Claus Reimers

Claus was the head of the Rantzauschen Gutes Mehlbeck (where he was also born) The name "Mehlbek" originated from the Low German name for "Mühlenbach". He points to Mühlenau , which opens into the Bekau , where the watermill lay, from which Gut Mehlbek was created. This watermill and settlement donated the Danish King Christian III. 1538 the knight Johann Rantzau , who created the estate and the estate. His son Heinrich Rantzau extended the estate around the village of Kaaks as well as parts of the villages Hohenaspe and Huje .

Johann Rantzau built around 1538 the mansion . 1709 burned down the farm buildings. In 1710, the then owner Christian Ernst Freiherr von Reichenbach had the half-timbered barn still standing today. The fortified mansion was demolished in 1817. Today the estate is operated as an agricultural holding with agriculture and pig fattening. Mühlrad and barn were added to the municipal coat of arms of Mehlbek to indicate the roots of the community. The half-timbered barn of the estate is today (as of 2010) under monument protection. Johan (also Johann) Rantzau (November 12, 1492 – December 12, 1565) was a German-Danish general and statesman known for his role in the Count's Feud.

Rantzau was born at the castle of Steinburg near Itzehoe into nobility. His family had come into the service of the Danish king after the union between Denmark and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, but he was loyal to the rulers of the latter. From his early years he sought a military career and was educated an officer and a lansquenet, but at the same time he also acted as an important political advisor of the duke.

When King Christian II of Denmark in 1523 was overthrown by Frederick I in 1523, Rantzau lead Frederick’s army of conquest. He became a member of the Danish Privy Council as well as governor of the duchies and was the most important of the king’s non-Danish advisors. At the same time he emerged a squire of Holstein, making the manor house of Breitenburg his entailed estate. Among his military missions was his fight against the Scanian peasant rebellion of 1525 that was bloodily crushed. During these years he also became a devout Protestant, working together with his Danish colleagues on advancing the Lutheran cause.

Rantzau became especially notable due to his participation in the Count’s Feud from 1534–1536. Together with the Holstein nobility, he supported Christian III in spite of the latter’s desperate situation. An attempt of conquering Funen in 1534 ended in a defeat and a humiliating retreat, but in the same year Rantzau crushed Skipper Clement's peasant rebellion in Jutland and secured the peninsula for the king. Next year he successfully conquered Funen, defeating Count Christopher of Oldenburg’s army at Øksnebjerg and finally leading the siege of Copenhagen that ended with the triumph of Christian III.

After the war, Rantzau continued being the king’s general and advisor, but he was pushed into the background in Denmark while concentrating on Holstein affairs. In 1545 he resigned as the governor of Schleswig and Holstein in protest against the threefold division of the duchies between King Christian III and his brothers John the Elder and Adolf the year before. However, he went back into active service in 1559 as the leader of the conquest of Dithmarschen, which he managed both recklessly and quickly.

As an outstanding figure of military history of the 16th century, Rantzau has been both lauded and blamed. Earlier historians have normally called him a brilliant general, loyal to the royal house of Denmark, a man of clear strategic and tactic gifts and ability of quick solutions. However, liberal and national historians, and especially class oriented historians, i.e. Marxists, often stress him as a representative of militarism and squire interests criticising him as a ”peasant’s butcher” – in many ways a parallel to the Finnish Mannerheim debate.

Rantzau’s son Heinrich Rantzau (1526–1598) was an outstanding Holstein cattle lord, governor, and squire of cultural and literary interests. His biography of his father is the main source of the latter’s life.

He was the great-grandfather of Josias von Rantzau.

Johann Rantzau Johann Rantzau (born November 12, 1492 in Steinburg , † December 12, 1565 in Breitenburg ), knights , Lord of Breitenburg, Bothkamp , Sturenhagen and Mehlbek , was "three (Danish) kings supreme commander and council" [2] from the family of the Rantzau .

Table of Contents 1 life 2 marriage and descendants 3 descent 4 literature 5 web links 6 individual proofs Life Johann Rantzau was born in 1492 on the demolished after 1630 stone castle at Itzehoe as the son of the local Amtmanns Heinrich Rantzau († 1497). After he had already participated in a military campaign in the neighborhood as a 13 -year-old, he undertook in 1516 a Grand Tour , which took him via England to Spain , to the tomb of St. Jacob in Compostela , across the Mediterranean to Jerusalem , where he received the knighthood as a knight by the golden spur , and back through Rome , where he pawed Pope Leo X , through Italy , France, and Germany.

