Home Genealogy People Places Anthes History Gravestones Documents The earliest known Anthes in this line was Johann Casper Anthes, born before 1732, who married Anna Margaretha Herschin. He was an organist in Kronberg, Germany. The Anthes in this line were Lutheran pastors, cantors and organists until Reinhold August Heinrich Anthes who was born in 1856. He was one year old when his father died. His father specified in his will that his older children, one of whom was a Lutheran pastor and the other married to a Lutheran pastor, should have Reinhold educated. Although they inherited a fortune from their uncle, they did not fulfill their father’s wish. At the age of 15, with no professional education, or vocational training Reinhold left home and went to Hamburg, where he worked as a printer. He died of lead poisoning, a common hazard of the printing profession. While he was a bedridden invalid his wife asked his wealthy siblings for help. The only help they offered was the advice: “Trust in God and all will be well.” When Reinhold died his son Carl Heinrich Reinhold Anthes, father of Liselotte Anthes, was only 14 years old and knew his father only as an invalid. Liselotte was the last Anthes in this line. Sources: Certified copies of baptismal, confirmation, marriage and burial records and extensive interviews with Liselotte Meta Mathilde Anthes before her death. Ancestors of Liselotte Meta Mathilde Anthes Generation 1 Liselotte Meta Mathilde Anthes was born on the 14^th of August 1916 in Wittstock an der Dosse, Germany. She was the daughter of Carl Heinrich Reinhold Anthes and Ida Erna Agnes Christiane Burmeister. She died on the 12^th of February 2008 in Prisdorf, Germany and was buried at the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg.  Liselotte Meta Mathilde Anthes was baptized on the 1^st of October 1916, Wittstock an der Dosse, Germany. Her confirmation was on the 22^nd of March 1931, Hamburg- Eppendorf, Germany. She married Karl-Wilhelm Schumann on the 21^st of November 1939 in the St. Johannes Kirche, Hamburg Eppendorf, Germany. This was the same church where her parents married. He was born on the 14^th of February 1914 in Hamburg-Barmbeck, Germany, and died the 4^th of March 1977 in Wedel/Holstein, Germany, in an automobile accident. He was the son of Willi Fritz August Schumann and Elsbeth Anna Magdalena Christiana Koch. Liselotte Meta Matilde Anthes' mother had a hole between two chambers of her heart and medical science at that time was not able to correct it. Her mother was an invalid for the last years of her life and in 1916 Liselotte was sent at the age of ca. three months to live with her maternal grandparents in Zaatzke, in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. She came for visits to her mother occasionally and had some memories of her. One memory was being very upset because her mother, who was restricted to bed, asked her to open a door and see if her father was coming. Liselotte could not open the door because she could not reach the handle. Her mother died on 28 January 1921 at the age of only 35 when Liselotte was four and a half years old. Her father married his second wife, Anna Josephine Petersen, only seven months after her mother's death and brought his daughter home from Zaatzke. Liselotte had little memory of her mother, but could well remember her stay in Zaatzke, where her grandfather owned a small tile factory. At that time most people who lived in rural areas, regardless of their occupation, kept farm animals and did some farming for their own consumption. Her grandfather had what everyone considered a dangerous dog and he was kept chained to his dog house. One day Liselotte disappeared and they searched everywhere for her. Finally she was found in the dog house sleeping with the dog. While Liselotte was living with her maternal grandmother she was told children stories about wicked stepmothers and when she saw her father’ second wife she began screaming. Her father never allowed her to see this grandmother again or had any more contact with the family.    Despite this unfortunate beginning Liselotte enjoyed a good relationship with her stepmother and thought of her as her own mother. Her father never spoke of her own mother at all and no pictures were displayed. Everything she knew of her mother was told to her by her father's sister Mathilde, aka Aunt Tilly. Her mother and Tilly were great friends and did needlework together. Liselotte said she had to visit the cemetery and put flowers on the graves every week, although she probably did not remember this correctly. She always wondered why she put flowers on a grave of a woman she did not know, and only figured out later, after she was an adult, that it was her mother. Her own daughter Antje was never told that Anna Petersen was not her real grandmother, but later figured out that she had one too many grandmothers. Liselotte went to a lyzeum, a private middle school for girls, for ten years on a scholarship. At sixteen she began a business apprenticeship at a textile wholesale association. This normally required three years, but she performed so well she completed it a half year early. Liselotte's father wanted her to marry a family friend named Hans Schulz, who was twelve years her senior. Liselotte went with Hans to a wine fest at the Uhlenhorster Fährhaus. He met some friends and disappeared to talk with them. She was bored and her future husband, Karl-Wilhelm Schumann, approached and asked her to dance. They danced from 10 PM to 2 AM and made an appointment to meet the next day. They met at the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (North German Broadcasting) studio on the Rothenbaum Chaussee the next day. He looked at her and said: "I remembered you as a blond". Her hair was dark brown. They were engaged on 14 February 1939 and she gave him an accordion, which their daughter Antje still has. When Liselotte was eighteen, in 1934, she entered a one year youth social services program for girls at St. Michaelisdoon. Then it was voluntary, but later it was required by the governing National Socialist party, aka NAZI party. She was never a member of a political party. Forty girls lived in a barracks in Schleswig-Holstein and were taken each day to work at various farms or to help "anti-social" families. They received no pay from the farmers, but received eighteen Reichmarks per month in pocket money from the ministry. At this time her fiancée, Karl-Wilhelm Schumann, was away doing his military service. Liselotte worked for several farmers, who treated the girls as if they were menial servants, and she preferred working for an "anti-social" family with many children whose father was an alcoholic. She was godmother to one of the children, who sent Liselotte presents after the war. After completing her social service she returned to the textile wholesale association and remained there until six weeks before Antje was born. She went back eight weeks after Antje's birth. Liselotte and Karl-Wilhelm married on 21 November 1939 in St. Johannes Church in Hamburg-Eppendorf, the same church where her parents were married. Before they could marry, the National Socialist government required each party to the marriage to provide an "Ahnenpaß", a family-tree, certified by the Office for Arian Racial Purity. It was a fundamental National Socialists misconception that an Arian was a tall blond- blue-eyed Caucasian, but the term Arian has nothing to do with race. An Arian is a person who spoke the Indo-European language. This was the ancient stem-prototype language of almost all modern European languages, as well as a few other languages of non-Caucasian people in Asia-Minor and Arabia such as; Sanskrit, Persian, Farsi and Hittite. Producing a certified "Ahnenpaß" required collecting certified copies of birth, death, burial, baptismal and confirmation certificates for many generations. The baptismal and confirmation certificates were considered particularly important because they proved the family's religion and, therefore, supposedly, lack of Jewish blood. These extensive document collections in German families facilitate documentation of German Genealogies and both the Anthes and the Schumann lines are very well documented. However, earlier than 1650 is very difficult, because a great many documents in Germany were destroyed in the Thirty-Year-War. Both the Catholics and the Protestants burned one-another's churches, where these types of documents were kept. Home Genealogy People Places Gravestones Documents

A Short History of the Anthes Family