Our Authors

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.

Although she did not deal with languages and cultures from the very beginning of her university studies, Andrea Maass has been fascinated by them for a very long time. She spent six exciting months in Guatemala, where she learned Spanish and lived in Beijing for twelve years after completing her studies in history and politics.

It was during this time in China that she began the long phase of her life that has since become associated with Carl Duisberg Centren. After her 3-year period as Chief Representative in Beijing, Andrea Maass has now been in charge of the Carl Duisberg Training Center Munich for 13 years.

It gives her great joy to be able to welcome the many young people from all over the world to the Carl Duisberg Training Center Munich.

After an exciting year in Italy, Melanie Dötterböck returned to Munich to finish her studies in teaching German as a Foreign Language. In Munich, she quickly came in touch with the Carl Duisberg Training Center where she taught German as a foreign language, a job that has always brought her much joy. In 2015, she could enjoy another year abroad, this time in Spain.

When she returned to Munich, her path led her once again to the Carl Duisberg Center. Melanie Dötterböck has since then been working as pedagogical coordinator and teacher at our Center in Munich where. She speaks fluent English, Spanish and Italian.

After discovering her passion for learning, new cultures and languages at an early age, Lara decided to participate in an interesting exchange program in Germany to broaden her horizons. At 19, she packed her bags and traveled all the way from Brazil to Munich to work as an au pair and learn German for a year.

During this time in Munich, Lara decided to improve her language and communication skills and began a new journey as a tutor at the Carl Duisberg Center. In addition to German and Portuguese, she is fluent in English and Spanish and is currently learning Japanese.