Facade portrait: Susanne Christiansen

Susanne Christiansen

* 1957 in Søborg/Denmark Immigration to Bremerhaven: 1981

“I would like to go to Germany.”

“I would like to go to Germany.”

This was Susanne Christiansen’s answer to the question from her school days about whether she had a dream in life that she would like to fulfill. In 1981, her dream comes true: she migrates to Bremerhaven for love.

When a request about a women’s football tournament from Bremerhaven comes in 1974 from the former FC Siedlerfreunde, later ESV Bremerhaven, to the Danish football club Glostrup IF 32, no one suspects that this will lead to a friendship lasting over half a century. The players were hosted by families, where they engaged in joint activities such as “shopping, playing football, great parties.” One of the Danish players in 1974 is the then 17-year-old Susanne Christiansen, who not only forms friendships in Bremerhaven through the annual football tournament but also meets her future husband, Bernd, here.

Susanne Christiansen, 2020

In 1981, she decides to move to Bremerhaven with her little daughter.

“Because I knew people here from the football club, I already had friends and acquaintances in Bremerhaven. So it wasn’t as foreign as it is for some immigrants; you already knew each other. It was actually like moving to another city in your home country, but still having all your friends around.”

In Bremerhaven, Susanne Christiansen works for over eleven years with the US Army until the closure of the location – a fantastic and formative time for her that she misses. In the meantime, she is employed as a commercial clerk in Hamburg.

After fulfilling her first lifelong dream in Germany, Susanne Christiansen is planning her next goal: “to travel through Andalusia on a wonderful train or to go to America for twelve weeks to explore there – I’m still working on that.”