In the process of preparing a bunch of Rheinsberg posts, I redid the Katte family trees to incorporate new information. Then I thought I'd better put it here, so new discussion (if any) at least doesn't start over there.
Family trees for the Katte family, annotated with a lot of what we know about the people in them.
1. Katte ancestors
This one shows how Hans Hermann is related to the ancestors whose carvings are on the outside of the church in Wust. (See the Wust picspam.)
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1] Hans: Or Heinrich. Perhaps Hans Heinrich. Birth and death dates approximate. His carving is on the left side of the church door in Wust. See this picture for the church and this one for the closeup of the carving.
[2] Anna: Her carving is on the right side of the church door in Wust.
[3] Hans: Death date approximate. His carving is on the south side of the church in Wust. See this picture for the wall of the church, and this one for the closeup of the carving.
[4] Hans Heinrich: Biographical entry in Wikipedia, which, however, seems to get the date and location of his death wrong: all evidence points to him dying on May 30 in camp at Gettien, not May 31 at Reckahn. Here is a picture of his tomb in the family crypt, at the church in Wust (pace Wikipedia, which has him buried in Berlin). The Wust picspam has the inscription in full.
[5] Hans Hermann: Biographical entry in Wikipedia, which should be taken with a grain of salt. Fontane, for instance, reports his birthdate as February 21 and cites the church register in Wust. A picture of his simple wooden coffin in the family crypt is here.
For more pictures and details on the church and family crypt in Wust, see this post.
2. Hans Hermann's relationship to Otto von Bismarck
The Katte family seat was in Wust, and the Bismarcks had residences in Schönhausen, only about 9 km away by road and fewer as the crow flies. The Bismarcks and Kattes had numerous intermarriages, being two major noble families of the region. Otto von Bismarck was born in Schönhausen, in a house that has the arms of the Katte family above the doorway and the name of Dorothea Sophia inscribed on the side.
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1] Dorothea Catharina: A picture of her tomb behind the altar in the church in Wust. [2] Moritz Hans: Died Jan 24, 1684, according to Wikipedia. [3] Eva Auguste: Died Jan 26, 1684, according to Wikipedia. I have no proof, but I'm suspicious that her death and her husband's might have been related. It's worth noting that there was a major plague epidemic in Europe from 1679 through 1684, ending in 1683 in Germany. January 1684 is close enough that I wonder if they might both have died of the plague. [4] Hans Heinrich: Observe that he was only two years old when both his parents died.
3. Hans Hermann's relationship to 'Aunt' Melusine
Melusine von Schulenberg was the mistress of George I. Hans Hermann went to visit her when he was in England in 1722/1723 on the Grand Tour, and again in 1729. We have a quote from a letter from Hans Heinrich to his brother Heinrich Christoph that Hans Hermann was having a fling with Melusine's daughter Petronella in 1729.
As the family tree shows, "Aunt" Melusine is his father's mother's sister's husband's daughter by a second wife, so not related by blood to Hans Hermann.
Neither the genealogy sites nor Wikipedia (which are probably drawing on each other) show Anna Elisabeth and Eva Auguste von Stammer as related, much less sisters, but Klosterhuis, according to selenak's wonderful write-up, says they were. It's very good about sources, much better than the abovementioned sites, and we do know Katte called her "Aunt" Melusine, so I'm going with it.
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1] Melusine: Biographical entry in Wikipedia. [2] Petronella: The one Hans Hermann is reported to have had an affair with. [3] Philip: Yes, *the* Earl of Chesterfield. Biographical entry here. [4] Philip: The fictional first-person narrator of Michael Roes' Zeithain.
4. Heinrich Christoph's branch
Heinrich Christoph was the older brother of Hans Heinrich and thus the uncle of Hans Hermann. His children are therefore of the correct generation to show up a lot on the fringes of history in our period. For the quotes from Lehndorff on the Katte family, see this entry. In the annotations to the family tree, I will identify which member of the family he's talking about in a given quote.
