January 2025 - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 170: UNIQUE FAMILY PHOTOS FROM MY SECOND COUSIN’S COLLECTION

Note: In this post I discuss a collection of family photos I obtained from my second cousins in 2016, focusing on a few of historical significance and of personal interest.

In a post I have long intended to write, I discuss another collection of family ephemera, photos in this instance, I obtained in 2016 from my German second cousin, Margarita Vilgertshofer, née Bruck. This post harkens back and tiers off two posts I wrote that year, Posts 32 and 33. I refer readers to those earlier publications for the details describing how through a serious bit of detecting I was able to track down Margarita and her brother Antonio to Bavaria, Germany (Figure 1) though both were born in Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain.

Figure 1. With my two second cousins Margarita Vilgertshofer, née Bruck and Antonio Bruck in May 2015 in Munich, Germany

Through circumstances I’m still unclear about, a marginal insertion on Antonio’s 1946 birth certificate notes when and where he was married in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1982. (Figure 2) I’ve previously found vital certificates for ancestors where notations on where and when vital events in their lives, typically divorces, took place. What makes this notation so unique and inexplicable is that the birth certificate is from a municipal office in Spain, but the marriage took place in Germany. How and why this information was conveyed to Spain puzzles me.

Figure 2. Antonio Bruck’s 1946 Barcelona birth certificate with a marginal notation in the upper left hand corner indicating he was married in 1982 in Haag in the Federal Republic of Germany

In a similar vein, the most unusual case I’ve come across of vital data for an ancestor having been transmitted from one country to another is in the instance of one of my father’s first cousins, Heinz Loewenstein. I’ve written extensively about him. He was born in the Free City of Danzig in 1905, got married there in 1931, immigrated with his wife to Palestine in the 1930s, enlisted in the English Army’s Pioneer Corps, was captured during the Battle of Greece in 1941, escaped from German stalags multiple times but always recaptured, then eventually was liberated and returned to Palestine following WWII. He and his wife divorced in Palestine or Israel, and somehow this vital data was illegibly noted in the margin of his marriage certificate from a record presumably obtained by the Federal Republic of Germany (i.e., the Free State of Danzig ceased to exist following the start of WWII and Germany’s invasion of Poland and Danzig in 1939). (Figure 3) Knowing what meticulous record keepers the Germans are may explain why this information was recorded but how the Germans obtained it is the more curious question.

Figure 3. My father’s first cousin Heinz Kurt Löwenstein’s 1931 marriage certificate from the Free City of Danzig with an illegible notation in the upper right-hand corner showing he and his wife divorced

Returning to the subject at hand, I want to discuss several of the more unique pictures I found among my second cousin’s large collection of images. Knowing that perusing other families’ photos can be tedious, I will merely highlight a few of historic significance plus several of personal interest.

The most historically significant photo is one taken in Doorn, Netherlands showing Germany’s last Kaiser, Kaiser Wilhelm II. (Figure 4) The circumstances that resulted in the Kaiser being in Doorn is that following Germany’s defeat during WWI, he abdicated the German throne and went into exile in the Netherlands. The picture includes the Kaiser’s second wife, Empress Hermine of Germany (née Reuß zu Greiz), her daughter by her first marriage, and his retinue in exile. In the center of this group is an unidentified Bruck family member. This photograph was the subject of Post 65, and at the time I wrote that post I had no idea who the family member was.

Figure 4. Postcard of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II, his second wife Princess Hermine Reuß of Greiz (1887-1947), and her youngest daughter by her first marriage, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath (1918-1972), taken in 1925 in Doorn, the Netherlands. An unknown member of the family is surrounded by the Royal Family’s entourage

I only learned the identity of the ancestor by marriage when I obtained a captioned copy of the identical photo from an altogether different source. I discussed this in Post 100. (Figure 5) Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (1884-1963), the second wife of my accomplished Bruck relative from Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland], Dr. Walther Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), is standing amidst Kaiser Wilhelm II and his entourage. Dr. Bruck was the Kaiser’s wife’s dentist and likely also the Kaiser’s dentist. How precisely this worked with the Kaiser being in Berlin, later in Doorn, and Dr. Bruck being in Breslau is unclear.

