Banzendorf

[6] In 1422 the foreign robber baron Rehmer von Plessen from the close by Duchy of Mecklenburg ravaged the village, then called Banzendorppe, with 30 armed men (among them members of the families of Blücher and Feldberg) also shooting dead the Schulze.

[3] The former fiefs of the nunnery were now administered by the electoral Amt Lindow, a fiscal unit, collecting the dues and rents previously paid to the nuns and wielding the latter's former patrimonial privileges including the advowson of Banzendorf Village Church.

There were - their family members not separately mentioned - one Schultheiss, one innkeeper (Krüger), 15 farmers (Hüfner) holding tenured land measuring at least one Hufe, seven cotters, one smith, one cowherd and one shepherd.

With kings ranking higher than electors the name of that foreign country and the royal title started being used even for the rulers' possessions within the Empire.

[9][10] Thus - roughly calculating, leaving aside possible child deaths and further children born in the considered period – within the following 14 years all these children came into working age almost doubling the labour force intown, without any reason to expect an economic growth allowing for a livelihood acceptable for them, or let alone a similar number of deceasing adults leaving behind their positions.

The upcoming Napoleonic wars then would absorb and exhaust many of the young men, a phenomenon also called infanticide déféré by Gaston Bouthoul.

[9] In 1799 the king as their landlord had unilaterally abolished most of the personal labour duties of the peasants in the royal demesnes, so also relieving the Banzendorfers, without demanding any compensation.

[13] In 1808 the land they tilled was assigned as their private allodial property to all former royal serfs, thus also to the Banzendorfers, without any payment,[13] whereas the so-called regulation of rights and duties (German: Regulierung) of the other than royal former serfs to their respective landlords only started by the Regulation Edict of 14 September 1811, extending into the 1850s and with compensations to be paid for the assigned property rights, in some cases even paid down up to the year 1900.

As to the fiscal unit, now levying taxes but not feudal dues anymore, Banzendorf stayed in the ambit of Amt Zechlin.

But their new status as proprietors also enabled them to borrow money against their property rights, now alienable and thus executable what made them acceptable as security for creditors.

[15] Ilse Dörffeldt, formerly anchoring at the 1936 Summer Olympics the German 4 × 100 m relay team that was in the lead when she dropped the baton,[20][21] was one of their teachers.

The small village society was rather less hit by the first dictatorial measurements aiming at democrats, and communists, and also anti-Semitic and racist discrimination of Jews and Gypsies did not find direct targets in Banzendorf.

As part of the statalist and corporatist restructuring of the German production system non-Jewish farmers, if deemed to be of good so-called "Aryan" genes, could get their farm property transformed into an inalienable heredium, neither sellable for commercial reasons nor alienable by way of foreclosure, and to be bequeathed undivided only to one heir (Cf.

The volunteer fire brigade, like all over Nazi Germany was militarised in the 1930s, preparing for their future employment in the massive destructions expected in aerial warfare.

The population was allowed to stay since as part of the Soviet zone of occupation the area was not to be handed over to Poland like the home villages of the refugees.

In September the same year the Soviets started massive uncompensated expropriations of people considered in communism to belong to the so-called exploiting class.

[24] This was typical for villages in the Soviet zone, because with very restricted technical, logistical and media support the non-communist parties hardly managed to establish structures and win partisans in smaller localities like Banzendorf.

[24] In order to feed the increased population in Allied-occupied Germany, whose soil had been reduced by 25% through annexations, requisitioning, rationing and the delivery duties were strongly severed, as was the compulsion to enforce these regulations.

[25] Unlike the Trizone, where rationing of food had ended since June 1948 with the introduction of a currency issued only in refinancing operations whereby the central bank only credited business operations really stipulated by businesses, the Soviet zone and succeeding East Germany continued rationing (for food till May 1958) and delivery compulsions.

The new currency of the Soviet zone continued to be deliberately issued by authorities following communist prerogatives of rather wishful growth phantasies.

In May 1950 the authorities started investigations against Willi Heidenreich for bad economic management, not only a personal misfortune but made a crime then, after he was in delay with the compulsory deliveries.

[25] This organisation with local committees, comprising the farmers whom the communists considered to be the "good" guys or at least useful beadles for their purposes, was granted the disposal over certain expropriated agricultural stocks and machines, thus compromising the one farmers to collaborate with communism and dispose of former property of their fellows, who were stigmatised by the communists as the "bad" guys to be expropriated – generally following the Macchiavellist principle of divide et impera.

In September the VdgB sold Degebrodt's former tools rather than use them,[25] a decision maybe determined by the village climate creating odd feelings if farmers use their neighbour's former belongings.

The already streamlined Brandenburgian umbrella organisation sharply criticised this sale claiming the local VdgB should have handed over the expropriated machinery to the locally competent Maschinen-Ausleih-Station (MAS; machine loan-out station), a government-run organisation claiming expropriated agricultural machinery and putting it out on loan to farmers without such machines.

[26] At first it was an LPG of type I which meant the farmers' lands were cultivated under a collective plan, a kind of modern Flurzwang, whereas livestock and machinery was kept familywise.

[27] Three of Banzendorf's farmers withdrew their land, never expropriated but only dispossessed by the LPGs, and restarted family farming in the scope of a federal programme (Cf.

[27] After the pensioned director of the district construction department had moved to Banzendorf the main street got a new pavement between 1997 and 1998 for first time also including paved sidewalks.

[31] In a rebuilt barn Ulrike von Soden-Köpcke and the singer Niels Köpcke installed a concert and lecture venue with a capacity of more than 300 spectators.

[39] The records kept by the competent liege lord the Lindow Nunnery were burnt with the convent's library and archive by the Catholic Leaguist troops in 1638.

The interior hall of the church with an even ceiling is adorned by a typical Protestant pulpit altar created in 1718 by Georg Kleist from Gransee.

The Village Church seen from south, 2013
Memorial for the soldiers killed in action in the two World Wars
Barn housing the Banzendorfer Kulturscheune (culture barn) between 1999 and 2011.
Village Church: Eastern gable with top of the scaffolding for the bells (right below)
Gravesite of the Degebrodt family