A hug from above
Happy New Year, everyone!
I wish you all a wonderful 2025, full of blessings and development of self!
I want to start off this year by sharing a really sweet story.
One of the last few days I was in Berlin, I decided to go around to some of the addresses I found during my research in hopes of seeing first hand where my family lived.
I had decided when I arrived to Berlin not to get a SIM card because wifi was abundant, more so than in any other country I had ever been to. So, I had plugged in the addresses to Google Maps and set them as favorites just to make my way around with the GPS that is standard without using a SIM card.
I will share more about the stops I made that day, but after going from one address to another, I randomly saw out of the corner of my eye a church. Now, this church looked absolutely beautiful so I decided to veer off my path and explore it.
Lo and behold, it was the church Johannes was baptized in. This church.
I had forgotten all about marking the church as a spot I wanted to go see because I was so hyper-focused on looking at their addresses where they had lived.
As I approach the church, I saw that something was happening inside of the church, some event.
I go in, see it is some event, and then walk out. I walked towards my next address when something in me told me to go back to the church. I can’t describe it, it was like a calling.
So I go back into the church and ask what is happening. They showed me the flyer for the event.
Can you guess what kind of event it was?
…
Don’t worry, I’ll give you a second to think. You’ll never guess.
…
Okay, one last chance.
…
Ok. Ready?
A TEA CONVENTION! This tea convention.
Now, what are the chances you have ever heard of a tea convention taking place inside of a church? I, for one, have never heard of such a thing!
I can’t describe it, but it felt like a big hug from Johannes. Here I was in the church he was baptized in, raised in, and all the while of him having a tea business.
I felt him with me at that moment. I still feel him with me. ❤️
We are more alike than I could have even imagined when I first started off this journey of discovering.
I can’t wait to tell you more about him.
Till next time and Happy New Year,
Caitlin
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The tea
Part of the reason for starting this blog was to raise awareness on the importance of each individual life. Life is special and I believe we should value our time on earth because so many people had to come together over hundreds and thousands of years to create it.
Think of that for a second.
How incredible is your life!
How incredible is it to exist?!
Maybe when things are hard it feels ridiculous to think of this fact - that so many people over thousands of years worked hard to survive, bear children, and make the bloodline last till you came along - but that’s what happened.
You ARE special.
We are ALL special.
I was reminded of how special life is recently and it really got me thinking about how many times I sat upset thinking my life was meaningless and useless.
Let’s face it, suicide is a possibility in today’s world (even, sadly, way too common).
But I want you to consider the next time you have low moments, to think of how many people are behind you, supporting you, who gave their life for yours to thrive.
Do not let it go to waste. You are meaningful just by existing.
You are a miracle!
So with that in mind,
I want to keep the ball rolling with Johannes, my great grandfather, and share with you more about him - specifically his business.
My grandma, Hannelore, always said that he did something with tea. I didn’t know what that exactly meant as a kid, but I just nodded and didn’t ask more questions about it. I guess I assumed it was like selling coffee.
How cool are these stamps from Johannes’ business? [source]
I found these later by Googling the address of the tea business
but I felt we needed a good dose of images to separate this blog post.
So, before we begin - let me break down the timeline for you:
1890 - Anna Hendel is born in Bad Kissingen
1891 - Johannes Clauder is born in Berlin
1931 - Johannes & Anna get married in Berlin
1932 - Hannelore, the only child of Johannes & Anna, is born in Berlin
Now I needed to find out more about the tea business but all I had was Johannes’ name and the picture of the tea business inheritance documents my aunt, Linda, sent to my mom, Pamela.
When I first contacted the Berlin Archives via email, I was met with “there are no such files regarding your great grandfather’s tea business.” When I showed them the inheritance documents I had, they still said that they had nothing on file about the tea business.
Then I showed up physically to the Berlin Archives (location).
Now if you haven’t been to an archive, there are many different ways they operate. Some offer use of computers with databases that can only be seen at the physical archive, while others offer their database online and only offer to see physical documents (remember you need to order the documents in advance before you arrive).
Do NOT be afraid to look stupid at archives. Ask questions. Ask how to do things.
I asked a lady who worked there to help me put the newspaper microfilm roll onto the machine and she ended up doing it wrong and someone else who worked there had to fix it. So, long story short, DO NOT FEEL FOOLISH!