Figure 5. Same photograph as Figure 4 that Dr. Walther Wolfgang Bruck took of his wife Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (1884-1963) and the Kaiser Wilhelm II’s entourage in September 1925 with identifications of the Kaiser’s entourage

Another historically noteworthy photo shows the Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Figure 6) in the flower school of my great-aunt Franziska Bruck (1866-1942) (Figure 7) in Berlin when she visited it on the 15th of October 1915. The Duchess was the last German Crown Princess and Crown Princess of Prussia as the wife of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, the son of Wilhelm II. My great aunt Franziska wrote two books featuring the elegant Ikebana-style floral wreaths and bouquets she specialized in, and, according to family lore, is reputed to have put together floral arrangements for the royal family.

Figure 6. Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin on the 15th of October 1915 when she visited my great aunt Franziska Bruck’s flower school

Another photo among my cousin’s photo array, which crosses the line between historically noteworthy and personally interesting, shows Margarita’s mother working in Franziska’s flower school and shop in Berlin. (Figure 8) While I knew from her wedding certificate that my beloved Aunt Susanne, later murdered in Auschwitz, had been a managing director in Franziska’s flower shop, I’d never known any other family members who’d worked there.

Figure 8. My cousins Margarita and Antonio’s mother, Antonie Bruck, née Marcus working in my great aunt Franziska’s flower school

In any case, the photos discussed above document my family’s personal relationship with Germany’s last royal family.

Further evidence of the Kaiser’s wife’s connection to my Bruck family can be found in Dr. Bruck’s Breslau house guest book, a scan of which I have, which she signed when she visited him in Breslau on the 23rd of April 1923 (Figures 9a-b), presumably to have her teeth worked on. Yet more evidence of the two families’ bond can be found in a signed children’s book that Princess Hermine Reuß gave to Dr. Bruck and his wife upon the birth of their second daughter Renate (Figures 10a-b). Their first daughter Hermine, named after the Princess, unfortunately died shortly after her birth.

Figure 9a. Cover of Walther Bruck’s guest register recording Princess Hermine Reuß’s visit in 1923

Figure 9b. Page of Walther Bruck’s guest register with Princess Hermine Reuß’s signature and date of visit, the 23rd of April 1923

Figure 10a. Cover of children’s book, entitled “Alpenblumenmärchen,” given to Renate Bruck at Christmas 1928 by Princess Hermine Reuß

Figure 10b. The dedication on the frontispiece of the children’s book given by Princess Hermine Reuß to Renate Bruck

My cousin Margarita’s photo collection includes some unique photos of family members. One of the most unusual is of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (1895-1982) in his WWI military attire. (Figure 11) My uncle Fedor has been the subject of a few posts (see Posts 17 & 31) for several reasons. Firstly, he was one of around only 5,000 Jews who survived in Germany during WWII. Secondly, he was assigned to Hitler’s dentist’s surviving dental office following the war. Thirdly, because of his pre-war friendship with one of Hitler’s dentist’s dental assistants, he had knowledge of Hitler’s fate at the end of the war. Warned by the Americans this knowledge could get him kidnapped by the Russians, he fled Berlin. For their part, the Russians were anxious to uphold the specter of Hitler as a surviving “boogeyman” who could return at any moment to again terrorize the world. The photo of my uncle in his military uniform was taken in a studio, though I know from a surviving postcard that during WWI my uncle was based on the Eastern Front in what is today the Ukraine which was then part of Russia.

Figure 11. My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck in his WWI military uniform

A brief related anecdote. My uncle’s wife, Verena Brook, née Dick (1920-2007), was 25 years his junior. Upon my uncle’s death in 1982, my aunt offered me some of my uncle’s memorabilia. One of the more unusual items she offered, which in retrospect I should have accepted, was the section of my uncle’s WWI uniform he’d cut out where a bullet had penetrated and he’d been wounded. I suspect I could have used this for DNA analysis.

Moving on to other unique family photos.

One photo I particularly fancy shows Margarita and Antonio’s grandfather, my great uncle Wilhelm Bruck (1872-1952) in 1889. He is standing alongside a so-called Penny-farthing, an early type of bicycle. (Figure 12) It was popular during the 1870s and 1880s, with its large front wheel that provided for high speeds on account of it traveling a large distance for every rotation of the wheel. Because the bicycle had solid rubber tires the only shock absorption was in the saddle.

