Age-old family chronicle survived devastating air raid on Freiburg on 27 November 1944 and is handed over to the university library

In the spring of 2025, the University Library of Freiburg received the medieval “Dasselische und Einbeckische Chronik” as a gift. The chronicle was printed in Erfurt in 1596 and – more than 400 years later – offered as a gift to the University Library by Canadian Frank Antonsen, who was born in Freiburg. In this way, the book with its moving history returns to Freiburg, where it is now carefully preserved and made available for research.

It is not unusual for the university library to receive valuable gifts, but this donation has a particularly interesting and touching story behind it in relation to the city of Freiburg. The copy of the ‘Dasselische und Einbeckische Chronik’ belonged to Frank Antonsen’s grandmother, Baroness Hanna von Minnigerode (1887–1957), who is buried in Freiburg’s main cemetery alongside her mother, Olly von Minnigerode (1866–1942). Like the von Dassel family, the von Minnigerode family belonged to the ancient nobility of Lower Saxony and lived near Göttingen. In addition to the history of the von Dassel family, the chronicle also tells the story of the von Minnigerode family, which is why the book was passed down through many generations as a precious document of the family's history.

The donor, Frank Antonsen, grandson of Hanna von Minnigerode, explains that he wants to donate the chronicle to the University Library of Freiburg not only because he himself was born in Freiburg and the book tells the story of his family, which dates back to the Middle Ages. Rather, the body of the book itself is inextricably linked to the physical history of the city of Freiburg:

„Some pages have discoloured portions from water damage. The book survived the November 1944 aerial bombing of Freiburg, when the red roofing tiles were blown off our Mozartstraße-home and rain got into many of our possessions.”

In the unpublished biography of his mother Renate Antonsen (1921-2015), written by Frank Antonsen, he describes the night of the bombing on 27 November 1944 through her eyes with dramatic immediacy:

“I pushed two months old Frank in his little basket to that hallway and I grabbed my fake fur coat and put it on. The blast had blown off our roof tiles and shattered all the windows, making the interior of house quite cold. I got my mother a coat and a blanket to make her as comfortable as possible and pulled the hood of my coat over my head. Just then another bomb blast knocked a case off the top of an armoire and instinctively I leaned over Frank’s crib to protect him. The case hit me on the head, but luckily the thick hood absorbed most of the impact. Plaster was raining down so I had to keep my body over Frank’s basket. Frank didn’t cry. He didn’t say boo.“ (The funny old lady, p. 137).

In this way, Frank Antonsen tells the story of his family in the 20th century in ‘The Funny Old Lady – The Life and History of Renate Antonsen’, similar to how the ‘Dasselische und Einbeckische Chronik’ records the history of his ancestors in the Middle Ages.

The family copy survived the bombing of Freiburg and is thus a testament to both the medieval history of the von Minnigerode family and the history of Freiburg in the 20th century. Thanks to this generous donation, this cultural asset has been made accessible to the general public and future generations.

Digital copy of the "Dasselische und Einbeckische Chronik"