I sat with one lady who worked at the archives and begged her to help me find the file on the tea business because I had a really good feeling it would be here. Sure enough, the file was not under “Johannes Clauder,” nor “Max Clauder,” nor “Clauder,” but was under “M. Clauder.”
The archive system works in such a wild way that whoever archived the file on the tea business decided to put it as “M. Clauder” so when you search the archive database, you will only get results that precisely fit those keywords. So, ideally, it would have been better for the person who put this file in the database to list is as “Clauder” but unfortunately, this is all too common in the research field.
Which is why going to the archives is so important for research. Asking questions, probing for answers, digging through newspapers - all of it matters when doing research.
So, not only did I find the state’s file of the inheritance documents but I found EVERYTHING ELSE about the tea business. It was such a cool experience to be able to sit with the documents that bore my great great grandmother’s signature, my great grandfather’s and grandmother’s signatures.
Having these documents were the first step in discovering more about my great grandfather outside of his role as Omi’s husband and Hannelore’s dad.
Johannes Clauder - great grandfather
Frau Johanna Clauder (geb. Bathe) - great great grandmother
Carl Clauder - (unknown at the time, but now discovered - more later)
Johannes Clauder
We will dive into these documents in the next few posts because I was able to extract A LOT of information from them.
But let’s just say I requested this file to sit by me all 5 days I was at the archives. I loved putting my hand over the signatures and asking them to help me figure out more about them.
They did not disappoint.
Till next time & Merry Christmas!
Caitlin
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The case of the missing great grandfather
There has been a HUGE question mark surrounding my great grandfather’s cause of death and why it happened.
As my great grandma, Omi, had passed when I was too little, the only other person who talked about my great grandfather was my grandmother, Hannelore.
Hannelore never wanted to talk a lot about her father.
I understood why, but it still didn’t help me understand what happened to him.
One time Hannelore, my grandma, said that her father spoke poorly of the Nazis at some gentlemen’s club (the old-school drink & discuss type) and an officer or someone reported it to the SS. In order for him not to jeopardize his family’s lives, he committed suicide.
Apparently, there was some tradition of committing suicide to protect one’s family, so Hannelore and Omi were saved from persecution.
I was under the impression that that was why Omi moved to Bad Kissingen after her husband’s death, to get as far away as possible from Berlin and those who knew her husband’s “treason”.
I didn’t even know his name; no one spoke his name.
He was just Omi’s husband. Grandma’s dad.
But he had a name. He was a person.
Side note: I encourage everyone to learn the names of the people in their lives, even if you call them “Mom” or “Grandpa”. Speaking their name gives them an individual life outside of their roles they played.
Also, I don’t even think we have a picture of him, which is sad.
So I decided my next goal was to get the marriage license of Omi and my great grandfather. What I knew was that they were married in Berlin, so Berlin was where I had inquire about their marriage.
My aunt, Linda, gave my mom two great pieces of information. First was my great grandfather’s confirmation certificate and the other was the papers of inheritance (I will get to those in another post):
Getting this was the first time I have ever heard or seen his name - Johannes.
The confirmation certificate reads:
Johannes Clauder
born on August 28, 1891 in Berlin
baptized on November 9, 1891, after completing his education on the
confession of the evangelical faith and the vow to remain faithful to this faith,
was blessed on March 5, 1907 in the Holy Cross and was allowed to receive Holy Communion.
Revelation St. John 2:10: Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
Berlin, March 10, 1907
So I searched the Berlin Archives for their matching names since the archives had not got back to me. This was very manual work and I had guessed they were married before Hannelore was born, as was the typical tradition. So, I started from 18-year-old Omi and started going up in years till 1932 (the year Hannelore, my grandma, was born).
Surprisingly there were not many last names starting with “C” so that was helpful.
Finally, I found it and requested it specifically from the archives:
This is a rather interesting marriage license as most are one page.
My mom, Pamela, told me that they were said to have been married by the mayor himself.
The document reads (transcribed by Transkribus + checked):
PAGE 1
Berlin on the 26th of September 1931.
The following appeared today before the undersigned registrar for the purpose of marriage:
The merchant, Johannes Wilhelm Max Clauder, identified by birth certificate, also known, born on the 28th August 1891 in Berlin, birth register no. 3325 of the registry office in Berlin IV. A., resident in Berlin, Bergmannstrasse 9;
Anna Hendel, without occupation, identified by birth certificate, born on the 15th February 1890 (again, listed as the 15th!) in Bad Kissingen, birth register no. 15 of the registry office in Bad Kissingen, resident in Berlin, Bergmannstrasse 9.