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1] Ludolf August: The one who married Lehndorff's cousin whom Lehndorff wanted to marry and stayed friends with all her life. Fontane gives the following account of the marriage (write-up by selenak):
Well, according to Fontane the following happened:
Fritz: *gets to the throne, starts to marry people off (he did this a lot for financial and political reasons, his own opinion on marriage not withstanding*
Kattes: *get offered Demoiselle Rolas du Rosey, rich heiress and cousin to one Lehndorff, for Heinrich Christoph's second son*
Ludolf August, oldest son of Heinrich Christoph: *checks out rich bride, decides to have her for himself*
Another miserable marriage: *gets made*
Not that Fontane says it was miserable; as I said, he didn't have Lehndorff's diaries. Not that Lehndorff was unbiased, given his backstory with her, but I doubt that if his cousin had been wonderfully happy, he'd have invented a bad marriage for her. So anyway, Ludolf August is the husband of Frau von Katte my amiable cousin ("We were meant for each other!"). Fontane says Fritz didn't care which Katte got the rich bride, as long as the family profited. He also assumes it was a happy marriage, but, well, see above.
If you look at the chronology, Lehndorff reports being engaged to his cousin in 1751. It was in 1748 (see the annotations to the next family tree) that Hans Heinrich's branch died out and the Wust holdings reverted to Ludolf August. I assume this is why Ludolf August is the first member of Heinrich Christoph's branch to be buried in the crypt in Wust, which previously held only members of Hans Heinrich's branch (now defunct in the male line with the death of the last remaining childless son).
So I imagine that the death of Hans Heinrich's last surviving son may have been responsible for Fritz trying to arrange a good marriage for one of Hans Hermann's first cousin's.
A picture of Ludolf August's tomb in the family crypt in Wust.
[2] Johann/Hans Friedrich: In 1730, he was a captain. During the escape attempt, when Fritz was traveling and Hans Hermann was in Berlin, Johann Friedrich forwarded mail between them. He got suspicious about the amount of activity and reported it to the king. Several of my sources agree that Friedrich wrote a letter to Hans Hermann, but forgot to specify that the recipient Hans von Katte was the one in Berlin, so it went to the Hans von Katte in Erlangen, who forwarded the letter to the King, thus implicating his cousin Hans Hermann in the escape attempt. He was promoted to major in October 1730 as a reward.
During the Seven Years' War, Johann Friedrich negotiated the surrender of Schweidnitz in Silesia. He, along with others involved, was cashiered as a result.
[3] Henriette Catherine: Entertained Lehndorff at Bernhard's wedding.
[4] Heinrich Christoph: Red-headed Staatsminister so disliked by Lehndorff.
[5] Bernhard Christian: The one whom Lehndorff reports sleeping through his wedding night. He would have been 60 years old at the wedding.
[6] Henriette Wilhelmine: She was the half first cousin of her husband (note Bernhard's mother's maiden name).
[7] Dorothea Elisabeth: I have not been able to find a birth or death date for her.
5. Hans Heinrich's branch
I.e., our Katte's immediate family.
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1]: Alexander von Wartensleben: Field Marshal in the Prussian army. Klosterhuis says that he was a nobleman in the old Baroque style, whereas Hans Heinrich fit the mold of militaristic austerity that Friedrich Wilhelm wanted to shape. It also says that Hans Hermann spent much of his youth with Wartensleben in Berlin, and that his grandfather was thus a formative influence on him. Wartensleben petitioned for Hans Hermann's life, and had to pay the executioner when he was unsuccessful.
[2] Dorothea Sophia: Wikipedia gives her death date as November 5, 1707. The sign on the wall in the Wust crypt gives it as 1706 (no date given). A number of my sources agree that the Wust crypt was built in 1706/1707 by Hans Heinrich to host her tomb after her unexpected death when the existing burial site was full. So 1706 seems likely. Wikipedia gives the birthdate of her youngest child as October 5, 1706.
