Klaus' ancestry is an old German family; the first
time they were mentioned in a document was in the
year 940. For having been around so long, they've
accomplished relatively little, however.Mostly
they were local Junkers and landowners in various
part of the country.
When I grew up in post-war Berlin, the
Prussian warrior cast was not held in high
esteem, and I never developed much of an interest
in the family history.
Beate pointed out, though, that many of them did
raise horses (see the family coat-of-arms), so
maybe it was in the blood after all...
My
closest living relative is my sister, Renate. We also have some
pictures of my parents.
After the wall came down, we went to a town east of Berlin,
where some of our family had lived for hundreds of years before
the war. The local minister had kept all the old church records.
He pulled out one of the books from 1804, and showed us how
frequently the family was mentioned.