PAGE 2
The following witnesses were called in and appeared:
The merchant Ernst Rade, identified by his driving license, 44 years old, resident in Berlin, Planufer 13;
The merchant Hans Weise, identified by his driving license, 40 years old, resident in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Wilmersdorferstrasse
The registrar asked the engaged couple individually and one after the other whether they wanted to marry each other. The engaged couple answered in the affirmative and the registrar then declared that they were now legally married by virtue of the Civil Code.
Read out, approved and signed (the following are the signatures):
Johannes Wilhelm Max Clauder
Anna Clauder (geb. Hendel).
Ernst Rade, (last signature unrecognizable)
The registrar
(signature ends with a “ski”)
Note at the bottom:
A daughter was born, No. 57./1932, Berlin IVa
So that was the first step at identifying my great grandfather, Johannes.
I still have yet to find out where he is buried but it is a goal of mine.
Till next time,
Caitlin
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Omi
Omi is my great grandmother.
In German, Omi means grandma, but as a kid I really thought that was her name.
What I knew as a kid about Omi was that she was a badass:
She lived to be 101 years old (she died when I was 1 year old);
She lived through two wars;
She took cold showers and dry brushed her skin everyday, from what I’ve been told
(and when I think about living a long life, I think of these two things).
As I grew up, I wondered more about her.
Who was this mysterious long-lasting being who went through so much?
What was her secret to being able to go through so much and still be healthy until 101?
Omi and my grandma, Hannelore. The back of the picture says: “Mom. Dad died Omi wore black for a year.”
I figured it was easiest to start with Omi and perhaps grasp the earlier history of our family. My thought process was start with great grandparents and work my way up to present day then go back and work down.
She was buried in Bad Kissingen so I started with Bad Kissingen’s archives.
The process to get records is to contact the city’s “Standesamt” and request birth, death, or marriage certificates using the full legal name of who you are looking for as well as their birth date and death date.
If your relatives also resided in Bad Kissingen, you would use this email: standesamt@stadt.badkissingen.de.
I was very fortunate to be put into contact with Evelyn, who is just God sent. If there could awards given for helping at archives, Evelyn should get one.
NOTE: It is very important to write all your emails in German (if in doubt, use Google Translate) because otherwise, you face the possibility of not getting a response. It is not uncommon to find people in Germany who do not speak or read in English so be mindful about this. Nowadays, it’s not a big deal. They appreciate the effort in making it as easy as possible for them, even if you make mistakes.
Evelyn not only answered all of my questions, she went above and beyond to try to get me all the information she could find.
My first official document to add to my research, Omi’s birth certificate:
This document reads (via Transkribus + rechecking its German):
No. 15
Bad Kissingen on February 18, 1890
Today, before the undersigned registrar, the merchant Mr. Robert Hendel, resident of Bad Kissingen, Ludwigstrasse No. 13, appeared, who is known by his identity, and who stated that of his wife, Anna Hendel, maiden name Maier, Catholic religion, living with him in Bad Kissingen, Ludwigstrasse No. 13, on the fifteenth of February in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety and afternoon at twelve o'clock a child, female, was born, who was given the first name Anna.
Read out, approved and signed:
Robert Hendel
The registrar:
Juiliy
Here you can see a very interesting thing happen that is common when dealing with documents:
Omi’s birth certificate says she was born on the 15th, as you can see with the dots above the u in fünfzehn (15).
If it was the 14th, there would be no f, it would be vierzehn (14).
Here, we have her USA green card showing her birth date as the 14th.
So, in the greater scheme of things, it doesn’t seem like much. But any official document is crucial for being able to make concrete connections in the future. And no one in the family had her birth certificate as far as I knew, so also nice to have.
A piece of history.
The beginning of our connections to Germany.
Till next time,
Caitlin
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Bad Kissingen, Germany
⭐ Big shout out to Heidi for her donation! Thank you! ⭐
Back in February 2024, I took a trip to Bad Kissingen, Germany, to see my great grandmother’s village.
I knew we had a family grave there and I knew that my great grandmother lived above a cinema they owned after she moved back to Bad Kissingen from Berlin.
