Collaborations & Partnerships-Archiv

Highlight of training camp: A group trip to the movies to see “Adams Acht”

Collaborations & Partnerships, News, Rowing, Sports & Health, Talent Development

A must-see film for every rower, watched together by the Steinmühle rowers at the Mannheim-Sandhofen training camp alongside the rowing team from Offenbach. “This isn’t the first time the two training groups have been here at the same time. You could call it a symbiosis—almost a strategic partnership,” reports Steinmühle head coach “Stromi.”

With nearly ideal weather conditions, the 33 athletes are having a great time at the training center—both on the athletic side and in terms of social camaraderie—and are being well taken care of by the kitchen team of Jola and Lina Strohmenger. The evening program, featuring the movie “Adams Acht”—based on a true story—added another highlight to the event. Learn more about the film from the German Rowing Association: https://www.rudern.de/news/adams-acht-begeistert-das-kinopublikum-jetzt-heisst-es-dranbleiben.

We wish our active members all the best and continued success!

(Heinm)

7. October 2026

Hessischer Rundfunk Spotlights Rowing at the Steinmühle

Collaborations & Partnerships, News, Rowing, Sports & Health, Talent Development

Regarding the report from the Hessenschau broadcast on September 14, 2026:

Hessischer Rundfunk Spotlights Rowing at the Steinmühle

(c) hr Television

An event that makes us proud: Hessischer Rundfunk had announced a visit to our para-rowers. The goal: “To experience para-sports firsthand and report on them,” explains editor Sarah-Lisa Angress, who is looking forward to meeting our para-rowers.

The blue car with the white “hrfernsehen” lettering is driving from the Steinmühlen Campus toward the boathouse. Lennard Koch and Freya Dorndorf are training there. Lennard, 19, lost his sight completely just two years ago.

A turning point.

But Lennard has come to terms with his fate. The young man channels his disability into pure energy.

Orientation and Safety

Six times a week, he meets with Freya Dorndorf for training. She can see, is highly focused, and has a strong sense of direction. She does what he cannot.

In just half a year, the ninth-grader has learned everything needed to provide guidance and reassurance.

The proverbial “blind trust” must have originated right here.

Clear Commands

Along with high-performance coach Martin Strohmenger, the camera crew climbs into the electric dinghy. They film up close, capturing what really matters: timely instructions and clear commands, leaving no room for interpretation. Everyone knows exactly what to do. Lennard leads the way.

The route goes up the Lahn River from the Steinmühle boathouse and back down again. Hessischer Rundfunk is filming a well-coordinated team where every stroke is perfect. The footage captures the clarity of the commands and gives a glimpse into what a typical day of rowing might be like for Lennard and Freya.

Infrastructure and Partnerships

Performance coach Martin Strohmenger, known simply as “Stromi,” looks back on a pleasant afternoon today. The film featuring Lennard, the 2024 German champion in ergometer rowing, and Freya, the level-headed student from Steinmühle, authentically shows how both of them give their all for the sport. But it also highlights the importance of infrastructure like that at Steinmühle, which is suited for para-sports, as well as the success of partnerships—such as the one with the German Institute for the Blind (blista) in Marburg—when they are brought to life.

The Steinmühle, as the state training center for para-rowing of the Hessian Association for Sports for People with Disabilities and Rehabilitation (HBRS), enjoys special recognition among rowers and throughout the sports world. It therefore warmly invites rowers with physical disabilities to get in touch.

By the way: You can—but don’t have to—become the German Ergo Champion right away.

(Angela Heinemann)

2. October 2026

Aggressive on the field, down-to-earth off it: From Steinmühle to TSG Hoffenheim

Collaborations & Partnerships, News, Sports & Health, Talent Development

Marlene Wagner had already fallen in love with soccer when she was just three years old: Whenever her older brother Moritz went to soccer practice, she wanted to go too! Back then, no one could have guessed just how far that passion—and the soccer games she played in the backyard with her brothers Moritz, Konrad, and Wilhelm—would take her. Today, they’re an unbeatable team—four Steinmühlen students, all on their own.

