The 50th AA Anniversary In Germany

On Oct 31, 1953, in the weekend edition of a Munich newspaper, AA announced its first public information meeting in Germany. The result was the first AA group in the country, consisting of American AA soldiers, several German drunks, and an interpreter. The group grew slowly. But by 1962, AA groups had taken hold in Berlin and Düsseldorf, and a year later, in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden. By then, the message had spread far and wide, and every year saw new AA groups in all the big cities. In 1990, the few clandestine AA groups that had survived in former East Germany finally were able to join the Fellowship and to prosper.