Figure 12. One of my great uncles Wilhelm Bruck in 1889 standing alongside his Penny-farthing bicycle

In multiple earlier posts, I’ve discussed the hotel, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, my family owned in Ratibor [today: Raciborz, Poland] for three generations, from roughly 1850 to around 1925. Several historic photos showing a partial view of the hotel, then located on Oderstrasse, exist. However, among my cousin’s collection is the only known photo of the front entrance of the family establishment. (Figure 13)

Figure 13. Entrance to the family establishment in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel

The Bruck’s hotel was originally purchased by Samuel Bruck (1808-1863), my great-great grandfather. The second-generation owner of the hotel was Fedor Bruck, my great-grandfather after whom my uncle Fedor Bruck was named. Though I previously had a picture of my great-grandfather, two additional photos of him survive in Margarita’s albums, including one in which he is most fashionably dressed in the finest attire of the day. (Figure 14)

Figure 14. My great-great-grandfather, Samuel Bruck, the first-generation owner of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel

Many years ago before I started doing ancestral research I visited the Mormon Church’s FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. Archived in the library’s stacks was a pretentiously titled book on my family, entitled “A Thousand Year History of the Bruck Family.” I’ve subsequently obtained a more mundanely named copy, “The Bruck Family: A Historical Sketch.” The book was written by Alfred Julius Bruck, who’d anglicized his name to “Brook” upon his arrival in England. Included in Margarita’s photos is one of Alfred Bruck and his wife, Rosie. (Figure 15) Other pictures confirm they visited Margarita and her family in Munich.

Figure 15. Author of the Bruck family historical sketch, Alfred Julius Brook with his wife Rosie

Expectedly there are many pictures of Margarita’s family within her collection, many of them very endearing. (Figure 16) The circumstances that led Margarita and her brother Antonio to having been born in Spain is because her grandfather, Wilhelm Bruck, worked in Spain in the early 20th century on the installation of the first electric lines in Barcelona. While he would return to Germany following the completion of his contractual obligations, following Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, his connections in Spain permitted him to immigrate there. Additionally, both of Wilhelm & Antonie Bruck’s two children, Edgar and Eva (Figure 17), were born there so retained Spanish citizenship.

Figure 16. My second cousin Margarita Vilgertshofer, née Bruck in July 1967 in her nurse’s uniform

Figure 17. Eva and Edgar, Margarita & Antonio’s aunt and father as children

There is an intriguing picture that speaks to the aristocratic lifestyle my great aunt and uncle led in Spain showing Edgar being fed by a wetnurse. (Figure 18) During their residence in Barcelona, Wilhelm and Antonie appear to have lived in Tibidabo, the highest neighborhood in the city. (Figure 19)

Figure 18. Edgar Bruck being breastfed as a baby by a wetnurse

Figure 19. The house in the Tibidabo neighborhood of Barcelona where my great uncle and aunt lived during their residence there

Intriguingly there are a few pictures of my immediate family among Margarita’s photos I was previously aware of. One is a cabinet card of my uncle Fedor, my aunt Susanne, and my father Otto as children. (Figure 20) Another is my aunt Susanne and her two cousins, Edgar and Eva, along with a group of other actors who performed together. (Figure 21)

Figure 20. My father, Otto Bruck (middle), as a baby with his two siblings, Suzanne and Fedor

Figure 21. My aunt Susanne with her two first cousins, Edgar and Eva, amidst a group of other people who performed in a stage production

A riveting picture in the collection, reflective of the horrific toll of WWI, was presumably taken at a recuperative center after the war. (Figure 22) Besides medical staff, it presumably shows wounded soldiers who had one of their limbs amputated. Since I recognize no one in the photo I’m uncertain why this picture is in Margarita’s collection.

Figure 22. Amputees, likely WWI veterans, at a rehab facility

POST 169: “BURSCHENSCHAFTEN,” NATIONALIST GERMAN, AUSTRIAN, AND CHILEAN STUDENT FRATERNITIES FOUNDED IN THE 19TH CENTURY

Note: In this post, I use a passage from the diary of one of my distant Bruck relatives to examine the foundations of liberal and nationalist student fraternities founded in Germany, Austria, and Chile during the 19th century, and the historic and social context behind their development.

