Sail-Column
150th Rostocker Hafenstammtisch with Harald Ringstorff
On December 13th 2005, 7am at the Baltic Point Warnemünde, there is the 150th Rostocker Hafenstammtisch. Guest of the talk is Dr. Harald Ringstorff, prime minister of Mecklenburg Western-Pomeranian.
That’s not just a remarkable jubilee but it is on a date which is always special day: the 150th is also the Christmas "Stammtisch" where a prominent guest is invite traditionally. This time the father of our country is the guest.
If the Hafenstammtisch would be market by professional event manager nowadays, it would be a Port-Talkshow and suffer the same fate like the terms "Firmenfeiern" or "Betriebsausflüge", now called events or incentives. But fortunately the Stammtisch was reasoned 1993 with the old-fashioned name "Rostocker Hafenstammtisch". Last but not least the name was chosen because of a popular broadcasting show in the GDR.
Founders of the maritime talk are the Club of captains and ship officers and the Hanse Sail office. With it from the beginning is journalist Horst Marx (picture left) who uses his maritime archive of 12 years Hafenstammtisch, which got fat, for his preparation and talk.
In the first years he was accompany by to early die Jochen Wilcken. Hansjörg Kunze, for long time editor in chief at Antenne Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, was the second man meanwhile. Since 5 years Regina Rösler welcomes the talk guests of a charming but also critical asking way.
Normally every 3rd Tuesday in the month topics of the navigation, the shipbuilding, the German navy, the coast guard, the fish-processing industry and a lot of other maritime fields are in discussion. More than 500 talk guests from the maritime economy, science, politics and culture were on the stage. Nearly 100 visitors join the normal one and a half hour taken event. At hot topics or special reasons there were much more and chairs run short.
In difference to ordinary round tables before the event there is a singing. Similar like the national anthem sounds to international matches. At the Rostocker Hafenstammtisch the visitors can accompany the Shanty choir singing or buzzing. But they must not.
The Rostocker Hafenstammtisch ist not a talkshow and in fact it’s no normal round table with empty discussions. What is it? It’s based on good and solid journalism where often complicated and humourless seeming topics were discussed in an exciting and amusing kind of way. Also current and difficult problems are discussed tactful. That’s the reason for its liveliness and hopefully it gets discovered by younger maritime interested visitors.
Klaus-Dieter Block