A Quick History Lesson

Our Inception:

Did you know that Waukesha County has a “sister county” in Germany called Offenbach? In 2006 the acting Mayor of the time here in Oconomowoc, Maury Sullivan, visited a city called Dietzenbach in hopes of forming a Sister City Alliance with Oconomowoc. In 2007 a group from Dietzenbach traveled here to Wisconsin and the potential relationship was further explored. The Sister City Partnership was formally established on December 9th, 2008 when a formal delegation from Oconomowoc returned to Dietzenbach.

The purpose of the Dietzenbach-Oconomowoc Sister City Partnership was to deepen our friendship, establish closer ties between our people, further our mutual interests in education, culture, tourism, economic development and government. It is in that spirit that we have created this event, taking a sampling of the flavor that is Dietzenbach, Germany and adding it to our quiet lake community 4300 miles away.

Many of the Oconomowoc delegation who had visited Dietzenbach had wished that their Christkindl (Christ-child) Markets could be recreated here in Oconomowoc. The City helped allocate initial funds to build six retail huts styled after the ones in Dietzenbach. Several people who went on those initial trips to Dietzenbach continued to rally the city for a steering committee to be formed. The formal GCM was founded by Craig Pruscha who steered the ship in its first few years and placed the foundation.  Kudos also go to Steve Olson and his team of staff and students at the OHS Trades Program who built every hut GCM uses. Without them this would have just been a bunch of tents.