Official Federation of Magical Creatures (BAfMW)

bundesamtThe Federal Office for Magical Creatures (FOMC), located in Bonn Germany, is the supreme institution for magical, mythical and fantastic creatures. Among its responsibilities are your friendly neighborhood vampire, the political gremlin, the mythos surrounding the (non-)existence of Bielefeld and also the unexplainable.”

Thus does the Bundesamt für magische Wesen welcome its visitors to it’s website. (English translation)

I was immediately enthralled with this entity the moment I heard about it’s existence! How wondrous to think that instead of sweeping the ‘unexplainable’ creatures under the carpet, locking them in dark theaters, encasing them only in the binding of book covers, or imprisoning them inside the screens of our televisions and computers, an entire country (Germany) has actually given them an official place in Parliament with office building and phantom departments for which they and their owners hold responsibilities!

And I must say I am honored to be the first American associated with this ministry!

As far as the founder, the legendary “Edmund F. Dräcker is a descendant of Huguenot immigrants, and has worked as diplomat with special missions in the Near East and on the Indian continent. He comes from an East-Prussian pastor‘s family. His father was the pastor Gotthilf Dräcker, his mother a born Countess von Stoltze-Ohnezaster. Actually, Edmund F. Dräcker has been retired since 1953, but his urge to serve the Federal Republic of Germany cannot be stopped.”

young orc
The young orc from Mordor.

The president of the Federation has become quite reknown. In fact, the staff in Bonn was quite surprised when the young Orc from Mordor, Kenny by name, came to the Bureau with Mr- Dräcker’s biography. It was obvious Kenny wants to become a diplomat.His name-dropping skills are impressive!

With such important personnel such as the elusive Mr. Dräcker and others that work hard at their commitment keeping magical creatures at bay, clean and well cared for, we in the fantasy world owe our gratitude.

One of the members of the Federation, Saroise O’Mara says this about her work at the office

“Work for the Federation isn’t always easy (try catching an angry dragon that grew too big for its owner’s garden), but it’s an interesting job (hey, dragons! Do I need to say any more?), and someone has to Burroughsdo it anyway, right? I mean, we can’t have dragons, vampires, angels, demons, and all the other magical creatures running around uncontrolled. There are serious issues to be considered, like the questions about whether or not dragons can be kept as pets, where vampires may get their blood from, how angels and demons have to behave in public, what kind of magic and curses witches can do in their rented apartments (and where they can gather for the other rituals)…. I personally work in and around Berlin and Brandenburg. My little dragon Miro (who’s small enough to be kept as a pet, just don’t tell him I just called him a pet, please) is with me most of the time, much to the delight of the people I meet (especially children). On the other hand, we have to keep our fruit and sweets safely out of his reach in our office in Berlin whenever he’s around since he loves sweet stuff and is pretty sneaky if he wants to. We’re also working hard on our campaigns to inform the public (can you believe that many of them still don’t know that magical creatures actually exist?), and a division of our Federation is visiting several fairs this year, with info materials about the various kinds of creatures. Miro, my little dragon, is too curious for his own good and snoops around in the offices, getting into trouble with other magical creatures, and I sometimes catch him sleeping on top of the coffee machine.” – Saoirse…”

I haven’t met our president yet. The Federation is working pretty smoothly, so he seems to be doing a good job. It would be nice to locate him and set up an interview, however he’s somewhat shy. Some say he hides in the closet and only comes into view certain times of year. Other say he hides in the basement. I’m not sure who to believe. Perhaps there’s a closet in the basement.

The FOMC oversees many departments. In the children’s and Adolescent’s Magical World’s department we find such notable authors as Carola Kickers.

Says Carola,

When Hagen Ulrich, founder of the F.O.M.C., first told me about his idea I didn´t image how this could work. But it did! Meanwhile, our office is growing from day to day and more and more fantasy authors are joining us. The press is writing articles about our “official” work and we are participating in events and conventions all over Germany and Austria with our own booth. It was a “fantastic” idea and I´m glad being part of it!

hagen ulrich
Klaus Maresch, Bonn photo Hagen Ulrich

For those wanting to know more, the Federation for Magical Creatures headquarters is in Bonn, Germany, where our mastermind Hagen Ulrich lives and works. The members of our Federation live all over Germany (and a few even abroad). It started out as a group of German-writing fantasy authors but we’re opening up our group for international writers too now, and are in process of translating our website into different languages at this point. In addition to the website, you can find them chatting about their charges on Facebook.

 

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