However, the stories of the founders of the Harmonie German Club are as much about their adopted city as the country they left behind.

Friedhelm Lupke arrived in Canberra the year the club building opened, 1964, and said it played an essential part in the lives of the emigrant community.

"It really was a home away from home," Mr Lupke said.

"There was nothing else, we weren't welcome in the RSL [clubs].

"Most of us couldn't speak English."

Even before its musical heyday, when AC/DC, Cold Chisel and John Farnham rocked until late, the Narrabundah club was a hub for entertainment, 87-year-old Ursula Voege said.

"We had a lot of masquerades and costume balls ... virtually every Friday night and often Saturdays there was a band here," she said.

"I once dressed as a cave girl - an Amazon girl."

Many skilled German tradesmen received foundation membership by building the club itself.

Klaus Scharrer, 87, was one of the 150 Jennings Germans brought out to Australia in 1951-52 to build houses for the rapid public servant-led growth of the national capital.

Mr Scharrer - conscripted into the German army in the final months of the war, never to fire a shot - used his joinery skills to build the original frame for the front door.

"We used to come to dances, the anniversary balls, Christmas and New Year's Eve," he said.

The day this reporter visited and sampled some Knackwurst sausages, the men of Mr Scharrer's generation had cards rather than dancing in mind, with Skat the preferred pastime.

New club president Kevin Bramboeck said the venue, rebuilt in 1974 with three separate spaces for music, remained a popular entertainment venue, with up to 200 guests attending some gigs.

"There's more music societies looking to make this their home, because its got a phenomenal reputation with the musos out there as a great place to play," he said.

On the annual Oktoberfest weekend, the club becomes the city's home of big drinking and eating, attracting crowds of 9000 people in recent years.

"We went through 170 kegs of beer last year, one tonne of pork knuckle and one tonne of sausages," Mr Bramboeck said.

Mr Bramboeck was elected president in November after leadership disputes which extended to court action, but said the discord and related issues about late filing of records had been resolved.

Arriving in Canberra with his parents in 1967, Mr Bramboeck said times were now tougher for cultural clubs, with surpluses smaller than five years ago, but that the club would remain viable in the years ahead.

He said there were about 2600 members of the reasonably priced club, with an estimated 1500 active.

A veteran club supporter said there were 1500 members in the halcyon days in the mid-to-late 1970s.

The Harmonie German Club will hold its smallgoods market day between 9am and 2pm on Sunday, March 8.