A Girl on the Boys’ Team

Back then, she was fully integrated into the soccer team—as a girl! That was also thanks to her coaches, including Marco Preis and Arthur Keck. Marlene had a lot of fun with her teammates, almost all of whom she knew from kindergarten. Today, the talented Steinmühlen student plays for the TSG Hoffenheim U17 girls’ team. Her goals: the Bundesliga and the national team.

Marlene Wagner Makes the Cut for the Hesse Team

Indeed! We do a quick Google search and find Marlene’s photo under “Defense” on the Blue-and-Whites’ website. What a fantastic journey she has had—and still has ahead of her! Former coach Lothar Potthoff has every reason to be proud. He was part of the adult coaching staff at the Marburg-Weimar Girls’ Soccer Club (MSG), where it all really took off. Together with Jan Arnold, Julia Günsch, and Sascha Meusel, he guided and encouraged the young athlete’s progress on the green field. From the regional team, she made the leap to the Hesse state team.

U-16 Prospects Training Course

In the C-youth division, Marlene joined the boys’ team at Blau-Gelb Marburg. That winter, Marlene participated in a talent development camp for the U-16 national team.

TSG Hoffenheim had already approached the young soccer player last October after the South German Championship. Will everyone be giving her the thumbs-up in the end? If so, it’ll be time to pack her bags and move!

Moving to a new home, changing schools

And that’s exactly what happened. But when dreams come true, there are practical matters to work out, as the young player quickly realized: moving into a shared apartment in Hoffenheim and changing schools. She was a little nervous. Would everything work out? In the end, the light turned green. Everything was all set.

Steinmühle let Marlene go. The good news: It’s just for one year to start with! The talented soccer player passed her medical exam at the end of June and took the next step in her career on July 1. With the support of personalized training and strength training, Marlene can learn a lot in Hoffenheim, tap into her full potential, and pursue her goals. Her focus: settling in well and playing lots of games with her new team. Her next goal: the TSG Hoffenheim U20 team, which currently plays in the Women’s 2nd Bundesliga.

“High level of motivation”

Lothar Potthoff, who also coaches the Steinmühlen women’s soccer team, is both happy and sad to see his center back move on. “We’re losing a good player, but we’re incredibly proud.” He praises Marlene’s strong work ethic, her remarkable determination, and her mental and physical resilience. “You can really feel the strong support she gets from her parents.”

The excellent soccer academy Marlene attended played a big part in her development: “The BG Marburg team and its coach, Pascal Rohpeter, gave me such a warm welcome.” There, she trained three times a week and played with the boys in the Gruppenliga, and last season in the Verbandsliga Nord. “That’s not something to be taken for granted,” Marlene herself says. The family rivalry with her brother Konrad, who plays for TSG Wieseck, is also unusual and very special.

“A stroke of luck for me”

Marlene considers it a stroke of luck that she is currently able to train with Hoffenheim, a club whose women’s first team plays in the 1. Bundesliga. “If I can follow this path all the way to the national team, then I will have achieved my biggest goal.”

The young woman, who is a Bayern fan and greatly admires Joshua Kimmich, is described as “aggressive on the field, but down-to-earth as a person.” Ideal circumstances, one might say—thanks in part to her current Steinmühlen homeroom teacher, Dr. Bernd Schweitzer, a die-hard soccer fan who supports Marlene’s passion wholeheartedly. After all, they understand each other well, since his subject is math—and that, along with sports of course, is Marlene’s favorite subject.

(Angela Heinemann)

10. September 2026

Steinmühle Makes Sports Experiences Possible: 32 Groups Tried Out Various Sports

Collaborations & Partnerships, News, Rowing, Sports & Health, Steinmühle Riding School

“Right before summer break…nothing much is going on at school anyway.” — Anyone who thinks that probably hasn’t experienced Steinmühle yet. No, we don’t overwhelm our students with lots of highly challenging brain teasers anymore. But a little guidance on which sport they might enjoy in the future—that’s definitely possible!