I am not certain which is her tomb, but my best guess is that it's the full-length one very near to the photographer in this photo, i.e. the one between the one with the partial effigy and the one with a lot of writing. The partial effigy is Hans Heinrich, Fontane tells us that Hans Heinrich was buried with his two wives on either side of them, and if this list has any order to it, then my guess is that it starts on the left, meaning the tombs against the far wall go: son of Hans Heinrich, second wife of Hans Heinrich, Hans Heinrich, first wife of Hans Heinrich, son of Hans Heinrich.
[3] Katherina Elisabeth: Hans Hermann's stepmother. You can see from the dates that she was only eight years older than he was, and her first child was born when he was ten and she was eighteen. I imagine she didn't marry until he was about eight or nine and she was sixteen or seventeen. In his final letter to his father, written just hours before his death, Hans Hermann records that he loved his stepmother as if they were related by blood.
Again going by my deductions described above, her tomb is most likely the blue and white one in this picture, to the left of Hans Heinrich's tomb with the partial effigy.
[4] Friedrich Wilhelm von Rochow: One of Fritz's governors as a teenager. He accompanied FW and Fritz on the trip during which the escape attempt took place, and tried to prevent the escape. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in October 1730 for his role in hindering Fritz's escape.
[5] Elisabeth Katharina: She is described by Lehndorff as having been high and mighty when young, but humble and modest when older and trapped in an unhappy marriage with a lot of children.
[6] Johann Gebhard: Not the same Winterfeld as the one who was a favorite general of Fritz's.
[7] Luise Charlotte: She shared the name of her half-sister who died at age 6 weeks (according to the dates in Wikipedia).
[8] Friedrich Wilhelm: He was killed by his brother in a duel that I have seen described as over the inheritance or over a woman. He died June 27, the day of the duel.
Again going by my deductions described above, his tomb is most likely the one on the far left in this picture, with the candelabra on it.
[9] Friedrich Albrecht: He was killed by his brother in a duel that I have seen described as over the inheritance or over a woman. He died October 14, presumably of wounds sustained during the duel. After he died without issue in 1748, the Hans Heinrich male line died out and the Wust holdings reverted to his cousin Ludolf August. Ludolf would then marry Lehndorff's cousin in or shortly after 1751.
His tomb is most likely the one partially shown in the lower left corner of the frame of this picture, the one with a lot of writing on it. I would love to know what the writing says.
Katte family trees
Family trees for the Katte family, annotated with a lot of what we know about the people in them.
1. Katte ancestors
This one shows how Hans Hermann is related to the ancestors whose carvings are on the outside of the church in Wust. (See the Wust picspam.)
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1] Hans: Or Heinrich. Perhaps Hans Heinrich. Birth and death dates approximate. His carving is on the left side of the church door in Wust. See this picture for the church and this one for the closeup of the carving.
[2] Anna: Her carving is on the right side of the church door in Wust.
[3] Hans: Death date approximate. His carving is on the south side of the church in Wust. See this picture for the wall of the church, and this one for the closeup of the carving.
[4] Hans Heinrich: Biographical entry in Wikipedia, which, however, seems to get the date and location of his death wrong: all evidence points to him dying on May 30 in camp at Gettien, not May 31 at Reckahn. Here is a picture of his tomb in the family crypt, at the church in Wust (pace Wikipedia, which has him buried in Berlin). The Wust picspam has the inscription in full.
[5] Hans Hermann: Biographical entry in Wikipedia, which should be taken with a grain of salt. Fontane, for instance, reports his birthdate as February 21 and cites the church register in Wust. A picture of his simple wooden coffin in the family crypt is here.
For more pictures and details on the church and family crypt in Wust, see this post.
2. Hans Hermann's relationship to Otto von Bismarck
The Katte family seat was in Wust, and the Bismarcks had residences in Schönhausen, only about 9 km away by road and fewer as the crow flies. The Bismarcks and Kattes had numerous intermarriages, being two major noble families of the region. Otto von Bismarck was born in Schönhausen, in a house that has the arms of the Katte family above the doorway and the name of Dorothea Sophia inscribed on the side.
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1] Dorothea Catharina: A picture of her tomb behind the altar in the church in Wust.
[2] Moritz Hans: Died Jan 24, 1684, according to Wikipedia.
