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German Roots Trip 2003 - Contents

SEEKING OUR GERMAN ROOTS

Chapter III    
May 16 - 20, 2003

MECKLENBURG
Von Pressentin Family History - Wamckow

Saturday, May 17 - Wamckow & Vicinity

A very nice breakfast was served to just us in the hotel dining room. A pleasant young woman from the village apparently was hired on a temporary basis to serve such stray guests as ourselves. We got the usual breads, cheese and lunchmeat tray, juice, coffee, and jams. Our soft-boiled eggs came to us in an insulated egg cup, to keep them at just the right temperature. I put this on our list of things we should take back home, but we never saw them again. Probably just as well--the suitcases seemed to get heavier even though we kept jettisoning background information as we moved from one part of Germany to another.

We had been looking for a good place to photograph authentic Holstein cattle in Schleswig-Holstein, but finally had our best shot of them right here in Mecklenburg in a field adjoining the Meditek center.

Today we would be on our own, until Friedrich-Franz and Chris came back from Güstrow late in the day. They too, would stay at our hotel tonight and the arrangement was that we would have dinner with them at the Landhotel this evening.

The Meditek manager appeared to also be the breakfast cook. We had a chance to visit with him during our breakfast and through a little questioning we learned a bit more about just what is going on at this hotel/training center. Meditek sells a device used for deep-muscle therapy which they will be marketing to chiropractors and other medical professionals. Apparently this former hotel will be used to house and feed the sales trainees who will come here from all over Germany. They had one room set up for demonstrating their equipment. The manager/cook offered us a tour of the facility and then a free demonstration massage--which Karen took him up on. She got only a little trial massage on her back, but declared she would be more than happy to come back and serve as their guinea pig. She said the massage great.

Well fed and massaged, we set out with binoculars, cameras, monopod, umbrella, detailed map of this area and other assorted "day trip" items to explore western Mecklenburg. We had with us Karen’s translations describing the various estates and manor houses once belonging to the family. In addition, Friedrich-Franz advised us on some of the nearby towns where we would find evidence of the von Pressentins. And Chris Wallis prepared a very helpful guide to the main sites related to the von Pressentins, including Prestin, Sternberg, Daschow, Kuppentin, and the significant Mecklenburg abbeys, including Dobbertin, near Sternberg.

Early morning clouds burned away and it was a lovely May day--perfect for a leisurely drive on the tree-lined country lanes that run between the little villages. Everywhere, we saw the brilliant yellow-gold of the Rapeseed fields. The narrow lanes followed old cart roads; we were told that the trees were planted by carters hauling fish from the Baltic, to shade their cargo and keep it in marketable condition.

Our first stop for the day would be Wamckow, the village just north of Prestin. In the days of the nobility, Prestin and Wamkow were adjoining estates and there was much linking of these lands by marriage. Driving toward Wamckow, we saw several big tractors mowing hayfields--they were the familiar green John Deere brand.

Wamckow was a pretty little village, and appeared more prosperous than Prestin. Our goal was to walk through the church yard cemetery, as the information from the von Pressentin history books said we would find the name "von Pressentin" on graves--and we did.

On one side of the church was the village’s stork nest. And Mrs. Stork was busily tossing unwanted debris out of her huge pile of sticks. The village gave the storks a tall, sturdy brick tower as a platform for their nest. Karen says the storks go to Africa for the winter, but return to northern Germany to rear their babies. It is considered very good luck to have storks in your village. Poor Wessin--they are very troubled about their storks. The old nest was built up in a tree, and it blew down in a storm last winter. The village put up a pole and platform for the birds, but so far, only Mr. Stork is sticking around and they are worried that he too, will soon leave unless Mrs. Stork shows up.