Did I know the name of the cinema? No.
Did I have any other information about the cinema? No.
So before I left to visit the village, I dug in to see what I could find. This is what I found:
allekinos.com
Here you can see my great grandmother’s name - Anna Hendel - and that it is located in Bad Kissingen on Ludwigstrasse 16.
A great starting point.
Next was to go see the village.
Unfortunately when I arrived to Nuremberg, the country was having a train strike and I stayed at the Nuremberg HBF for hours till I could navigate through a maze of trains to finally get to Bad Kissingen.
I took a picture of the inside of the train because it splits into two and boy was that confusing (haha).
I finally made it to Bad Kissingen and my wonderful Airbnb host, Peter, picked me up from the train station.
The next day I decided to go see the place where the cinema used to be and walked through the city center to the cemetery I knew my family was buried. I stopped by this church pictured with the arched roofs and wrote down a prayer on a slip of paper.
The picture with the little circular lake is the park that is in front of the historical cemetery - Kapellenfriedhof. The two pictures of the orangey-looking church are of the inside of the Kapellenfriedhof where my family is buried. I took my lunch to the cemetery to eat near my family’s grave. I enjoyed being with them.
Ever since I moved overseas in 2013 I had dreamed of going to Bad Kissingen. Life always seemed to be busy.
So after I was done eating, I got up to lay flowers down for Omi (my great grandmother) and to my surprise I find this plastered on the foot of the family grave. I almost missed it because the text can only be seen from an up-close angle (almost like it was supposed to be hidden):
„Im März 2013 kamen Nachkommen der Familie Hendel Wagner aus Brasilien hierher, um ihre Herkunft zu ehren. Gott hat uns gesegnet.“
Translation: In March 2013, descendants of the Hendel Wagner family from Brazil came here to honor their origins. God has blessed us.
Well…that was a curveball.
We all know what it means when Germans after WW2 went to South America. It is the stereotypical story. Let’s just say it was a frenzy of figuring out what the heck this meant and who they heck they were.
Heidi, my youngest sister, was the one who found the following information:
Heinz Hendel Wagner (Bad Kissigen, Bavaria, Germany 1921 - São Paulo, São Paulo, 1982). Painter. Studied at the School of Applied Arts in Breslau, Germany. After serving as a volunteer for the German Red Cross between 1940 and 1945, he moved to France, where he furthered his artistic studies and began a course in dentistry at the University of Paris. In 1953, he came to São Paulo, became a disciple of Luigi Zanoto and joined the Ateliê Expressão. In the 1960s, together with the Spanish painter Francesc Domingo Segura (1893 - 1974), he founded the Grupo Bisonte.
[source]
How Heinz is directly connected is still unsolved but it is on the questions list.
I placed the flowers on Omi’s grave and came back the next day to clean the grave as best as I could given it was still winter time.
I also wanted to check out if one of grandma’s friends were still in town as my older sister, Amanda, went there with her years earlier. She told me which hotel to go to.
My grandma sitting on the steps of her friend’s hotel, Haus Marga.
When I walked in, no one was at the front desk, so I called the number on the business card and some lady (who sounded like she was in the back of the hallway inside the hotel) answered. She was angry when I asked if she is the new owner as her voice was younger than I expected. She said she wasn’t “new” since she had had the business for over a decade. We had this whole conversation while I could hear her down the ways behind a door (lol).
Grandma’s friend had moved to Frankfurt to live with her children. And so, Bad Kissingen holds one less person to talk to about my grandma.
Till next time,
Caitlin
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Restart - picking up where I left off
The restart - picking back up where I left off.
This was the picture that always caught my attention when I would look through the photos again and again.
What was written after “general”?
Who was Bob?
What princess was named “Lolly”?
I was so curious as to who these people were and how they were connected to my family so I decided to start with the energy I had behind this photo.
I first searched for generals during WW1, interwar, and WW2 period in Germany and Austria (since I knew my grandmother was from Germany). Nothing.
My next step was see what royal families existed during this period of the photo which I guessed early 1900’s based on how the people dressed. I used this website to see if there were any physical similarities, which I know was a long shot but I was ambitious. No immediate luck.
