Particularly invaluable was the support of my son Sascha and my daughter Sassia. I am very grateful and thankful to my wife Sigi for her unrelenting patience and enduring help, her constructive critique and advice.
After all and in conclusion, a never ending gratefulness to my parents and the parental home at the Hollenberg Street 5, (49492) Westerkappeln, Westphalia, Germany, is going to be with me until the end of my days.
Fripp Island, South Carolina – USA
Wald-Michelbach ---- Germany
Heinz Niederste-Hollenberg
PS/ --Errors and mistakes in wording and grammar should be excused with grace and lenity.
Another note-worthy remark: All of the following is not only meant to be a summary of family affairs, it is also, in part, a way of taking position on historical and present day political matters.
As such, I am particularly concerned about “Our Situation” in general, i.e. our relation across the Atlantic:
The European-American Relations.
“The Western World” (the old classical Occident), and that is Europe and America, is being challenged politically, strategically, economically, and even in the long run, militarily.
These challenges come, for different reasons, from different directions and different power centers, and they are aiming at the very basic foundation of our society:
• Our culture
• Our understanding of liberty and freedom
• Our religion
• Our democracy and free-market economy
• The common basis of our “Mediterranean Logic”
All our commonalities on both sides of the Atlantic (85%) make present day differences (15%) look minor, if we realize that our platform is not shared by anyone else in other parts of the world. We are one part of the same.
Europe is still busy with its own fate and needs time to find its own identity.
Americas’ power, on the other hand, is not without limitations.
Both need each other, and less resentment on one side and less political arrogance on the other is needed.
Our commonalities go way beyond the elements of consanguinity and culture. In particular included is the “Medi-terranean Logic”, which originated in the Jewish-Christian source of our religion in the Middle-East, then moved via Greece and Rome to the Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe, all the way into the 20th century with the tremendous sacrifice America made to help form a unified, peace-loving, democratic Europe.
Although, it all started out as a family story, and the history of an old farm in Germany, it now turned out to be much more than that: It is a reflection on a life between Europe and America, and a review of events in politics and society across the Atlantic over a span of a life time.
I am convinced: Both, Europe and America, need each other in view of the challenges ahead. Let us put together our assets and our strengths!
Together, we can face all challenges.
This Is The Place
The People
The Location
The
Great Hollenberg Saga
From the roots of the family farm, spreading, multiplying,
and branching-off to modern day transatlantic life.
This Caused it All
The documentation of old Church archives from the Bishopric of Osnabrück
covering the period of 772 A.D. to 1200 A.D. including the area of Tecklenburg:
Our place, Our Land, Home for Generations of Hollenbergs working the Soil.
Where many others were stampeding the ground for 1000 years and more, like:
• misc. Germanic tribes
• the Romans
• the Saxons
• the Franks (Franconians)
• other European strangers.
Our place: That is the parental home of two boys --- Erich and Heinz ---. Erich, the younger and now the owner, while Heinz, the older moved on becoming a world-citizen with emotional ties to the territory and its people and across the Atlantic.
Our place: That is a location along the hills of the “Teutoburger Wald” (a forest) separating the heartland of the current province of Westphalia in the south (“Münsterland”) from the low plains in North-Germany. A region still very peaceful and rural with fine, old farmhouses a largely unspoiled landscape of forests and fertile farm land as well as marsh and heath.
And last, but not least, plenty of footprints of history, from prehistoric graves and early settlements and many signs of civilization throughout time. Around 800 B.C. iron began to replace copper; and later great tribal move-ments took place from north to south, with the Goth, the Cimbri, the Teutons, and the Vandals, while the Romans were pushing north.
Where It All Began
The only reliable written testimonies from this period were made available by Roman writers like Tacitus. In his book “Germania”, he covers land and people of our area, specifically the Varus battle at 9 AD, which happened to occur only a few miles away.
Our part of our history began with a little note in an old history book, a document written in Latin and found in the State Record Office of Lower-Saxony. The particular details were issued by Bishop Philipp of Osnabrück on 14th, April, 1146 A.D. as shown below:
(fig.: #1)
(fig.: #2)
Translation of fig. # 2 from Latin into German
All official dealings of the time were negotiated and recorded in Latin, since the local population spoke only an old “Low-German” idiom, which turned later into a Low-German “Plattdeutsch”.
Written documents of Germanic tribes of that time are rarely available with only very few examples, like the EDDA story of the North-Germanic “Vikings”. Thus, using my own knowledge of Latin with some third party corrections, I am giving a translation of the most relevant sections of the resolution from April 14 of the year 1146 A.D.
Translation from Latin of Documents of the
Office of the Bishop of Osnabrück Issued on April 14-th
of the Year 1146 A.D.
This