Sisterhood of Cities

River City residents dug into their heritage and brushed up their foreign language skills last summer as they welcomed a delegation from Evansville’s sister city Osnabrück, Germany.

The group of 18 people included the city’s Lord Mayor Wolfgang Griesert and the region’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce CEO Marco Graf.

Evansville, one of Osnabrück’s 11 sister cities, has had a relationship with the German city for 26 years and mainly is tied by educational exchanges, says Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke.

“It’s not a contact between the mayors,” adds Griesert. “It’s a contact between people. It’s a unique thing of Osnabrück that they have ambassadors they exchange with five other city schools.”

Though there are some differences between the two cities, the trip demonstrated there are many more similarities. Both Osnabrück and Evansville are the third largest in their state. Lower Saxony has a population of about 8 million people, with the population of Indiana being a little more than 6 million people.

“Your ancestors immigrated,” says Graf. “Our ancestors stayed.”

“We talk about how we have far more in common than we don’t,” says Winnecke. “Guess what? Every community shares the same kinds of problems whether you’re in Evansville, Indiana, or Osnabrück, Germany.”

For more info about the City of Osnabrück, visit osnabrueck.de.

Previous article
Next article

Related Articles

Latest Articles