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Farm homes at the southern end of the village of Blücher, south east of Boizenburg-Elbe, Germany. Two of these farm homes are owned by Stebens Families, today. Beate Stebens lives at Lindenstrasse 8 - centre of photo. Yet this is the ancestral community of Stebens dating from the days of feudalism, in the 1600s and 1700s. Stebens families lived here as "Hüfner". Hüfner were peasants who were given just enough land on a large estate, whereby they may support themselves by raising a few animals and growing some crops. Some Stebens were "Kathner" who were assigned a very small parcel of land on which they resided and cultivated mostly vegetables and grain, with few if any animals. Other Stebens families who lived on the estate at Blücher were described merely as peasants, daylabourers and one as a fisherman. These groups of people owned no land either, but were merely rented out as required, for which they were paid in rations. The fisherman worked the local streams including the River Elbe, but also worked as a day labourer especially during "Seedtime and Harvest".
This oblique aerial photo looks to the SE across the fields of western Mecklenburg, late on a recent summer's afternoon. The village of Besitz is located to the right of the photo. [Photo courtesy Dr Detlef Timm, Besitz]
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