Holck Family Info please

[Mr.Holck]

My name is Justin Aberle Holck and im very intersted in finding out who and what my relatives did in the world wars. Im in love with history exspecially WW II and would be very thankfull if anyone had any information. I was looking around and it looks like everyone is very intelligent. I saw one thread and found out that I had a relative during WW I as a pilot on Germanys side, any more info would be great.

Thank you,
Justin A Holck

[Kilian]

Hello and welcome to the forums Mr.Holck.

There was a Rittmeister Carl Friedrich Erich Graf von Holck. He was a known rider (in competitions) and was posted with the 9th Dragoon Regiment of King Carl I. of Romania. He flew also with Feldflieger-Abteilung 69 on the Eastern front. He happened to be Manfred von Richthofens Pilot in 1915 after his predecessor Zeumer was posted back to the Western front. There are a few of their flying episodes described in Red Baron - The Life and Death of an Ace by Peter Kilduff.

Heres a picture of him:
http://www.frontflieger.de/ricma/1915_graf_holck.jpg

best regards
Kilian

[Mr.Holck]

Thats amazing so one of my ancestors flew with the "Red Baron"? Please explain more and thank you so much for the picture.

[rammjaeger]

Look at the right, press the button search , pin the word Holck in the field and press enter. You will get 100´s of discussion threads with his name.

[Kilian]

Better search for "Erich Holck" in the forum search. The 100s of hits come because there is a user named Count_Holck in the forum and not all of his postings have to do with Holck.

[Mr.Holck]

Thank you, i looked at the other threads and found out some great info. If any one could clarify things for me and make sure im correct.

Erich Holck was born in Mexico
Raced dragsters before the war
Was the observer for the "Red Baron"
Was attacking a group of french pilots where he took out a bomber?
During the attack his machine gun jammed and was returning to base when he was fatily shot and crashed.
Did i get all that right?
Thank you everyone for your information.

[FliegerJG1]

Thank you, i looked at the other threads and found out some great info. If any one could clarify things for me and make sure im correct.

Erich Holck was born in Mexico
Raced dragsters before the war
Was the observer for the "Red Baron"

Did i get all that right?
Thank you everyone for your information.

One correction...Erich Graf (Count) Holck was the Red Baron's pilot. Manfred von Richthofen was not yet a pilot nor known as the Red Baron when he and Holck were flying together on the Russian front. In Richthofen's memoirs, there are several pages on his experiences with Graf Holck. His memoirs are readily available in various editions usually titled "The Red Baron" by Manfred von Richthofen. In the book "Richthofen" by A.E. Ferko, there are two rare photos of Holck...one shows him with his wife. Sadly, he was killed (April 30, 1916) before their daughter was born. I hope you'll find this information of some help.

Very Best Regards,

FliegerJG1

[Mr.Holck]

Thank all of you so much. I wonder what the chances are that im related to him?:unsure:

[rammjaeger]

I don´t know the answer but the name seems to occur rather seldom.
On one German telephone CD with 40 millions of addresses you can only find 1 Count Holck, 1 Count "von Holck" and 3 common "Holck".

[Mr.Holck]

Ok because i know for a fact that my relitives immigrated from Germany and started a little town in North Dakota. Called New Lipzic i belive, not sure of the spelling.

[rammjaeger]

Very Interesting. In German language "ei" sounds like the English letter "i".
"New Lipzic" is obviously derived from the name of the town "Leipzig" in Saxony/Germany.

By the way the most famous "Holck" was the Imperial-German General Field Marshal Graf (Count) Heinrich Holck (1599-1633).
During the so-called "30 year-War" (1618-1648, a kind of "Christian World War", according to later researches Germany lost either 12 of 18 or 14 of 24 million people in this war)
he got command over 20 000 men and the order to attack Saxony.
In 1633 he conquered Leipzig but died soon after (because of pestilence).

[Mr.Holck]

wow thats really cool, yea they immigrated from that town im pretty sure and started a new one in America, I have a picture where my family first started out where the barn was attached to the house. So thats really cool my relitive conqured the town my family lived in then brought the name here to America to start a new life, thats amazing.

[rammjaeger]

Hello Mr. Holck,

in spite of the in fact remarkable connection to the town of Leipzig you can not be sure that you are really from the bloodline of this famous (but in Saxony also a bit “infamous”) General but at least he is your namesake and an interesting one.
A researcher of the University of Leipzig wrote a biography about the General. Sadly, only in German language available (see the link): Hans Juergen Arendt Wallenstein dreißigjähriger Krieg Holck 17.Jahrhundert wallensteins faktotum (http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~fechner/arendt.htm)

At first Count Holck was serving in the Danish military (his familiy came from Schleswig, an area in Germany close to the border to Denmark) but later he became a kind of “Chief in Staff” of the legendary Imperial Field Marshal Wallenstein!

Today there are probably a lot more Holck´s living in the USA than in Germany.
See: Holck Family History Facts 1920 (http://www.ancestry.com/facts/Holck-family-history.ashx)

Back to the aviator Count Holck:
He flew also with Feld-Flieger-Abteilung 57 over the southern front on the Balkan. At the end of 1915 he was captured by soldiers of Montenegro (?) after an emergency landing but he impressed them by his speaking about his close connection to their ruler and later he escaped or was fought free again.

Kilian gave already the complete name of the aviator. I can add that one of my sources about killed members of nobility in WWI gives his name as Erik Reichsgraf v. Holck. I think the "northern" first name Erik was turned in daily use into the more German "Erich" - either in error or intentional.

[Lawrence Milner]

One correction...Erich Graf (Count) Holck was the Red Baron's pilot. Manfred von Richthofen was not yet a pilot nor known as the Red Baron when he and Holck were flying together on the Russian front. In Richthofen's memoirs, there are several pages on his experiences with Graf Holck. His memoirs are readily available in various editions usually titled "The Red Baron" by Manfred von Richthofen. In the book "Richthofen" by A.E. Ferko, there are two rare photos of Holck...one shows him with his wife. Sadly, he was killed (April 30, 1916) before their daughter was born. I hope you'll find this information of some help.

Very Best Regards,

FliegerJG1

With reference to your statement re: 'A.E. Ferko' author of the book 'Richthofen' - could you enlighten me on who he was? I have had some information from one of his files, but have had no success in tracing any information on him.
Regards,
Lawrence Milner