POST 167: MY COUSIN TOM BROOK’S FAMILY EPHEMERA

I’ve periodically written about family ephemera I’ve accessed through near or distant relatives, most recently in Post 167 where I discussed copies of photographs I obtained from my fourth cousin Tom Brook that he inherited from his father Casper Bruck (i.e., the Bruck surname was anglicized upon our families’ respective arrivals in England and America). Often these keepsakes and souvenirs offer fascinating glimpses into the past and provide visual images of family members who were at times involved in extraordinary historical adventures or tragic events. And occasionally, I even recognize a physical resemblance or attribute passed down through the generations. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the years scrutinizing old photographs looking for elusive clues hidden in these pictures; sometimes I even learn things from what’s not in the images.

Let me provide some context for the current post, which also involves some family memorabilia, in this instance a family diary. Honestly, nothing beats a detailed memoir for a peek into people who populate one’s ancestral tree. Though by no means unique to my family nor universally true, the resolute moral fiber some of my ancestors exhibited, as reflected in their stories, stands in stark contrast to what I see around me today.

The diary or memoir in question was written in German by Bertha Jacobson, née Bruck (1873-1957) (Figure 1), for her granddaughter, Maria Jacobson (1933-2022). Bertha was my second cousin two times removed and Maria was my fourth cousin. While irrelevant, Bertha’s birth and death years correspond precisely with the birth and death years of my own grandmother, Else Bruck, née Berliner (1873-1957). Regrettably, my own grandmother left me no such memoir. Then again, Bertha was much closer to Maria than I was to my grandmother, who also survived the Holocaust and eventually made her way to America. Upon Maria’s parents’ departure from Berlin, Maria was left in the temporary care of her grandmother there, both of whom ultimately escaped and made their way to America via Cuba.

Figure 1. Bertha Jacobson, née Bruck (1873-1957)

Maria discovered her grandmother’s memoir when she was cleaning out her aunt’s cluttered apartment following her aunt’s death. Amidst the disarray, Maria was lucky to stumble on the diary. I knew Maria (Figure 2) and was aware of her grandmother’s diary. Because it is typewritten in German, which I don’t speak, and because Maria regularly remarked how challenging it was to decipher and comprehend the marginal and inserted handwritten notes and who precisely was being discussed, I never requested a copy. Regardless, shortly before her death Maria donated the diary to the Leo Baeck Institute (LBI) in New York, along with other family papers.

Figure 2. Maria Jacobson (1933-2022) with my wife Ann Finan and me in New York City in April 2016

Fast forward. Within the last year, Helen Winter, née Renshaw (Figure 3), another of my fourth cousins, living in Wolverhampton, England, contacted me through my blog. I’ve discussed her in multiple recent posts. Upon determining Helen is more closely related to Maria and Bertha than me, I mentioned to her in passing Bertha’s memoir. Uncertain as to the conditions under which Maria had donated the diary to the LBI, given Maria’s proclivity towards privacy in matters of family, I suggested Helen might want to check with them as to its accessibility. As it turns out, the memoir was publicly available and Helen was able to obtain a copy. Ever since, Helen has been involved in the challenging task of translating the document.

Figure 3. Helen Winter, née Renshaw, in Attingham Park near Wolverhampton, England

Some brief background about Helen. She is a retired lawyer, living as mentioned in England. Helen continues to be involved in some legal work but has a passion for studying and writing about our mutual ancestors relying in large part on her vast collection of family ephemera. Beyond having a large body of materials to draw upon, Helen understands German. Her grandfather once suggested she should become a translator, at which in my humble opinion she would have been excellent, though it was suggested more disparagingly in the vein that this was “a suitable job for a woman.” Suffice it to say Helen is doing an amazing job deciphering Bertha’s memoir. Thanks to her decryption, I’m discovering things about our ancestors I never had any expectation of and learning about some aspects of European history I knew little or nothing about.

To reiterate something I’ve periodically emphasized. I make no claim that my lineage is any more exceptional than those of readers, only that my family’s surviving documents, photos, etc. provide an opportunity to investigate my ancestors and more importantly examine the social and historical context in which they lived. Naturally, this transcends my own family and might be of passing interest to people who are unrelated to me.

