Our Authors

Anne Pajarinen started learning German in her home country of Finland when she was 15. After graduating from high school, she spent a year in Germany to improve her German language skills. The gap year was followed by studies in German language and culture & intercultural communication.

Before she took over the role of Director of the Carl Duisberg Center in Radolfzell in October 2016, she worked for a long time at various universities and accompanied students from their studies to their careers. Besides German and Finnish, she speaks English and a little Swedish.

At the age of 16 Regina Rilke spent 1 year in San Antonio, Texas and from then on she became passionate about languages and traveling. After graduating from high school and training as a travel agent, she studied business administration and spent 6 months in southern Chile as part of her internship semester, sponsored by the Carl Duisberg Society at the time.

She also trained as a European language instructor and, after working in the advertising and construction industries in sales, she has now returned to her roots, the education sector. In July 2021, she took over the management of the Carl Duisberg Training Center in Berlin. In addition to English and Spanish, she also speaks French and a little Swedish.

Marion Hetzel comes from southern Germany, where she studied German, Romance studies and art history in Stuttgart and then media practice in Tübingen. Already during her studies she worked as a language lecturer in the field of German as a foreign language (DaF), gave French courses and gained professional experience in the media sector (print and TV). As "Assistante de langue allemande" she worked for one year at a high school in Paris and studied at the Université Paris X.

After graduating from university, she moved to her new adopted home of Cologne, where she first worked as a TV editor for ZDF and then returned to the field of education. She has now been teaching German as a foreign language at the Carl Duisberg Centers for more than 20 years. In the meantime, she acquired the major "DaF-Diplom des Goethe Instituts" as an additional qualification and in 2016 she finally got a permanent position at the Cologne Centrum. In addition to language teaching, she also works there on special projects such as authoring for the French internet platform "Parcours", the German part of which was developed by the Carl Duisberg Centers on behalf of the Franco-German Youth Office, and she is the administrator for the Facebook group "Carl Duisberg - Learning German in Cologne".

As a part-time job, she gives courses at the Technical University (TH) Cologne in the areas of "Presenting yourself", "Applying" and "Arguing" for foreign students. Marion Hetzel is the author of the book “Project work in DaF lessons”, which was published by hueber Verlag.

After graduating from high school, Julia Braitmaier spent a year in Australia, where she discovered her passion for other cultures while working and traveling. Back in Germany, she studied International Business Management and spent a year in China during her studies. After completing her Bachelor's degree, she began her professional career at Carl Duisberg Centren as customer advisor. After parental leave in Bali, she is now back at the Carl Duisberg Training Center Radolfzell and enjoys sharing her experiences and thoughts in the form of texts for the blog. In addition to German and English, she speaks a little Chinese.