Active Day for Grades 5 through 12

This idea laid the foundation for the two consecutive sports project days. For several years now, they have been a permanent fixture in the annual program at the Steinmühle School & Boarding School. Divided into 32 groups, students in grades 5 through 12 try out different sports. They registered for these in advance, listing their first choice and three additional sports.

“We make a variety of sports experiences possible,” says Marcel Kalb. He is a biology and physical education teacher and also the school’s athletic director at Steinmühle. Since Steinmühle cannot offer all sports on its own, it partners with various clubs. “We rent out the occasional sports facility and also make use of external workshops. This happens in disciplines where we don’t have our own expertise.”

The Stone Mill as a “Sports Mill”

Experience has shown that everyone finds something that piques their curiosity or that the students have always wanted to try.

For example, there were activities in basketball, American football, ballet, golf, handball, fitness, lacrosse, judo, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts (MMA), padel tennis, pickleball, horseback riding, gymnastics, rowing, and dance. Of course, there were also activities in soccer—and, building on that, an opportunity to learn about the role of a soccer referee.

Even the very warm temperatures didn’t bother the vast majority of students. They took the opportunity to try out sports they hadn’t experienced before. So it was another great success for Steinmühle as the “Sports Mill.”

(Angela Heinemann)

30. July 2026

Tips from the MAFEX Team: How Do You Create a Pitch?

Career Guidance, Collaborations & Partnerships, News, Politics, Business & Responsibility

Powi-plus students in grades 9 and 10 recently presented their product ideas to a panel from MAFEX, the startup service at Philipps University of Marburg. – So this is what it feels like when founders and young entrepreneurs present their ideas on TV on “The Lion’s Den”!

The students at Steinmühlen learned that a pitch lasts 2 minutes, is presented from memory, and ends with a clear call to action, a clear message. The time in between should be filled with confident statements that highlight a great product and a competent team. Ultimately, the project should be realistically feasible.

The student groups had 12 minutes to prepare their respective presentations for the team led by MAFEX Executive Director and Professor Dr. Vivien Procher. Although the presentations already sounded quite professional, the groups still received a number of tips from the experts on how to further refine their presentations.

(Heinm)

1. July 2026

A Glimpse into the World of Book Design to Celebrate Lesementor’s Anniversary

Collaborations & Partnerships, News, Politics, Business & Responsibility, Social Engagement

Far from being “just a few strokes” or even a simple entry into a computer: Illustrating a book—especially a children’s book—is a complex undertaking. For 20 years, illustrator Nele Palmtag has been giving various children’s books the right visual style. To mark the 5th anniversary of the nonprofit organization LESEMENTOR, she explained how it all works at the Steinmühle.

“She’s got what it takes,” as they say. After all, her nomination for the 2026 German Youth Literature Prize speaks for itself. “My work involves a lot of engagement with texts,” she reveals. After all, the cover of a children’s book determines whether people will pick it up. In an afternoon workshop, the illustrator taught a group of students the basics of her craft.

The feeling conveyed by the text must come through

Children’s and young adult author Andreas Steinhöfel, who is also a founding member of Lesementor, provides the element that everything must harmonize with. “For me, the key question is: Do I see in the illustration the same emotion that I put into the text?” says the best-selling author.

“The style has to fit the story,” he continues, describing the process from text and drawings to the finished book. Whether that’s the case is a matter of “gut feeling”: The illustration provides a common thread, just on a different level.

Insight into Work Techniques

The harmony between Nele Palmtag’s illustrations and Andreas Steinhöfel’s works has already been documented, reported Björn Gemmer, principal of Steinmühlen School and host of the evening. This harmony is evident, among other places, in Steinhöfel’s children’s novel *Wenn mein Mond deine Sonne wäre* and the children’s book *Durch den Wald*. As part of the Lesementor anniversary celebration, the illustrator and the author took the audience on a journey into the fascinating world of book design. Nele Palmtag provided insight into her concepts and working techniques and explained how she manages to illustrate a book’s text with images while simultaneously creating a work of her own.