I recall more than ten years ago giving a translated talk at the museum in Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland (German: Tiegenhof), the town formerly in the Free City of Danzig where my father had his dental practice between 1932 and 1937. A Jewish audience member was astonished that seven albums of my father’s photos survive when, but a few scant pictures of his ancestors exist. This is typical among descendants of Jewish victims or survivors of the Holocaust. My father’s pictures have provided me with a trove of individuals and topics to study.

As Helen progresses in her translation, I will periodically discuss parts that are of passing interest. Before beginning, let me provide some temporal context as to the estimated date of the diary. While Bertha Bruck does not state when she started writing her memoirs, she provides one telling clue. She mentions her husband’s sister, Martha Jacobson, née Zamorÿ, born on the 15^th of June 1852, saying she was 84 and in ill health at the time, suggesting she suffered from dementia; Bertha remarked she hoped not to wind up like her. Chronologically, this would suggest she started writing the memoir in around 1936. One ancestry.com reference, however, places Martha’s death circa 1935, so possibly Bertha erred as to her sister-in-law’s age. Regardless, the memoir was likely begun in 1935 or 1936 following Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933 and before Bertha’s escape to America.

The passage that is the focus of this post opens the door to discussing the origin of so-called “Burschenschaften,” liberal and nationalist student fraternities founded in Germany, Austria, and, of all places, Chile in the 19th century; all I’ll say about the connection of these fraternities to Chile is it’s due to the German cultural influence in the country at the time.

The relevant quotation from Bertha’s memoir relates to Bertha’s grandfather and Helen’s great-great-grandfather, Jonas Bruck (1843-1911) (Figure 4), our nearest common relative. I’ve previously written about Jonas. Because of the cataclysmic and destructive events associated with WWII and the ensuing Communist era, there are few tombs of my Jewish ancestors that survive, that of Jonas and his accomplished son, Dr. Julius Bruck, being exceptions. Both Jonas and Julius along with their respective wives are entombed in Wrocław, Poland (German: Breslau) in a restored monument in the former Jewish cemetery. (Figure 5)

Figure 4. My great-great-grandfather Jonas Bruck (1843-1911)

Figure 5. The restored headstones of Jonas and Julius Bruck and their respective wives in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland

The quote from Bertha’s memoir reads as follows:

“With regard to those champagne lunches with the grandparents, I remember Grandfather’s conversation, which was so lively, and almost uninterrupted. I clearly remember one story. In about the year 1831, Grandfather went to Jena, as a young student. The first place one had to go was Weimar. When the crowd of young students appeared before his house on Frauenplan [Square], Goethe had already undressed. However, he came to the window—and he had attached a row of medals to his woolen nightshirt. That the man of the greatest intellect and highest art in the country should be motivated, at all, by the human littleness of earthly vanity, is such a thing as the most understanding person can hardly speak of it; his contemporary and very congenial friend, Wilhelm von Humboldt, speaks regretfully in his letters to his wife of Goethe’s ‘little weakness.’ It distressed Humboldt on behalf of this great man who was his friend, that he had asked him to obtain an order for him. While this is certainly not part of my own memories, but, because I foresee that my descendants will probably not be able to provide themselves with German education, I mention Humboldt. From his wise standing above [material] things, from his ability to, very quickly, derive a standpoint beyond the individual’s, from his personal experience. I have so often derived consolation and peace—at a great distance, of course! I hope that, if my descendants, also go into scientific oursuits, they may also still retain understanding/appreciation of the world of Goethe, Humboldt, and others, men who could only possibly have originated from Germany. It’s for this reason I have made this digression.”

There’s a lot to unpack in this brief recollection. Without Helen’s intercession, who is better versed in Prussian and German history, some aspects of Bertha’s diary would be difficult for me to make sense of.

Jonas Bruck’s visit to Jena appears to have been related to the fact that, like his sons, he was a Burschenschaftler, a member of a Studentenverbindungen, traditional student associations called Burschenschaften. The very first one, the so-called Urburschenschaft (“original Burschenschaft”), was founded on 12 June 1815 at Jena. Ergo, Jonas’ visit to the founding city.