[3] Eva Auguste: Died Jan 26, 1684, according to Wikipedia. I have no proof, but I'm suspicious that her death and her husband's might have been related. It's worth noting that there was a major plague epidemic in Europe from 1679 through 1684, ending in 1683 in Germany. January 1684 is close enough that I wonder if they might both have died of the plague.
[4] Hans Heinrich: Observe that he was only two years old when both his parents died.
3. Hans Hermann's relationship to 'Aunt' Melusine
Melusine von Schulenberg was the mistress of George I. Hans Hermann went to visit her when he was in England in 1722/1723 on the Grand Tour, and again in 1729. We have a quote from a letter from Hans Heinrich to his brother Heinrich Christoph that Hans Hermann was having a fling with Melusine's daughter Petronella in 1729.
As the family tree shows, "Aunt" Melusine is his father's mother's sister's husband's daughter by a second wife, so not related by blood to Hans Hermann.
Neither the genealogy sites nor Wikipedia (which are probably drawing on each other) show Anna Elisabeth and Eva Auguste von Stammer as related, much less sisters, but Klosterhuis, according to
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1] Melusine: Biographical entry in Wikipedia.
[2] Petronella: The one Hans Hermann is reported to have had an affair with.
[3] Philip: Yes, *the* Earl of Chesterfield. Biographical entry here.
[4] Philip: The fictional first-person narrator of Michael Roes' Zeithain.
4. Heinrich Christoph's branch
Heinrich Christoph was the older brother of Hans Heinrich and thus the uncle of Hans Hermann. His children are therefore of the correct generation to show up a lot on the fringes of history in our period. For the quotes from Lehndorff on the Katte family, see this entry. In the annotations to the family tree, I will identify which member of the family he's talking about in a given quote.
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1] Ludolf August: The one who married Lehndorff's cousin whom Lehndorff wanted to marry and stayed friends with all her life. Fontane gives the following account of the marriage (write-up by
Well, according to Fontane the following happened:
Fritz: *gets to the throne, starts to marry people off (he did this a lot for financial and political reasons, his own opinion on marriage not withstanding*
Kattes: *get offered Demoiselle Rolas du Rosey, rich heiress and cousin to one Lehndorff, for Heinrich Christoph's second son*
Ludolf August, oldest son of Heinrich Christoph: *checks out rich bride, decides to have her for himself*
Another miserable marriage: *gets made*
Not that Fontane says it was miserable; as I said, he didn't have Lehndorff's diaries. Not that Lehndorff was unbiased, given his backstory with her, but I doubt that if his cousin had been wonderfully happy, he'd have invented a bad marriage for her. So anyway, Ludolf August is the husband of Frau von Katte my amiable cousin ("We were meant for each other!"). Fontane says Fritz didn't care which Katte got the rich bride, as long as the family profited. He also assumes it was a happy marriage, but, well, see above.
/End
If you look at the chronology, Lehndorff reports being engaged to his cousin in 1751. It was in 1748 (see the annotations to the next family tree) that Hans Heinrich's branch died out and the Wust holdings reverted to Ludolf August. I assume this is why Ludolf August is the first member of Heinrich Christoph's branch to be buried in the crypt in Wust, which previously held only members of Hans Heinrich's branch (now defunct in the male line with the death of the last remaining childless son).
So I imagine that the death of Hans Heinrich's last surviving son may have been responsible for Fritz trying to arrange a good marriage for one of Hans Hermann's first cousin's.
A picture of Ludolf August's tomb in the family crypt in Wust.
[2] Johann/Hans Friedrich: In 1730, he was a captain. During the escape attempt, when Fritz was traveling and Hans Hermann was in Berlin, Johann Friedrich forwarded mail between them. He got suspicious about the amount of activity and reported it to the king. Several of my sources agree that Friedrich wrote a letter to Hans Hermann, but forgot to specify that the recipient Hans von Katte was the one in Berlin, so it went to the Hans von Katte in Erlangen, who forwarded the letter to the King, thus implicating his cousin Hans Hermann in the escape attempt. He was promoted to major in October 1730 as a reward.
