About us

Over the last few years, we have welcomed more and more members and friends into the Familienverband.Fit (t) schen.de (Familiyclub? Fit(t)schen.de) and we are still excited about the growth and the growing number of members.

On family days, we are a happy community that carries out our tasks with the necessary seriousness and still has a lot of fun. Tradition and modernity are in harmony with each other – we look forward to interest from every generation.

Whether young, old, small or large – get to know us, make new acquaintances and fill your free time with joy.

Chairman Klaus Fittschen

Foundation of the association

The spiritual father of the family organization is Pastor Jürgen Fittschen (1863 – 1945). He was the eighth of nine children of the farmer and mill owner Lüdge Fittschen (1805 – 1895) in Bokel. When the parents gave the farm and mill to their eldest son, Christoph Fittschen (1845 -1909), he voluntarily paid his siblings 2,500 thalers instead of the 2,000 thalers he had to give. With the severance pay Jürgen financed his study of theology in Göttingen. At the end of his pastoral activity, he was pastor in Mackensen in Solling. He had recognized early on how increasing urbanization eased family ties and changed social structures. On the occasion of a visit to his father’s estate, meanwhile his nephew Ludwig Fittschen (1893-1956 ), he therefore suggested to hold a Family Day on a larger scale.
This could have inspired him through homesickness. Because “youthful memories of the Fatherland and the homeland awaken homesickness.” Some say, of course, that there is no such thing anymore. The earth has become much smaller over the last decades: radio, railroad, airplane, car have made homesickness to a thing of the past. But that is nonsense. There may come hours when the hearts of men are more prone to cry than to laughter. “
Despite the difficulties to invite as many namesakes without an address list, “Uncle Jürgen”, how the founder of the family association was addressed at that time, could welcome 54 participants on the first family day on June 30, 1929 in Zeven. After a joint coffee table and a walk through the Zevener Ahe-Gehölz, the gathering decided to meet regularly and set up a club for the maintenance of family relationships. They chose a provisional board to elaborate corresponding concepts and “statutes”. These included the following names:
Ludwig Fittschen,Garlstorf(1893-1970) as chairman,
Friedrich Fittschen, Bremen(1890-1970) as secretary,
Ludwig Fittschen, Bockel(1893-1956),
Heinrich Fittschen, Neugraben(1886-1966),
Johann Fittschen, Neukloster (1884-1940),
Johann Fitschen, Ahlerstedt (1872-1953).
The most important task of the provisional board was to find a name for the new club, which best expressed the basic idea of the pastor Jürgen Fittschen to secure and promote family ties.


Family club Fitschen / Fittschen
In the start-up phase, the association called itself “Family Club Fitschen / Fittschen”. For the first family day understandably only persons were invited, who wrote their surname as the Bokeler Fittschen, thus with two “t”. Therefore, no Fitschen with a “t” in the board were elected. However, already on the 1st family day on June 30, 1929, the assembled Fittschens surmised their relationship with carriers of the surname written with a “t”.

This assumption led to research, that the board member Ludwig Fittschen, Bokel, together with his sisters Maria and Meta, occasionaly  with the help of the board member Johann Fittschen, Ahlerstedt, to investigate the Bargstedter church books on. There they found the name Fitschen in different spellings. They were able to trace carriers of this name until 1656 and locate their widely branched progeny. For the second family day on June 6, 1930, the provisional board of the family club therefore invited Fitschen with only one “t”, including the then owner of the (later recognized as such) Stammhof in Oersdorf Klaus Fitschen (1899-1980). It did not take long before it could be proven, based on the church records in Bargstedt and Ahlerstedt, that all the Fittschen who wrote their surname with two “t’s” – not just the Bokeler Fittschen – were descended from Claus Fitschen (1587-1677), which according to the entries of the “Monastery Scribe” Segebade Ebbers in the list of “Extra Ordinari Innahme, free admission and t Hoffwinnungsgelder” of the Harsefeld Monastery in 1633 for “60 Mark” acquired the farm, which is now managed in the 13. generation of Klaus Fitschen (* 9.7.1969)in Oersdorf.
The second “t”

For the first time, the second “t” appears in the name of Fit(t)schen in 1837.1837 King William IV died, who had allowed the Duke of Cambridge, his viceroy in Hanover, and his minister Johann Karl Bertram Stüve 1831/33, the peasants liberation. This ended the personal union of Great Britain and Hanover. In 1837, William IV’s niece Victoria, after whom the second half of the 19th century is called the Victorian era, ascended the throne in London. At the same time her uncle – Wilhelm IV’s youngest brother – Ernst August became king of Hanover. He began his reign until 1851 with the abrogation of the statesbasic Law of 1833 and thus sparked the famous protest of the seven professors from Göttingen, which he expelled of the lingering country. In this fateful year in 1837, the pastor Ludwig Friedrich Ernst, who chaired the church in Ahlerstedt from 1818 to 1859, was accompanied by the pastor Albert Dietrich Brüning. This led until 1857 the church books in Ahlerstedt.
On February 10, 1837, Pastor adjunctus Brüning wrote to the register for “Born and Baptized”: “To Jürgen Fittschen, junior Häusling to Ahlerstedt, and his wife Anna Catharine born Hoeft, one on the 6th (sixth) February, 1 o’clock early in the morning , born son, called: Jürgen “. This Jürgen Fittschen from Paradieshof in Ahlerstedt (1809 – 1892) appears at his marriage on March 1, 1836 still as Jürgen Fitschen.
His nephew Lüdge Fittschen in Bokel (1822 – 1895) fared no different: Among the “baptized in 1822” he appears in the church book in Ahlerstedt on 18 April as “Des Christoph Fitschen, a houseman to Bockel, and his wife Engel born Tibken on the 15th of April, in the evening after 10 o’clock born son, called: Lüdge “. His wedding on the 6th of November 1844 is noted in the register of the” Copulirten “with the following words:” Lüdge Fittschen, the Vollhöfners and mill owner, Christoph Fittschen to Bokel , marital son, and Katharina Maria Martens, the Vollhöfners Christoph Martens to Hollenbeck, parish Bargstedt, marital daughter, have been copulated in the wedding house on the sixth of November, and have their Domicil to Bokel. “
Thus pastor adjunctus Brüning did with all Fitschens in the parish Ahlerstedt. They had to write now with two “t”. the church books had until the entry into force of the civil status law of 6.2.1875 as a result of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf the same legal obligation as today the registrations of the registrar.

Shortly before his departure to the parish of Horn, Pastor Brüning wrote an alphabetical “register of the church books Ahlerstedt on the Copulagers and Born from 1762 to 1852”. In it he also wrote the name carriers, which appear in the church books exclusively as Fitschen with a “t”, with two “t”.
For the change of spelling, there is the following statement, which, however, is not confirmed by any document: When registering the birth of Jürgen, who was born on February 6, 1837, Pastor adjunctus Brüning, who should have grown up south of the Low German language border, the surname of Newborns have pronounced as if to separate the two syllables between the “s” and the “ch”. In response to the objection that the name should be pronounced so as to break between the “t” and the “sch,” he should have decided that such a pause should be clarified by a second “t.”
Whether this declaration is a living oral tradition that survives until the first half of the 20th century, or a later invented story, the founders of the Family Association decided to put the second “t” in parentheses. Thus the name of the – until today – unregistered (thus also not legally valid) association was clear: “family association Fit(t)schen”.

Author:Dierk Fittschen, Lüneburg – Translation: Andreas Fitschen

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