The opposite side of the Wamckow church is bordered by a HUGE 400-cow dairy operation. We saw both black and white, and red and white dairy cows lounging in the barn yard. A local gentleman was in the church cemetery, tending some graves and when we told him we were looking for von Pressentin grave markers he directed us right to them. We asked him about the big dairy and he replied, "Oh that’s just one of Herr Reitmann’s hobby farms." A mighty big dairy for a hobby, we thought.

Then he said, "Have you seen Herr Reitmann’s new manor house?" No, we hadn’t, but he pointed it out, right behind the church. The gentleman said that Reitmann paid 9 million Euros for the village, its surrounding lands and the existing manor house. Mr. Reitmann tore down the old manor house and has built a magnificent new one, complete with imposing long driveway.

We became curious about this gentleman who considers a large dairy a "hobby." In questioning Friedrich-Franz and others, we learned that Herr Reitmann is a wealthy man from western Germany. He has no family ties to Mecklenburg, but after reunification of west and east Germany, he saw the opportunity to invest in the area before many others did. And invest he did! He has bought at least four entire villages (former collective farms under the GDR), including Prestin, Stieten, Wessin and Wamckow. Besides his "hobby" dairy, he is introducing mechanized farming which is more productive, but needs less workers. (Those John Deere tractors we saw belong to Herr Reitmann.) And, he also owns a big garbage and recycling company. We saw his name on almost every garbage dumpster in the area. Besides his magnificent manor house, we saw other modest new homes going up in Wamckow, so he is certainly bringing some industry and work to the area.

At the time of reunification, the east Germans gained access to family and friends in the West, but they appear to have lost jobs, security and their feeling of being part of a community when the collective farms were broken up and sold off. First, the value of their East German marks was cut in half. Next, the banks were reluctant to offer them credit to buy up the former collective farms and businesses, such as the Landhotel in Wessin. With no work and little money, their young people are now heading to west Germany where the jobs are. The older generation is probably living mostly on government welfare. Trying to play "catch up" with western Germany after more than 45 years of life in a communist society is not easy. We felt a great deal of sympathy for the ordinary people of Mecklenburg. They were friendly, helpful, and eager to talk about the adjustments going on in their lives.

Karen brought along some background history on Mecklenburg and it would appear that life for the common Mecklenburger has always been hard. Serfdom was the way of life for them until the 1830’s. When they were serfs, the landowners had an obligation to care for "their" serfs, but once freed, they became migrant workers, wandering about with no one to look after them. A series of crop failures in the 1830’s and 1840’s only added to the general misery. I could hear echoes from John Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath" as we read this portion of German history. Apparently Mecklenburg accounted for much of the great emigration to North and South America, and with living conditions so desperate, it is easy to understand their willingness to take a chance in a new land.

Our particular branch of the von Pressentins appear to have been professional soldiers or foresters, rather than lords of the manor, for at least several generations back. The founder of the "North American line" was Bernhard v. Pressentin. He was the second son in his family, and studied forestry management, then worked as a gamekeeper in Mecklenburg and in 1847 went to Pommerania (now part of Poland) where he acquired several properties. All of Bernhard and Emilie (Braun) von Pressentin's children were born in the village of "Hölkewiese" Information and pictures of Hölkewiese (in German) can be seen at the website "Hölkeweise, ein dorf in Hinterpommern."

While probably not suffering as the former serfs did, a severe depression in Germany made it difficult for Bernhard to keep his property and it was finally sold at auction in 1862. In 1868, Bernhard’s second son (and my great-grandfather, Karl v. Pressentin), left Germany, coming to "Amerika" via Quebec. Karl worked in the logging industry in Michigan, and by 1873 the rest of his family had followed him. Only one daughter, Agnes, chose to remain in Germany. The parents and their other daughter settled on the Ohio River in West Virginia, where they had small stores. Their sons all eventually moved to the West, most taking up homesteads in Washington Territory although one bought a farm in Kalispell, Montana. To the best of my knowledge, all von Pressentin relatives now living in the United States are direct descendants of Bernhard and Emilie.

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