During the Seven Years' War, Johann Friedrich negotiated the surrender of Schweidnitz in Silesia. He, along with others involved, was cashiered as a result.
[3] Henriette Catherine: Entertained Lehndorff at Bernhard's wedding.
[4] Heinrich Christoph: Red-headed Staatsminister so disliked by Lehndorff.
[5] Bernhard Christian: The one whom Lehndorff reports sleeping through his wedding night. He would have been 60 years old at the wedding.
[6] Henriette Wilhelmine: She was the half first cousin of her husband (note Bernhard's mother's maiden name).
[7] Dorothea Elisabeth: I have not been able to find a birth or death date for her.
5. Hans Heinrich's branch
I.e., our Katte's immediate family.
If Google is blocking the image from appearing in the post, try this link.
[1]: Alexander von Wartensleben: Field Marshal in the Prussian army. Klosterhuis says that he was a nobleman in the old Baroque style, whereas Hans Heinrich fit the mold of militaristic austerity that Friedrich Wilhelm wanted to shape. It also says that Hans Hermann spent much of his youth with Wartensleben in Berlin, and that his grandfather was thus a formative influence on him. Wartensleben petitioned for Hans Hermann's life, and had to pay the executioner when he was unsuccessful.
[2] Dorothea Sophia: Wikipedia gives her death date as November 5, 1707. The sign on the wall in the Wust crypt gives it as 1706 (no date given). A number of my sources agree that the Wust crypt was built in 1706/1707 by Hans Heinrich to host her tomb after her unexpected death when the existing burial site was full. So 1706 seems likely. Wikipedia gives the birthdate of her youngest child as October 5, 1706.
I am not certain which is her tomb, but my best guess is that it's the full-length one very near to the photographer in this photo, i.e. the one between the one with the partial effigy and the one with a lot of writing. The partial effigy is Hans Heinrich, Fontane tells us that Hans Heinrich was buried with his two wives on either side of them, and if this list has any order to it, then my guess is that it starts on the left, meaning the tombs against the far wall go: son of Hans Heinrich, second wife of Hans Heinrich, Hans Heinrich, first wife of Hans Heinrich, son of Hans Heinrich.
[3] Katherina Elisabeth: Hans Hermann's stepmother. You can see from the dates that she was only eight years older than he was, and her first child was born when he was ten and she was eighteen. I imagine she didn't marry until he was about eight or nine and she was sixteen or seventeen. In his final letter to his father, written just hours before his death, Hans Hermann records that he loved his stepmother as if they were related by blood.
Again going by my deductions described above, her tomb is most likely the blue and white one in this picture, to the left of Hans Heinrich's tomb with the partial effigy.
[4] Friedrich Wilhelm von Rochow: One of Fritz's governors as a teenager. He accompanied FW and Fritz on the trip during which the escape attempt took place, and tried to prevent the escape. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in October 1730 for his role in hindering Fritz's escape.
[5] Elisabeth Katharina: She is described by Lehndorff as having been high and mighty when young, but humble and modest when older and trapped in an unhappy marriage with a lot of children.
[6] Johann Gebhard: Not the same Winterfeld as the one who was a favorite general of Fritz's.
[7] Luise Charlotte: She shared the name of her half-sister who died at age 6 weeks (according to the dates in Wikipedia).
[8] Friedrich Wilhelm: He was killed by his brother in a duel that I have seen described as over the inheritance or over a woman. He died June 27, the day of the duel.
Again going by my deductions described above, his tomb is most likely the one on the far left in this picture, with the candelabra on it.
[9] Friedrich Albrecht: He was killed by his brother in a duel that I have seen described as over the inheritance or over a woman. He died October 14, presumably of wounds sustained during the duel. After he died without issue in 1748, the Hans Heinrich male line died out and the Wust holdings reverted to his cousin Ludolf August. Ludolf would then marry Lehndorff's cousin in or shortly after 1751.
His tomb is most likely the one partially shown in the lower left corner of the frame of this picture, the one with a lot of writing on it. I would love to know what the writing says.