Historian finds German decree banishing Trump’s grandfather

The Guardian

A historian has discovered a royal decree issued to Donald Trump’s grandfather ordering him to leave Germany and never come back.

Friedrich Trump, a German, was issued with the document in February 1905, and ordered to leave the kingdom of Bavaria within eight weeks as punishment for having failed to do mandatory military service and failing to give authorities notice of his departure to the US when he first emigrated in 1885.  

Friedrich TrumpRoland Paul, a historian from Rhineland-Palatinate who found the document in local archives, told the tabloid Bild: “Friedrich Trump emigrated from Germany to the USA in 1885. However, he failed to de-register from his homeland and had not carried out his military service, which is why the authorities rejected his attempt at repatriation.”

The decree orders the “American citizen and pensioner Friedrich Trump” to leave the area “at the very latest on 1 May … or else expect to be deported”. Bild called the archive find an “unspectacular piece of paper”, that had nevertheless “changed world history”.

Trump was born in Kallstadt, now in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, in 1869. He emigrated to the US aged 16 initially to escape poverty, attracted by the gold rush.

He quickly turned his attention to catering for the masses of other gold hunters in Alaska, later allegedly running a brothel for them, and there made his fortune. He habitually sent the gold nuggets with which his customers regularly paid for their food to his sisters who had already emigrated to New York and had started trading in property.

Donald Trump in the 1987 with his father Fred
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 Donald Trump in the 1987 with his father, Fred, son of Friedrich. Photograph: NY Daily News via Getty Images

Returning on a visit to Kallstadt in 1901, Trump fell in love with Elisabeth Christ, whom he married a year later, returning with her to the US. But when she became homesick and wanted to return to Germany, the authorities blocked his attempts to settle there.

In an effort to overturn the royal decree dated 27 February 1905, Trump wrote an obsequious letter appealing to Prince Regent Luitpold, addressing him as “the much-loved, noble, wise and righteous sovereign and sublime ruler”.

But the prince rejected the appeal and the Trumps left Germany for New York with their daughter on the Hapag steamship Pennsylvania on 1 July 1905. Elisabeth was three months pregnant with Donald Trump’s father, Fred.

Residents of Kallstadt, a small wine-growing town of about 1,200 people in south-west Germany, joke that the blame for Trump becoming US president-elect lies with the German authorities who threw his grandfather out. They have so far shown little enthusiasm for claiming the businessman turned politician as their own.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/trump-grandfather-friedrich-banished-germany-historian-royal-decree

5 thoughts on “Historian finds German decree banishing Trump’s grandfather

    1. we are not servants of our government .. its exactly opposite

      Drafting is an illegal action , and there is no honor in being drafted.
      Cowards are those that follow their governments that rule them into the grave , for they have no mind of their own and no voice of their own

      so you feel its better to honor a man that was too dumb to know that he was being duped by his government to give up his life and freedom , for the governments to gain in the resources grabbed by every war ever waged? as he gains nothing?

      If it were truly honorable to be drafted ., than why do so few politicians and heads of states kids enter or be drafted by the military to stand on the front lines? and thus the fathers of these wars come to the front line to defend what story they are giving the masses for this conflict

      we all know every war was nothing more but a resource grab ,, wheres the honor in killing others for whats in the ground for the greedy to gain and the poor to continue to fight?
      I’d bet the statistics of who joins are people with little opportunities in this country … you dont see any millionaires kids signing up to take a bullet for an oil well , or some mineral in the foreign land

      son , you been lied to ..and you have been duped to think that theres any honor in serving these tyrants of any nation

      they always gain off the sweat of our backs and the death of our youth , not something to be proud of , and no , no one is a coward to not fight the fight of another mans war

      a Coward is a man that cannot see the reality and is lead around by his nose or propaganda to fight for someone elses purpose , and..not because some stuffed suit told him too …while that stuffed suit sits and watches them die

        1. Thank you Mary
          I figured if I was full of it
          Someone here that I care about their opinion ,would have already lit me up …..

  1. Why would the historian leave out the important part of the story? Trump was a German joo,and therefore a coward and run out… Oh that’s right… Mentioning the unmentionable in Germany will get you locked up for a long time. And who made THAT law? I wonder…

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