German-speakers in Australia since 1605
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The Immanuel Lutheran Church at Point Pass, South Australia.
Photo source: Nounscrap, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
ABC TV News reported on 13/04/2026 that old handwritten sheets of sacred church songs in German had been discovered in 2025 in an old chest at the Immanuel Lutheran Church at Point Pass in the Mid-North of South Australia. A special performance of these songs by the Tanunda Liedertafel (male choir) was held at the church in April 2026 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of this Point Pass church.
The leader of the Liedertafel, Matthew Falland, said: “There’s sort of a joy to hearing music that’s seldom sung, lovely old arrangements in the traditional language. That connection between past and present that’s still in a place like Point Pass.”
101-year-old Gordon Schutz told how he was confirmed in a German-language service along with 13 other young people on the 18th September 1938 in the Point Pass Immanuel Lutheran Church. The wooden interior wall of the organ loft in the church is decorated (as is the case in some Lutheran churches in the Barossa Valley) with inscriptions of quotes from the Bible in German.
You can read (with photos and video) the ABC News report.