“We would have liked to do away with ourselves”

These insightful remarks were a perfect fit for the anniversary celebration, to which Lesementor Chairwoman Inge Maisch had invited guests to the Steinmühle Forum. Nevertheless, the continued existence of the nonprofit organization—which, with 86 mentors, helps children from a total of 16 elementary schools in the district learn to read—fills her with mixed feelings: “We would actually have liked to make ourselves obsolete and wished there were no longer a need for us.” The numbers, however, tell a different story. One in four children at the end of fourth grade cannot read.

Raising our glasses together and toasting the anniversary with everyone present was therefore, even with a few downsides, a joyful occasion: “For many children, we’re the ones who first introduce them to the magic of reading.”

(Angela Heinemann)

25. June 2026

DS 11 presented a captivating theatrical performance titled “Titanic 2.0—A Reconstruction”

Art, Music & Theater, Collaborations & Partnerships, News

The 11th-grade DS class, under the direction of Ines Vielhaben, presented a magnificent performance at the Theater am Schwanhof (Tasch). The ensemble performed the play “Titanic 2.0—A Reconstruction” so authentically that the audience felt not as though they were sitting in front of the stage, but almost as if they were right in the middle of the action themselves. The 45-minute performance was extremely captivating and provided a few goosebump-inducing moments, which were due not only to the play’s title but also, to a large extent, to the actors’ skill.

Praise for Outstanding Teamwork

The performance at the Theater am Schwanhof took place as part of the Central Hesse School Theater Festival, as Ines Vielhaben reported. She was most pleased with the excellent teamwork among the students in the drama course, even in the run-up to the stage performance: “Together, the students found solutions for recasting roles due to illness. Everyone took responsibility for the props and all the stage equipment.”
The larger stage, Ines Vielhaben continued, was obviously a great challenge, and it was worth enriching the play with two additional scenes so that the versatility of the actors and actresses could be showcased even more.

It will be interesting to see what the audience will get to see during the Q phase.

(Heinm)

21. May 2026

Positive human experiences pushed the unfamiliar into the background

Collaborations & Partnerships, Languages & International Affairs, News, Politics, Business & Responsibility, Social Engagement, Steinmühle on the Road

This was the third time that students from Steinmühle visited One World Secondary School Kilimanjaro, their partner school in Tanzania. Over the course of seven long weeks, four tenth-graders had the opportunity to explore: What matches up with the stories of those who’ve already been there? What do I learn that’s different? And what might be new?

Mattis, Miklas, Timon, and Felix returned to the Steinmühle with somewhat differing impressions.

“My expectations were zero,” recalls Miklas, who wasn’t very enthusiastic about his first meal of rice flour and water, but was impressed by the surroundings in a broader sense. “The immediate surroundings took some getting used to,” he recalls of the simple living conditions at school. On the other hand, he fondly remembers the “beautiful natural surroundings.”

Exuding Contentment

“The people there are much happier,” Mattis says, reflecting on his impressions. He still vividly remembers the many smiling faces. He also made friends in Tanzania. In his view, limiting cell phone use to one, or at most two, hours led to a general sense of relaxation.

The mattresses made a lasting impression on Timon. But that term isn’t quite accurate, since the base of the sleeping pad was actually made of insulation material. “You get used to it,” he says with a wink—and that was probably true of many things. Positive experiences on a human level tended to push the lack of comfort and unfamiliar circumstances into the background.

Traveling with a Companion

For the first 10 days of the seven-week program, boarding school counselor Julia Ploch remained in Tanzania to support the students. Three eleventh-graders from Steinmühle even stayed with the group for the first three weeks. The rest of the time, the four students spent time among themselves—alongside the other students at One World Secondary School, integrated into their daily routine of classes, as well as sports and leisure activities.

To the Beach and on a Safari

Felix, the fourth member of the group, was a bit put off by the somewhat dirty, bustling metropolis of Dar es Salaam, but—like his classmates—was “rewarded” with a safari or a trip to the beach at Bagamoyo, located a little further north.

