Hanseaten (class)

The members of these First Families were the persons in possession of hereditary grand burghership (Großbürgerschaft) of these cities, including the mayors (Bürgermeister), the senators (Senatoren), joint diplomats (Diplomaten) and the senior pastors (Hauptpastoren).

Thomas Mann, a member of a Lübeck Hanseatic family, portrayed this class in his novel Buddenbrooks (1901), principally for which he received the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Hamburg, however, was not a true democracy, but rather an oligarchy, with the Hanseaten as its elite occupying the position held by noble and princely families elsewhere.

As the Hanseatic banker Johann von Berenberg-Gossler was ennobled in Prussia in 1889, his sister Susanne, married Amsinck, exclaimed "Aber John, unser guter Name!

[8] The long standing tradition that Hanseaten do not accept medals and honors "of foreign powers" is called the "hanseatic rejection".