Gertrude von Plänckner

Gertrude was born into an ex-German family (emigrated from the ancient Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg) living near Manchester, UK, the father trading wool from Britain and textile machinery from Germany. When she was 22 years old, she married the German military officer Max von Plaenckner, son of a noble family (born 1869 in Altenburg, too), in 1898 in Dresden, Saxony (Germany).
The First World War separated and estranged the British and US family parts, with cousins fighting on both sides of the front lines.
However, after the post-war (WW1) suicide of the husband in 1924 her wealthy US-British brother Arthur A. helped her building a house on the coast of the North Sea in St. Peter-Ording, Schleswig-Holstein (Germany), which is under protection of historical monuments today (Haus „Klar Kimming“). She died there in 1944. Her children died without issue. Heiko's grandmother's family often visited her traveling over from Hamburg, and his father knows her house.