[nathanbedford]

That region along the Rhine which produced these Germans to enrich America must have been one of the most hellish places on earth. I have read accounts of the dreadful depredations committed by both sides in the Thirty Years War culminating in 1648. But there were subsequent wars that were just as bad in local places.

Whole towns were simply exterminated including the livestock and dogs. One town where my ancestor came from describes one of these wars as far more devastating than World War II. These were the worst of all conflicts, religious wars and civil wars combined and the carnage was terrible.

These people from Switzerland and the area along the Rhine River in Germany were both religious refugees, war refugees and, considering the devastation of the land, economic refugees, all in one. Yet upon their arrival in the colonies they became extremely successful contributors to the society and patriotic Americans. My ancestors, for example, began fighting our wars with the French and Indian War.

[Fiji Hill]

The Palatine, or Rheinpfalz experienced considerable redevelopment and population control during the Thirty Years War as well as the War of the League of Aubsburg, or Nine Years War (1688-1697), when France invaded the electoral principality and tried to turn it into a “desert.” One can still see the ruins of castles destroyed by the French at that time, including the one at Heidelberg.

Thousands of people from the region departed in the early 1700’s, most heading for America, but a few going to Britain or Ireland. My own ancestors were from Lorraine, just to the south, but of essentially the same ethnicity, and they left in 1740.

Today, the Rheinpfalz is the home of the Weinstrasse (Wine Highway), a two-lane highway that winds from Bockenheim in the north to the French border through some of Germany’s finest wine country.

[wastoute]

The Palatine Germans were brought to America by the Brits. Indentured servants (slaves). After their time was up they were “encouraged” to move along up the Hudson as a buffer between the Brits and the French.

[Fiji Hill]

Donald Trump’s ancestors were Palatines—from Kallstadt, on the Weinstrasse (Wine Highway), located just north of Bad Dürkheim.