high number of readers. It made me realise even more than before how much a part of our lives media is, and how the job of journalists is so important in society. Despite the age of information overload, people still value knowing about what is happening in the world. Different societys have different approaches to news, and the German media might not be exactly the same as the South African media, but we all have the basic need to be informed and to have a platform for news, opinions and issues to be publicly dealt with.

I count myself blessed to have had an opportunity to visit the headquarters of such an influential organisation. It's opened my mind to the possibilities that journalism holds for me, in my own country and abroad. And who knows, give my sketchy German a few years to improve and you might find a byline in the Südwest Presse one day reading?

by Lynn Nowers: "Africa Correspondant".



                          Report: "Museum of Bread Culture" by Hannes Koegelenberg

Bread. A basic source of food around the world, and taken for granted in most first world Countries, but what is this bread? Where did it start and what is the history behind one of the most simple and universally accepted foods in the world.

On Tuesday, January 26, we, The South Africa - Tübingen exchange group had the privilege to visit the Museum of Bread Culture in Ulm. As the name suggest it's not just a museum about bread but a museum about the culture surrounding bread. The Museum was founded in 1955 and owes its creation and growth to the decades-long personal commitment of first Willy Eiselen (1896-1981) and then his son Hermann Eiselen. Both dealt in the manufacture and sale of bakery ingredients and were among the leading suppliers to the bakery trade.

Our tour started at the beginning of bread, the grain, how it is harvested and how the mechanisation of farming methods had changed the productivity of farmers from supporting only 3 people before the 1900's to supporting around 145 people today.

From there we were guided to paintings portraying the production of the grain in an idealistic fashion, without showing the hard work being required to actually produce the grain from the start to the end result.

Over the 6000 years of bread different methods have been used to obtain the flour necessary for making bread. Some of us experienced first hand how a grinding stone worked and it's not easy! The woman of that era had to be strong, very strong.

After that we were shown the ovens, from the first wood fired ovens to the most recent electrical ovens and the different techniques for kneading, cutting and preparing the bread for the oven.

The second floor of the museum contains an exhibition about the relationship between bread and man and the role it still plays today in the development and survival of the human population here on earth. From the manna that came down from heaven to the bread quotas used in Germany in World War 2 to stop starvation, to the terrifying communist schemes put in place by Stalin and Mao that saw millions of people starve.

The last part of our tour featured Africa and the massive shortage of food because of the lack of clean water and the inability of African nations to feed there people. Each death because of hunger is a death that could have been avoided and should be avoided.

Visiting the Museum of Bread Culture was really an eye opening experience and something I'd never forget. For here in Germany bread isn't just another source of food, its not just water, flour and yeast, it is a way of life.

Hannes Koegelenberg