• To learn about the achievements of our ancestors, as well as their
grievances and struggles.
• To prepare us and our children for the challenges of the future.
• To improve the relationships of our people across the Atlantic.
• To the place of “Origin” of the Hollenberg Saga.
• To the beginning of an old and long story, yet unfinished.
Introduction and Acknowledgement
Having reached retirement in 1996, I channelled my ardent interest in history and politics into the investigation of the past of our family and historical events in the area in order to better understand the correlations of the land and the people, their lifestyle and tradition.
The fact, however, that I did spent considerable periods of my life on both sides of the Atlantic proved to be most helpful in the pursuit of this project.
In writing this story, I dug through old papers, faded pictures, historical data that were available in miscellaneous archives, and beyond all of it, the many memories of my childhood at the parental home, the old Hollenberg estate.
To my surprise, I found old documents, which gave me the opportunity to take a glance at the lives of our ancestors, of many generations which carried our name through at least eleven centuries in time of despair as well as in moments of glory.
However, this book should beyond the very personal and private element also help to give an insight to details and developments of our common past on both sides of the Atlantic.
Let’s confront us with our history and determine whence we came from.
The prime emphasis in this edition is the migration of people across the Atlantic, their reasons and their getting along. I have taken some effort throughout this book to explain certain historical facts about their “Why”, the“Why”of those who decided to take their life into their own hands.
Instead of starting with the macro picture, I used the micro approach: The basis were many data of several dozen of families gathered and analyzed over years from their familiar historical background in order to find a very personal answer to their “why” --- whatever the circunstances might have been. This question”why”, however, has many answers necessitating some specific explanations of a few historical developments in the early centuries of the Middle-Ages, like:
--- The “tithe” and the consequences thereof, first issued by Charlemagne around 782 A.D.
at the Imperial Diet near Lippspringe, Saxony, in his attempt to Christianize the territory under his control, after he had subdued the Saxons in a 30 year long struggle.In one of the 14 laws of the “Capitulatio departibus Saxonae”, he declares that
every parish is to receive 2 “Hufe” (approx. 50 acres) of land, plus the services of farm hands and maids and the tenth (tithe) of any income.
--- The “feudalism” that followed and what nobility and clergy later did with those initial
rulings. Feudalism came from Italy, and then started first when the Merovingian and Franconian king paid their generals and administrators with grands of land. Soon it became hereditary and (semi-)independent. Feudalism developed then to total economic subjection and military allegiance of a man to a superior. Over time it had in parts of central Europe hundreds of variations in material volume and human/personal severity.
--- The conflict between Crown and Clergy and what came of it, lasting till modern times.
--- And within that framework the suffering and endurance of living creatures throughout the following centuries.
Every visit at the family estate there reminded me of what did it take throughout those 1000 years to stick together, to struggle and to survive: It was just that kind of family glue that held together pieces of my life as well, to help me find my own way. The parents Mama Alwine and Papa Wilhelm did and brother Erich and his wife Christa still keep the family bonds alive to this day.
I will never forget my parents’ final farewell when I migrated to the United States: “Son, whatever happens, never forget where your home is, and that’s where you always can come back to”.
Even now, when driving down the “Hollenberg Straße” towards those old, big oak-trees, I am again the young boy at the place where I grew up and where I was allowed to be a child. A place full of liberality (not to be mistaken with the modern US-version of liberalism!) and permissiveness coupled with strictness and discipline and lots of family – often kinship. A place where I could count the clouds in the sky from under the huge oak trees lying under the biggest of them and where one could dream about the world, the future and what it might hold for me, for all of us.
There I learned riding the bike, played soccer with brother Erich and the boys from the neighbourhood.
There was PAPA, our father, the thraight-forward, always responsible chacacter, and MAMA, the “woman of love”.
Then on-going, there came the educational/schooling part of those years at the Gymnasium in Tecklenburg and at the University of Hannover.
That’s what childhood is all about!
This kind of childhood with its accompanying environment has in the German language only one word:
--- Heimat ---
As life has gone by, and now with an opportunity to look back, I am grateful to my first wife Edda, who passed away too early in 1990, the caring and loving mother of our children Sassia and Sascha.
Sassia lives in Kentucky, near Lexington, with her partner Rick Wilke, while Sascha lives in Wald-Michelbach with his wife Kathy and is working for a US based corporation in the IT business.
A few years later, my present wife Sigi, partner and companion, helped heal the wounds and dispel the sorrows, and she has given me comfort and love ever since. Without her support, there would be great darkness.
Her son Uwe is working near Heidelberg with the software Company SAP, and her daughter Petra, who is married to Peter Zuber. They returned some time ago with their two girls, Jule and Svea, our only grandchildren, to Germany, after having lived and worked for over 15 years in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Several years of research were needed, including the familiarisation with the old German letters and their symbols, plus the editing of texts and pictures to complete this account.
The translation of the old Latin documents might be a bit amateurish considering my engineering education, but, nevertheless, it should reflect the intentions and decisions of the superiors of the Church around 1146 AD in the land of the Saxons.
The book, after all, is very much addressing all the genealogically interested and related folks, their offspring and friends who left Europe for America centuries ago for freedom, a better life or for many other personal reasons. All of them carry the historical burden of being more or less tied to the Hollenberg name.
The immigration waves from Europe to America defined and determined in a dramatic way the historical bonds across the Atlantic with noticeable contributions by the miscellaneous genealogical tables of the “Old Hollenberg Families”.
These particulars cover several hundred years of marriages, name changes, new blood lines, off-springs, emigrations etc., with plenty of inspiration to take those data as a starting point for new personal genealogical endeavours.
The direct name-bearer of those many immigrants is relatively easy to trace. Others, with different names by marriage or otherwise, are much more cumbersome. The many personal details presented provide plenty of reasons to interconnect with all of the Hollenbergs, and can, at the same time, also be a starting point for further research in the “book of ancestors”.
In reviewing the details of the family tree, the reader is going to find, besides the two Hollenberg strings of Niederste-Hollenberg and Oberste-Hollenberg,