Burschenschaften student organizations started as an expression of the new nationalism prevalent in post-Napoleonic Europe after the Napoleonic Wars of 1803 to 1815. Prussia, the largest of the Germanic states, had been significantly embarrassed during the Napoleonic era, particularly after the disastrous Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, where their army was decisively defeated by Napoleon. This led to major territorial losses and a humiliating peace treaty that left them severely weakened and under French influence; this event exposed Prussia’s military inadequacies and forced them to undergo significant reforms to regain their standing on the European stage.

Following its founding in 1815 at the University of Jena, the Burschenschaft movement spread all over Germany. The early student groups were egalitarian and liberal and favored the political unification of Germany. A significant number of the Burschenschaften’s early members were students who had taken part in the German wars of liberation against the Napoleonic occupation of Germany.

The Burschenschaften participated in student demonstrations at the Wartburg Festival in October 1817, which was followed in March 1819 by the assassination of August von Kotzebue, a German writer who served the Russian tsar, by the nationalistic Burschenschaftler Karl Sand. These events sufficiently alarmed the major German states for them to pass the Carlsbad Decrees in 1819, which effectively provided for the suppression of the Burschenschaften.

The states represented at the meeting in Carlsbad were Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Mecklenburg, Hanover, Wurttemberg, Nassau, Baden, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and electoral Hesse. The occasion of the meeting was the desire of the Austrian foreign minister Klemens, Prince von Metternich, to take advantage of the concern of the recent revolutionary events, particularly the murder of August Kotzebue, to persuade the German governments to jointly suppress the liberal and nationalistic tendencies within their states.

Following passage of the Carlsbad Decrees, the clubs went underground until 1848, when they actively participated in the German Revolution. The latter resulted in the short-lived German Empire (1848-1849), the ultimately failed proto state which attempted to unify the German states within the German Confederation to create a German nation-state.

As an aside, the German Empire of 1848-1849 is not to be confused with the German nation-state that existed from 1871 to 1918. The latter, also referred to as Imperial Germany, the Second Reich, or simply Germany, was the German Reich that lasted from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918. It’s ending following the defeat of Imperial Germany in WWI marked the change in the form of government from a monarchy to a republic.

The Burschenschaften’s motto was “Ehre, Freiheit, Vaterland,” or “Honor, Freedom, Fatherland.” As mentioned, its goals included the political unification of Germany; the abolishment of Germany’s smaller states; improving student life; and increasing patriotism. After the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, the student associations faced a crisis, as their main political objective had been realized to some extent, namely, German unification.

In the 1880s, a renaissance movement, Reformburschenschaften, arose and many new Burschenschaften were founded. It was also during this time until the 1890s when the members turned increasingly anti-Semitic with many believing that Jews hampered the unification of Germany. Some members resigned in protest following the adoption at an Eisenach meeting declaring that Burschenschaft “have no Jewish members and do not plan to have any in the future.”

It is fascinating that the German nationalism of 1848 that was based upon liberal values changed during the German Empire (1871-1918) into German nationalism based upon Prussian authoritarianism, Prussia being the largest and most dominant of the former German states. Their supporters were conservative, reactionary, anti-Catholic, anti-liberal, anti-socialist, and anti-Semitic in nature.

The Reformburschenschaften were dissolved by the Nazi regime in 1935/36. In West Germany, the Burschenschaften were re-established in the 1950s but no longer played a significant role in German politics. The Burschenschaften faced a renewed crisis in the 1960s and 1970s as the German student movement of that period trended more towards the left. Today, about 160 Burschenschaften exist in Germany, Austria, and Chile that range from progressive to nationalistic.

Bertha mentions that Jonas Bruck and his fellow Burschenschaftler showed up outside the home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who lived in Weimar and was by then an elderly man. Weimar is only about 23 miles from Jena, and visiting Goethe’s hometown was likely to be a necessary pilgrimage point for students. Both Jena and Weimar were once part of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar (Figure 6) and are today located in the German state of Thuringia. (Figure 7)

Figure 6. Pre-1871 German states map with Duchy of Saxe-Weimar circled

Figure 7. Current map of Germany with the state of Thuringia circled that was once the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar

Goethe is considered to have been a “polymath,” an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. In American history Benjamin Franklin is considered one of the foremost polymaths because he was a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, and political philosopher, as well as one of the Founding Fathers.

