Our German Heritage

On record at the Family Research Center in Salt Lake City the Strebe heritage dates back to 1676. Some of the Strebe's were reared in the area formerly referred to as Prussia. Prussia was the name used for the region on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea that the Hohenzollem dynasty organized into a hereditary duchy under Polish suzerainty in 1525. When it became a kingdom, with its capital in Berlin in 1701, its territories stretched from the Rhine to the Nieman River. Prussia was the state around which modern Germany was unified in 1871. After World War 1, Prussia continued to exist as the largest Land (state) within the Weimar Republic and Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich. After World War II it was dissolved by decree of the Allied Control Council in 1947. The original Prussians were pagan people who resisted outside control until the mid 13th century when they were conquered by the Teutonic Knights. Two centuries later the knights succumbed to the growing power of Poland-Lithuania. Under terms of the second Peace of Torun (1466), they ceded their territories west of the Vistula River to the Poles; their eastern possessions became a fiet of the Polish crown. In 1511 the knights elected their grand master Margrave Albert of Ansbach from the Franconian line of the House of Hohenzollern. He introduced Lutheranism into his domains, dissolved the Teutonic Order, and was recognized by Poland as the first Duke of Prussia. In 1611, Ducal Prussia passed to the Hohenzollern elector of Brandenburg, John Sigismund. His grandson, Frederick William, known as the Great Elector, gained complete sovereignty over Ducal Prussia into an ascendant European Power. The status of Prussia and its ruling dynasty rose rapidly during the 18th century. In 1701, Frederick-William's son secured the title of King in Prussia from the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold in exchange for Hohenzollern support in the war of the Spanish Succession. He ruled as Frederick the 1st. Soon all of the Hohenzollern provinces were collectively called the Kingdom of Prussia.By building a strong army of 80,000 men and creating a tightly knit administrative system to sustain his troops, Frederick William gave to the Prussian state a militaristic and bureaucratic character it never lost. He also acquired Swedish Pomerania, with the port city of Stettin in 1720. Prussia's most celebrated ruler was Frederick the Second, known as Frederick the Great. He made Prussia a dominant European power when he wrested Silesia from the Austrians in 1740. By obtaining West Prussia in the first partition of Poland he at last linked Brandenburg and East Prussia. Frederick the Great's nephew and successor, Frederick William II (1786-97), added the family lands of Ansbach and Bayreuth to his kingdom in addition to extensive territories in the east through the second and third partitions of Poland (1793 and 1795). Prussia did not fare well in the era of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Compelled to surrender its provinces west of the Rhine in 1795, Prussia remained out of the wars until 1806, when it was badly beaten at the battle of Jena Auerstadt. By the Treaties of Tilist (1807), Napoleon stripped away nearly half of Prussia's territory. Subsequent political and military reforms allowed Prussia to play a prominent role in the campaigns liberating Germany from French occupation. As compensation, the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) awarded Prussia Posen, Swedish Pomeria, and parts of Saxony,Westphalia and the Rhineland. During the first half of the 19th century, Prussia vied with Austria for prestige and influence in the German Confederation, with Prussia emerging victorious in the 1860's. Otto Von Bismarck, who became chief minister in 1862, provoked-- and won-- wars with Denmark (1864), Austria (1866),and France (1870-71), completing the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership. On January 18,1871, King William 1st of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor (or Kaiser). Although Prussia was now a federal state within the new empire, it comprised two-thirds of the population and land area and dominated German policy until the end of World War 1. The last Prussian Monarch, German Emperor William II, was forced to abdicate (1918) after the defeat of Germany in World War 1. Prussia was incorporated into the Weimar Republic, retaining its disproportionate size but without any influence in political affairs. What remained of Prussia autonomy disappeared on January 30,1934, when Hitler eliminated the governments of the various German states. Thereafter, Prussian functioned as an administrative unit until the collapse of the Nazi regime in 1945. The first STREBE listed in the Salt Lake archives is Julius Gustave Strebe. Records indicate that on the 22nd of November1667, he married Anna Wilhelmine Leverentz in West Falen-Ovenhausen. Other records indicate they lived in the Brandenburg area. Brandenburg is a historical region and province of Prussia in the central part of East Germany. The historical capitals of the region have been Berlin and Potsdam. Portions of the four East German districts make up Brandenburg. The region is composed of a glaciated plain,divided into sandy outwash plains, and terminal and recessional moraines. Large expanses of moors, as well as many low hills and undrained hollows cover the area. Although numerous lakes and fir forests dominate much of the landscape, agriculture is restricted because of relatively poor glacial soils. The German Plains has a continental winter, sunny spring and warm summers. The agriculture of the region consists of oats, rye, potatoes,asparagus, pigs and cattle. East Berlin and Potsdam are the only major cities in Brandenburg. Brandenburg, a Slavic region when conquered by the Germans in 1106-34, became one of the seven imperial electorates in the mid 12th century, a status that was confirmed in 1356. It accepted reformation in1539 and participated (1640-88) in wars against Sweden. Brandenburgs electors became King of Prussia in 1701. Brandenburg was (1949-52) a state of the German Democratic Republic before being abolished (1952) as an administrative unit. The Brandenburg Gate (1789-93) in East Berlin is one of the few surviving works of the German neoclassical architect Carl Gotthard Laughans, who derived its basic form from the Propylaeum (gateway)of the Acropolis in Athens. The enormous colonnade, flanked by twin temple pavilions, is topped by a heavy attic that serves as a base for Gottfried Schadow's bronze Quadriga of Victory. The gate is located 600 feet east of what was the Allied Checkpoint Charlie in the Berlin Wall. The preceding background perhaps gives us clue to why some of the Strebe's left their homeland and came to America. Perhaps the older generations were tired of the turmoil and wars and wanted their sons and daughters to live in a more peaceful climate.

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