“I openly admit it: It's a bit crazy that someone like me has been a member of the old German nobility for a few years now. Because I come from a simple background and many people would probably judge me more as a "roughneck" just because of my appearance even today. ”​ And nevertheless, or perhaps just because of this, I can say: The acquisition of the title of nobility was the best decision of my life! I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. My father was a simple factory worker, my mother a hairdresser. Money was always scarce and yet at first I had a happy childhood. Because I had many friends and we loved to go out into nature together, for example to fish or build tree houses. But when I was twelve, the company where my father worked went bankrupt. He quickly found a new, even better paid job - but it was in the big city, in Milwaukee. And although we moved there to a pretty good neighborhood, my childhood was not happy from then on. I didn't know anybody and it was very difficult for me to get a foothold in the new environment. The other children, some from wealthy families, mocked me as a country bumpkin or "gutter child. These were humiliations that will never be forgotten. So I became an outsider. Even at school things didn't go so well, I barely managed to graduate from high school. Afterwards I just hung around for a while and took to the bottle more and more often. But one day my father grabbed me by the arm and talked me into the conscience. He said that it would depend entirely on myself whether I would make something out of my life or not - "only you decide whether you want to be a winner or a loser". I took these words to heart. And I really put my foot down: In my training as a car mechanic, I learned more than anyone else to be better than everyone else. I also repaired countless cars in my spare time on my own account and saved every dollar. In my mid-twenties I was already a workshop manager and in my early thirties I ventured into self-employment. Word soon got around that I had something to offer and business was going better and better. Today I am in my mid-fifties and the proud owner of three car dealerships, four workshops and two gas stations with car wash. I have decided to be a winner. But I realized that something was still missing. Although I have been very wealthy for years, I always had the feeling that fine society did not really appreciate me. Maybe that's just my imagination, because I worked my way up from the bottom. But I asked myself: How can I manage to make it immediately recognizable for everyone that I am on the winning side? And at some point I came up with it: It's the name. A title of nobility will make even the most arrogant of people freeze in awe. And so it was. Wherever I am, as soon as people hear my name, they have much more respect for me and treat me with preference - just like a real winner. It does not matter to me in the least that I acquired the title by adoption, on the basis of a contractual agreement. What counts is the result. I am proud of my title, because I have worked hard for it. And my wife and my two children feel the same way. They carry their new name with pride and dignity and will pass it on to their children.