Goethe is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18^th century to the present day. It’s very telling that Bertha Bruck digressed to acknowledge Goethe and his friend, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), German philosopher and linguist, and opine that they could only have originated in Germany and express the hope that her descendants would retain an appreciation and understanding of their world.

Absurdly, as I was reading Bertha’s telling of Goethe showing up at his window in a nightshirt, I couldn’t dispel the image of Ebenezer Scrooge wearing his night garment being visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and yet to come. Regardless, this passage also caught my attention because of the further absurdity of Goethe appearing at his window wearing his nightshirt bedecked with a sash of medals and awards. According to Bertha’s retelling, Humboldt was embarrassed on behalf of his friend that he had once asked him to obtain an unearned Austrian medal for him.

I forwarded this section of Bertha’s memoirs to my doctor friend from Köpenick, Berlin, Dr. Tilo Wahl (Figure 8), whom I introduced to readers in Post 99 and whose interest in so-called “phaleristics” I discussed there. This is an auxiliary science of history and numismatics which studies orders, fraternities, and award items, such as medals, ribbons, and other decorations. I thought Tilo might be interested that the famous Goethe too was interested in these. Tilo responded telling me that it was well known that Goethe had an interest in orders and medals. He was apparently involved in designing the Saxe-Weimar house order, the “vom Weißen Falken” (white falcon). (Figure 9) The first examples were made by jewelers in Goethe’s hometown of Frankfurt. He was also a great collector of coins.

Figure 8. Dr. Tilo Wahl with his husband Jan Fiebach-Wahl (left), in the Czech Republic alongside statues of Emperor Franz Josef and King Edward VI

Figure 9. The house order of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, the so-called “vom Weißen Falken” (white falcon), designed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I mentioned above that at least one of Jonas Bruck’s sons, Friedrich Felix Bruck (1843-1911), was also a Burschenschaftler. If the name sounds familiar it’s because he was Tom Brook’s great-grandfather whom I discussed in Post 167. I also previously wrote that Helen possesses a large collection of family ephemera. This includes a 25^th anniversary yearbook, so to speak, covering 1848 to 1873, of a student association Friedrich Felix Bruck was a member of in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland] called “Arminia.” (Figure 10) The expensively produced printing includes photos of all its presumed members, including Felix Bruck (Figure 11), sporting a delightful assortment of smoking and Baker boy caps and a handsome array of whiskers.

Figure 10. Cover of the 25th anniversary yearbook of the student association that Felix Friedrich Bruch was a member of called “Arminia”

Figure 11. Photo of Felix Friedrich Bruck (left) from the 25th anniversary yearbook of the student association of which Felix Friedrich Bruch was a member

Helen delved into the derivation of the name of Felix’s student association since the only reference I could find to “Arminia” was to Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609); the latter was a Dutch Reformed minister and theologian during the Protestant Reformation period whose views became the basis of Arminianism and the Dutch Remonstrant movement. He is not, however, the source name of Felix’s student association.

As Helen explained, many nationalistic student associations in Germany took the name “Arminius,” sometimes translated as “Hermann.” This was in honor of Arminius, a Germanic warrior chieftain of the so-called Cherusci, a Germanic tribe inhabiting the northwestern German plains and forests in the Weser River area. During the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D., also called the Varus Disaster, today located in the German state of Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany (see Figure 7, “Nedersachsen”), Arminius led an alliance of German tribes that ambushed three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus and his auxiliaries. What allowed Arminius to methodically outfox the Romans and anticipate their tactical response during the Battle was that he had received a Roman military education on account of his Roman citizenship. In any case, in the 19^th century Arminius was seen as a hero of Germanic independence, and since the inception of the Burschenschaften student associations in 1815 they were called “Arminian.”

Followers will have observed a noticeable drift in this post away from Bertha Bruck’s actual words to an examination of the historical and social context in which my ancestors lived. I’ve concluded this may be of broader interest to readers.

REFERENCES

Arminia. (2021 April 17). In German Wikipedia.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminia

Arminius. (2025 January 6) In Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminius

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. (2024 December 29) In Wikipedia.

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