I got an email from my sister this evening; she asks if we're related to
this particular Luftwaffe ace:
That fellow is a big
World War II ace (until he was shot down in 1944), and I've been wondering the
same thing myself for a few years now:
[I give her some links to online pages detailing his record – 65 kills,
all at night – and showing more photos of him and his plane of choice, then
continued:]
I say the time and
place of his birth are right (Hamburg, 1919) to make him at least a cousin of
Opa's. But Felix von Schroeder, who (besides being our family historian) was a
cousin of Opa's (his grandmother was the sister of Dad's grandfather, Opa's
dad), says differently in his book. He puts our earliest documented origins in
east Germany, around Dresden, Leipzig, and points further south and east. He
says:
"A previously assumed connection with the Hamburg
family of the (baronial) Schildts does not hold up. Further lists were compiled
by us, [laying
out] as well the
branches of the Hamburg Schildts who came out of Saxony… in the seventeenth
century, showing the important civil-service Schildts, but for reasons of space
are not also published here."
(I'd love to see
those lists and notes!) The copy of von
Schroeder's book I have in front of me is Oma's (Bro 2 has Dad's). Oma
underlined those particular words of von Schroeder's in that book, and also
jotted this down on a slip of paper still in the book (it's definitely her
handwriting):
"On page 295, he writes: 'we have compiled lists of the branches of the
Hamburg-Schildts who originated in Saxony, who had come due to a lack of [living-]space, unlike those from the Erz mountain-range (Stollberg)'. Question: Are we related to the last ones?"
I think she was
puzzling over the Hamburg connection issue also. Von Schroeder lists a straight
line of descent to us from back in the 1500s; the information he provides says
that we hung out in Saxony and Thuringia in southeastern Germany through the
centuries until Alexander Albert August (the World War I naval hero, and Opa's
dad). Alexander was born in a town that's now in Poland; he moved to Hamburg
after the war and a couple years in Spain (where Opa and his brother served
some kind of apprenticeship).
Alexander's parents
and aunts/uncles all lived and died around Leipzig (well, Uncle Julius Schildt,
1838-1923) was an avid and famous mountain climber (and author), and died in
Austria). His cousin Hugo (whose father Adolf (!) Schildt was the younger
brother of Alexander's father), our other World War I naval hero, lived in Kiel
after the war, as did his daughter, Tante Ursel (who bequeathed most of her
historic books to Dad).
Would Manfred be a
more distant relative, maybe?
Well, going back up
three or four more generations, the only other recorded branch that didn't
remain in Saxony/Thuringia settled in the Baltics in the late 1700s: mostly
Riga and Jelgava (Latvia)… obviously this puts them no closer to Hamburg.
Oddly, von Schroeder doesn't show any more of this branch after 1859. Could
this be the group Dad claimed went to Estonia instead, and disappeared??
Anyway, as long as
you look only at that family-history book, this Luftwaffe ace can't be our relative,
since he doesn't fit in with the lines von Schroeder drew up. But then, there
are gaps, too. And one big contradiction, by the way, I can't figure out at
all:
Do you remember that
1630 document that Dad showed us, which was written out to our ancestor
Johann-Christoff von Schildt by the emperor of Spain (or the Holy Roman
Empire)? Dad described him as the emperor's "dirty tricks" man, and
he gave the impression that this document had been handed down from oldest son
to oldest son to him (and I suspect Uncle has it now). Minor point: Opa had an
older brother.
But anyway, von
Schroeder's research doesn't show a Johann Christoff in our ancestors in that year.
He only lists a Claus Schildt (1581-1640) and Claus's third son,
Nicolaus/Nikolaus Schildt (1613-1696) and makes no mention of service to the
emperor. The nearest we get even namewise is Nikolaus's great-grandson
Christoph Johann Schildt (1713-1757), or his son Johann Christoff Gothelff Schildt
(1748-1810).
I don't have the
decades of genealogical experience von Schroeder had, but I still find at least
this specific end of our lineage suspect, and I'm thinking it's at least
possible he attached us to the wrong ancestors somewhere in the 1700s. If you
remember what our family coat of arms looks like (as in Dad's signet ring),
there's a knight's helmet, symbolizing, well, knighthood in service to the
king/emperor; above that is the double-headed imperial eagle of, uh, either the
Austro-Hungarian Empire (unlikely), the Holy Roman Empire (probably), or maybe
Saxony or even Prussia – in this case denoting, I think, a particular kind of
loyal service to his/her majesty.
Yet our ancestors at
that time, according to von Schroeder, were leather-workers and shoemakers,
farmers, and preachers… no real military service of note, IIRC, until Opa's
great-grandfather. This just doesn't fit. I've seen that document and held in
my hands, turning its pages; I remember clearly the several pages where Dad
showed me our ancestor's name hand-written in especially thick letters:
Johann-Christoff von Schildt; and the date, something-or-other, 1630. Even if
Uncle has it now (probably nothing wrong with that), I did find a photocopy
somewhere in Dad's papers, and I'm just dying to dig it out for another look;
when I find it, I'll scan it and send it around for safe keeping.
The question stands
out glaringly the more I think of it: how did we end up with that document if
von Schroeder's information is correct? Yet as far as we know, the history-book
did pass muster with Dad and Oma; she even had some pictures of our ~1800s
ancestors; I know Bro 1 has a couple of those now. But, again, she did seem
curious about a Hamburg link earlier than just her father-in-law. Hmm… might
ask Auntie.
The point of this
long email is… officially, Manfred's no relation. Unofficially, I'd say it's at
least possible; we'd just have to prove it. Until then, any fantasies will keep
getting – heh-heh – shot down.
Regards,
AgingChild
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