Then he was Duke Frederick I of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (1471-1533), later king of Denmark, the tutor of his son Christian III. (1503-1559) appointed and accompanied this in 1521 to the Reichstag in Worms , where Luther before the emperor and the Reich its thing led. Impressed by Luther's defense, Rantzau and the Crown Prince became his convinced supporters and eager supporters of the Reformation in Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark. For the duchies, the "Christlyke Kercken Ordeninge / Deyn" was to become schalt den Fürstendömen Schleswig / Holsten etc., to which Johannes Bugenhagen - a close confidant of Luther - had decisively contributed. It was adopted on March 9, 1532 by the Diet in Rendsburg . In the same year Tilemann was introduced by Hussen as the first Protestant bishop.

In addition, Rantzau also played a significant role in securing the royal throne of the oldenburg royal family . When Frederick I was elected King of Denmark instead of Christian II , John had great influence on Frederick's decision to accept the crown. He led the army over the Belte in April 1523, forced after a prolonged siege on January 6, 1524 the surrender of Copenhagen and suppressed the peasants revolt led by Søren Norby in Schonen , April 1525. He also seems to have been instrumental in later that Christian II. Was imprisoned in Sonderburg , in any case, the relevant deed of August 3, 1532 was handed over to him for safekeeping.

Also in the field Rantzau was the decisive factor in favor of Christian III. With the storming of Aalborg on 15th December 1534 he put an end to the Peasants' War in Jutland and beat on Fyn the mercenary mercenaries and allies under Jürgen Wullenwever in the Battle of Øksnebjerg , June 11, 1535. After the end of this so-called Count's feud Rantzau was repeated in state business and embassies, also as governor in Schleswig-Holstein. He concluded the Treaty of Peace at the Diet of Speyer , with which Emperor Charles V recognized the new order in the north, May 23, 1544.

Shortly thereafter, he resigned all his offices, as he with the intended division of the duchies between Christian III. and his brothers Adolf and Johann the Elder (August 1544) disagreed. But he acted on behalf of these three sovereigns a contract with the imprisoned King Christian II, from, 14 July 1546, after which he was allowed to spend his last years under facilitated prison conditions in Kalundborg . His successor was Breide Rantzau .

After years of seclusion, Rantzau officiated as the intercessor of the monastery of Bordesholm , which belonged to Duke John the Elder, and to the office of Amt Reinbek , which belonged to Duke Adolf. It also seems that he was privy to Duke Adolf's plans against Dithmarschen from the outset; but he was persuaded by his son Henry , the royal governor, that in the end he refused to participate in a one-sided enterprise. But when the three sovereigns Johann the Elder, Adolf and the young King Frederick II of Denmark had come to an agreement, he took over the supreme command. Under his leadership, the conquest of Dithmarschen under the Archdiocese of Bremen-Hamburg was completed in a few weeks, from May to June 1559 ( see also Last feud ).

On January 28, 1564 Rantzau sealed the estate division between King Frederick II and his brother Johann the Younger . His influence is probably due to the fact that the stalls at the Flensburg Landtag (October 1564) refused to recognize Johann the Younger as (fourth) sovereigns and that at that time more detailed provisions on the alternating between the rulers of the Community government in Schleswig Holstein were hit.

Soon after, Johann Rantzau died in Breitenburg Castle .

He had founded a large family estate, in 1526 he bought the lands of the monastery Bordesholm in the parish Breitenberg on the sturgeon, which were desolate by a flood, and here built his permanent castle Breitenburg 1531. The rule Breitenburg inherited his son, the governor Henry, while the estate Bothkamp fell to the younger son Paul.

A commemorative plaque for Johann Rantzau with a Latin inscription hangs in the Jakobikirche in Lübeck on the east side of the fourth north pillar. [2] [3] Also in Kiel in the Nikolai church hangs a similar plaque. [2]

MEHLBEK NOW Half-timbered barn on Good Mehlbek in the district of Steinburg The Mehlbek estate is located north of Itzehoe on the Mühlenau. In 1528, Johann Rantzau had the first castle built here, which his son Heinrich had converted into a moated castle in 1575. A small island is still reminiscent of the 1817 demolished castle. For over 100 years the family von Rosenberg - originally Hirschberg - owns the agricultural estate. In addition to arable farming on the partly light geest soil, pig fattening is an important source of income. The originally well-preserved half-timbered barn was built by Christian Ernst Freiherr von Reichenbach in 1710 as a thatched corn barn and cattle shed, after all the outbuildings had been destroyed by fire in the previous year. Today it serves as a grain store and houses a modern drying plant. Striking the building is the lateral passage. The middle gate on the north side was added only in the 20th century. In order to secure the statics of the building, load-bearing beams, including the threshold on the west side, had to be replaced.