I thought I was hopeless so I decided to go in search for a historian who specialized in royal families in Germany and Austria during this period. I used the website - WomenAlsoKnowHistory.com. One historian I found emailed me back but then never continued correspondence. When I found the second historian, I decided to go visit her office in person since she was located in Vienna. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in her office so her colleagues heard my story and directed me to the National Archives in Vienna (she later got back to me saying she could be of no help and recommended an AI program to help me with old German handwriting - this one). I would also like to point out that one of the nice gentlemen who was in the Habsburg research area said that the general in the picture was far too young to be a general. I told him I assumed it was taken before he became a general (keep this in mind for later).
So here I am - no historian, nothing else but to continue the crumb trail of open doors and went to the National Archive in Vienna. I was told by the second historian’s colleagues to ask for a certain collection of books which would show the family trees of the royal families, if they existed. I was given the contact name of Maria RÖHSNER. I met her in person at the archives and she was surprised to hear someone wanted to see these collections of books. When I mentioned that my great grandmother’s last name was Hendel, she got excited and said that another colleague of hers researches extensively the family Hendel. Turns out it was Hendl, not Hendel (lol). That researcher practically ran downstairs to us and when he found out there was an e between the d and l it was like looking at a kid who was disappointed in a birthday/Christmas gift!
I suggested to Maria that based on the pictures I had with names, that they could possibly be from the Auersperg family tree (a branch of the Habsburg family). She said that the family still exists and one of the descendents likes to help researchers and so I was given the contact email address to this Auersperg.
I immediately went back home and sent an email with some picture attachments to this descendent of the Auersperg family. Unfortunately, she got back to me saying she could not recognize anyone in the pictures. So, yet again, another dead end.
In the meantime, I asked my mother (who has the photos since I moved to Europe) to double check the photos and see if there were anything written on the backs of the photos. Sure enough, a first name for the general was written on the back of this photo - Karl.
Born 1889 in Potsdam, died in 1945. Report of his crimes on November 11, 1938 were used in the Nuremberg Trials to convict the Nazi officers.
Here is the following about Karl Lucke from Wikipedia:
Lucke was the son of a master machinist. After attending elementary school , he found a job as a groom in the Imperial Stables in Berlin in 1903. He then joined the Prussian Army as a professional soldier in 1906. He was a member of the Baden Dragoon Regiment No. 20. He took part in the First World War with another dragoon regiment from 1914 to 1918, and was finally discharged in October 1919 with the rank of deputy officer.During the Weimar Republic, Lucke worked as an administrative employee (or civil servant) at the Baden State Insurance Institute . In this capacity, he rose to the rank of administrative inspector.
Politically, after the First World War, Lucke quickly oriented himself towards the political right: in 1921 he joined the Freikorps Damm, a local military association in Baden that had emerged from the residents' militias, of which he was to be a member until its dissolution in 1928.
On 1 July 1930, Lucke joined the NSDAP (membership number 270,575). For this party, he initially took on tasks as an advisor to the Baden Gau leadership for questions concerning members of the public administration. From 1931 he was also a member of the NSDAP's street fighting unit, the Sturmabteilung (SA). In 1933, Lucke was elected as a representative for the NSDAP in the last Baden state parliament before the forcible dissolution of this body by the National Socialists. He was also a member of the Darmstadt city council.
Lucke gave up his post as a civil servant in 1934 to become a full-time SA leader. After taking over the command of an SA standard in 1932, he was entrusted with the command of a brigade for the first time in 1934. He then led various brigades until 1942, including the SA Brigade 50 in Starkenburg with headquarters in Darmstadt from 1938 to 1942. In this position he was involved in organizing the destruction of thirty-five synagogues in southern Hesse by SA members on the night of November 9-10, 1938, by passing on a corresponding order from the SA group leadership in Mannheim to the leaders of SA standards 115 (Darmstadt), 145 (Bergstrasse), 168 (Offenbach), 186 (Odenwald and Dieburg) and 221 (Groß-Gerau) and instructing them accordingly.
Since 1939 he also held the position of deputy leader of the SA group Kurpfalz . Lucke reached the formal high point of his SA career in 1942, when he was appointed leader of the SA group Mittelrhein and (presumably at the same time) was promoted to the rank of SA group leader.
- Wikipedia [source]
So, Bob’s friend, Karl Lucke, really was a general. I’m glad I finally found out who this guy was and what happened to him. As for his death in 1945, I still need to dig into this part but for now I’m satisfied.
1 of 4 people identified in the first picture. One small step.
Till next time.
- Caitlin
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