Qualla: Gänseliesel https://qualla.com/ganseliesel en-us © 2026 Bendyline Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:49:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/j/ganseliesel-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Gänseliesel https://qualla.com/ganseliesel Gänseliesel: Introduction https://qualla.com/ganseliesel/ Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1926 the police in Goettingen made it an offence to kiss a bronze girl. A law student prosecuted under the decree that same year did the obvious thing and took his case to court, where the superior court in Berlin upheld the ban against him. The object of all this legal attention was a modest fountain figure standing in front of the medieval town hall: a girl carrying a basket of geese, roughly the size of a child, put up in 1901 with no ceremony whatsoever because the people who commissioned her had wanted something else entirely.

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]]> Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/j/ganseliesel-wp/u1pj-g-nseliesel-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Gänseliesel: The Jury Lost https://qualla.com/ganseliesel/ Photo credit Sönke Rahn, CC BY-SA 3.0. A fountain had stood on the spot since the eighteenth century, but it fell into disrepair and was partly pulled down early in the nineteenth. In 1898 the council resolved to replace it and invited proposals; sculptors from across Germany sent designs. The favourite was a neo-goth...

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Image: Sönke Rahn | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/j/ganseliesel-wp/u1pj-g-nseliesel-the-jury-lost.mp3 0:06 2 full Gänseliesel: Illegal to Kiss https://qualla.com/ganseliesel/ Photo credit Ajburk at German Wikipedia, Public domain. The tradition started almost at once and it started with the first-years. Newly enrolled students of the Georgia Augusta climbed the fountain and kissed the statue, generally with a great deal of alcohol involved and an appreciative crowd shouting encouragement. Student numbers r...

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Image: Ajburk at German Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/j/ganseliesel-wp/u1pj-g-nseliesel-illegal-to-kiss.mp3 0:06 3 full Gänseliesel: Flowers All Year https://qualla.com/ganseliesel/ Photo credit Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 2.5. What changed was not the ban but who does the kissing. First-years mostly stopped; new doctors took over. Today a candidate who has just passed the oral examination or defended a dissertation is loaded into a handcart decked with flowers and balloons, pulled through the old town ...

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Image: Daniel Schwen | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/j/ganseliesel-wp/u1pj-g-nseliesel-flowers-all-year.mp3 0:06 4 full Gänseliesel: Bronze Does Not Heal https://qualla.com/ganseliesel/ Photo credit Christoph Alexander Martsch from Gottingen, Deutschland, CC BY-SA 2.0. Affection has a cost. The statue took decades of climbing, kissing and outright vandalism, and in the winter of 2004 someone set fire to her. The damage was bad enough that the whole fountain had to be taken apart and put through a major restoration. The original bronze had alrea...

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Image: Christoph Alexander Martsch from Gottingen, Deutschland | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/j/ganseliesel-wp/u1pj-g-nseliesel-bronze-does-not-heal.mp3 0:06 5 full Gänseliesel: A Girl With No Story https://qualla.com/ganseliesel/ Photo credit Sönke Rahn, CC BY-SA 3.0. The strangest thing about Goettingen's best-known landmark is that she means nothing in particular. The fountain has no connection to the town's history; goose girls stand in Monheim am Rhein, on Hanover's Steintor Square and on Nikolsburger Square in Berlin, and this one commemo...

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Image: Sönke Rahn | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/p/j/ganseliesel-wp/u1pj-g-nseliesel-a-girl-with-no-story.mp3 0:06 6 full