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| Dear Hund - and Hunthausens in USA, the German Hundhausens feel that in these days it is particularly important to remember our common roots and to keep contact. Today I'd like to tell you a bit about the latest activities of the Hundhausen-Familienverband. At the end of April 2003 the Hundhausen family had a meeting in between (the regular meeting takes place every two years usually somewhere in the region of the upper Sieg, where the family tree has its roots.) The intermediate meeting which we had some weeks ago was well organized by Klaus Hoewekamp, and that part of the Familienverband which we may call the hard core of it, came together near Königswinter, in the beautiful Rhine valley, where "The castled crag of Drachenfels/ Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine..." (Lord Byron) . As Königswinter lies very close to Bonn, the former capital of the Federasl Republic of Germany, it was quite natural that the activities which Klaus had arranged dealt to some extent with the historical role of the 2000-year old town of Bonn: We visited the house where Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the FRG lived and to which an informing museum with many documents, videos and personal souvenirs of Adenauer is attached. Among these documents there are many things which demonstrate the close links between Germany and the USA. In his private office we discovered a painting by an artist who is better known as a general and politician: Dwight D.Eisenhower. He gave it as a present to Adenauer. We learned that the artist who taught Eisenhower to paint was a German professor of the Art Academy at Munich, with the French name of Graboné - a demonstration of the manifold links between the United States and Europe. Of course there would be much more to tell about our family meeting, but let me just mention two events, that will for a long time be remebered by those who were present. First a visit to the Botanical Garden at Bonn, originally a park which belonged to the Schloss Poppelsdorf, right in the center of the town. A guide showed us the great variety of native and subtropical as well as tropical plants, some of which thrive well in the mild climate of the Rhine valley. The tropical plants, of course, are kept in hot-houses, among them a real sensation the "Titanwurz" (Amorphophallus titanum), the biggest flower of the world, its bloom reaches more than two metres in diameter! In the evening we had a dinner at a hotel in the Siebengebirge near Königswinter and when we had enjoyed a good meal, an elderly gentleman stood up and presented the statue of a German shepherd to Werner, our archivist, to appreciate his work. Great applause! It turned out that the gentleman who unveiled this present was Dr. Schulze-Vorberg, Klaus' father-in-law, in the seventies and eighties a well known politician in Germany, for many years MP for the CSU and he could tell us many amusing stories about the time, when Adenauer, Franz Joseph Strauss, Willy Brandt and others shaped German politics. Let me finish with one of these anecdotes: One day Adenauer had asked Kurt Schumacher, leader of the opposition, to come to the chancellor's office to discuss some issues of importance. Although Schumacher was Adenauer's fierce opponent in Parliament, they respected each other. The press was waiting outside and observed that suddenly Annemarie Renger, Schumacher's secretary (and later on Speaker of the Bundestag) rushed out of the building, called for a car and a short time later came back with a file under her arm and hurried into the chancellor's office. The following days the newspapers were full of suspicions abou the dramatic course of the discussions in the office. The truth came out some time later: Schumacher had mentioned that he had two dogs and Adenauer was interested in learning more about their breed and character, so Mrs. Renger was sent to Schumacher's home to fetch some phtos of them. I think this anecdote shows - among other things - that differences in political opinions are not necessarily an obstacle to liking someone as a person. So much for the present. We would enjoy meeting more relatives from all over the world - if not in person than with email-contact! Erhard Hundhausen on behalf of Hundhausen Familienverband |