Would he fly back to Tanzania? Unlike at least two of his classmates, he’s a bit hesitant about that.

Be that as it may, no one can take away from him the experience of having once learned the difference between life in Central Europe and life in East Africa.

(Angela Heinemann)

13. May 2026

From Poetry to Slam: A Treasure Waiting to Be Uncovered

Art, Music & Theater, Collaborations & Partnerships, Contests & Awards, News, Politics, Business & Responsibility, Talent Development

Literary talents from Steinmühle met with the well-known author and spoken-word artist Leah Weigand to prepare for the 1st Marburg School Slam. It is a treasure waiting to be unearthed: the ability to transform one’s own thoughts and experiences into artistic words and to inspire others with them. This goal united the 11th-grade students who met with Leah Weigand at Steinmühle on May 8 to write—in a way that was quite different from how they usually have to write in school.

“Respect the poet”

In a pleasantly relaxed and highly motivating atmosphere, the participants gained valuable inspiration through various creative writing exercises. The result was a range of texts, both short and long—sometimes funny, sometimes mundane, occasionally philosophical, thought-provoking, and poetically striking—all guided by the event’s theme: “Respect the poet,” and captured on camera by Björn Wagner.

How It All Began

It all started at the poetry slam at KFZ last December. Class 11a attended the event, was very impressed by the artists there, and our colleague Björn Wagner—who also performs as a slammer in his free time—put us in touch with Leah Weigand, who hosted the slam at the KFZ, who is also a bestselling author and a sought-after slam poet in her own right.

Cross-School Collaboration

The desire to nurture not only scientific but also artistic and literary talents at Steinmühle has long been a priority, and now the opportunity has arisen to bring a professional woman to our school. But that’s not all. When discussing how to finance this project with the Hessian Innovation and Advisory Network for the Promotion of Gifted Students (HIBB), the idea arose to establish a cross-school collaboration.

The project’s highlight on June 10

We were able to recruit a teacher from the Elisabethschule and a teacher from the Philippinum, who also offered poetry workshops at their respective schools. The highlight of this project so far is scheduled to take place on June 10 at 7 p.m., when students from all three schools will compete in a literary contest at the Forum der Steinmühle and celebrate the 1st Marburg School Slam, moderated by Leah Weigand.

We’re really looking forward to it and say: Don’t miss it! Mark your calendars.

(Kristina Sokoli)

11. May 2026

An sweetgum tree in front of the riding school at the Steinmühle boarding school

Collaborations & Partnerships, Ecology and Sustainability, News, Steinmühle Riding School

An sweetgum tree was planted on the grounds of Steinmühle to mark “Arbor Day.” The project was carried out by Balzer Garten- und Landschaftsbau, a landscaping company based in Buchenau. The tree stands at the entrance to the riding school at the Steinmühle School & Boarding School and is intended to serve as a long-term, visible symbol of sustainability and environmental awareness.

Strengthen environmental education, promote climate awareness

The planting initiative was supported by the Hesse-Thuringia Association of Garden, Landscape, and Sports Field Contractors. The goal of the initiative is to strengthen environmental education and further promote awareness of nature and climate issues.

Among those present at the planting were State Parliament Representative Dirk Bamberger (CDU), school principal Björn Gemmer, and Frank Balzer, managing director of Balzer Garten- und Landschaftsbau. Students from the gardening club also took part in the event. It was a new experience for them: instead of working in the greenhouse as they usually do, they were able to participate in a large-scale tree-planting project for the first time.

In the future, the young people will also take responsibility for the tree. As tree sponsors, they will monitor its growth and continue to actively support nature and the environment.

Beautiful fall colors

The sweetgum tree, which can grow up to 20 meters tall, is an impressive tree for both solitary and group plantings thanks to its fall colors. The play of colors in its foliage is striking and beautiful to behold. However, according to the specialist firm Balzer, the sweetgum must be watered diligently at first to thrive.

(Heinm)

2. May 2026