Lecture with Prof Dr Wolfgang Heun and Hans-Peter Reimann | KulturDIELE M8, Stralsund, Mönchstraße 8 | Admission: 10 euros

Hans Volckmann, born in Streu/Schaprode in 1885, successfully managed the Kienberg estate after completing his training as a farmer until 1932 as a tenant under the imperial eagle and then as the owner of the Streu manor under the swastika until the radical land reform.

Before and during the Second World War, Volckmann made his Streu manor available to high-ranking Wehrmacht officers, opponents of the Nazi regime, for illegal meetings. Large landowners who had demonstrably resisted the Nazi dictatorship and suffered as a result were entitled to certain privileges after 1945, such as receiving a residual estate, housing rights or home ownership. When their property in Schaprode was expropriated, the Volckmanns were denied this and the family was expelled from the village. After a successful appeal, Hans Volckmann was given 24 hectares of a devastated farm including a residential house and farm buildings in Götemitz/Rambin as property in 1947, which he farmed very successfully under the Ährenkranz until 1953.

Four weeks after the Volckmann couple and their housekeeper fled to Uelzen, Hans Volckmann finally died as a result of the mistreatment he suffered in the German Reich and the persecution as a large farmer in the GDR.

Prof. Dr Wolfgang Heun pays tribute to Hans Volckmann's moving agricultural and political life's work. Hans-Peter Reimann describes the sometimes adventurous story of the renovation of the ruinous Streu estate, which he and his wife acquired in 2001 and which has become not only a modern place to live and work, but also a memorial to Hans Volckmann and his family.

Wolfgang Heun