We are the DDB: The Lette Verein Berlin
The LETTE VEREIN BERLIN (Lette Association Berlin) is a foundation under public law and bears the term “association” merely in its name. At its prominent location at Viktoria-Luise-Platz in Schöneberg the LETTE VEREIN sees itself as an educational/training centre for professions which enable young people to establish a solid basis for their lives. It was founded in 1866 by the Berlin social politician Wilhelm Adolf Lette, together with 300 co-founders, as an “association to promote the employment of the female sex”. Today men are also trained here. At the moment women make up 63% of the trainees. The school building at Viktoria-Luise-Platz in Berlin-Schöneberg, built by the star architect Alfred Messel, is a visible sign of fulfilling this task to this day.
Lette is everywhere
Today Lette graduates in nutrition and logistics can be found in Berlin’s star hotels; the medical laboratory assistants (MTAs) for laboratories and radiology work in many clinics and laboratories. And when you are given advice from behind the counter of a pharmacy, in most cases this person has completed his/her training as a pharmaceutical technical assistant (PTA) in the Lette Verein.
For 100 years now the chemical-biological laboratory assistants ensure that the laboratories of the universities and the important technological companies in this city are equipped with excellent skilled employees. For more than 110 years metallographers from the Lette Verein ensure the safety of materials in the testing departments of the German automotive industry or make sure that the correct material is used in building a bridge.
One of the most famous Lette graphic designer graduates is Nils Brandt who is considered to be the initiator of the “We kehr for you” campaign of the BSR (Berlin City Cleaning Company). (“kehr” = “sweep”, but the German word is also pronounced like the English word “care” to evoke the association here – translator’s note) Famous graduates in the training area of photography include Olaf Heine, Martin Schoeller and Juliane Werner. No journalist can ignore the fashion designers from the Lette Verein. The most famous names here are Kostas Murkudis, Nanna Kuckuck or Christian Kratzert, whose label “Kratzert & Pahnke” was responsible for the men’s clothes in Hollywood productions such as “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, “The Reader” or “Bridge of Spies” and most recently for the Tom Tykwer series “Babylon Berlin”.
The training course Media Computer Science “Interactive Animation” is one of the newest training courses in the Lette Verein. But it has already developed digital tools within the scope of the training, in cooperation with the Foundation City Museum, which have increased the attractiveness of the exhibition “Berlin – City of Women” on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Lette Verein.
Facing the Future together
It is a particular concern to provide young people who have an intermediate secondary school-leaving qualification or a vocational qualification (MSA) with good, precise training in the skilled crafts sector and in doing so making it possible for them to create a solid basis for a fulfilling professional life. Many of them use the vocational training in the Lette Verein to attain their vocational technical diploma or to prepare themselves for subsequent studies. Likewise, some also come to us today who have already begun an academic course of study but for whom this is too theoretical. They can do practical work in the Lette Verein under the supervision of instructors who, in addition to this activity, still work professionally and can thus incorporate the latest developments into their training plan from different perspectives. All training areas will also continue to be linked in an interdisciplinary way in future, for this offers the opportunity to develop new ideas. It is only this mixture which has made it possible for a profession such as that of an X-ray nurse or a female metallographer to be invented in the LETTE VEREIN BERLIN.
Overview of training programmes on offer:
Two and three-year vocational training with the opportunity to attain a vocational technical diploma:
Chemistry-Biology*
Nutrition and Logistics
Photography
Graphic Design
Media Computer Science*
Metallography*
Fashion Design
MTA-Laboratory
MTA-Radiology
PTA
To all objects of the Lette Verein in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek