The Dissertation Committee for Judith L - The University of Texas at ...

efore being the most powerful. The most famous of all the reports was the letter written
by Fritz Ernst, a man often heralded as the one responsible for large scale German
immigration to Texas. 37 His 1831 letter to his friend Schwarz in Oldenburg and
additional printings of it in travel journals and newspapers was the spark that ignited
German migration to Texas. 38 In 1843 two important visitors came to Texas and spoke
with Fritz Ernst. Prince Victor Leiningen and Count Boos-Waldeck, who were sent by
the Adelsverein, met with the author of this letter. The positive results of the visit set into
motion the largest German migration movement to Texas. 39
As news of Texas traveled to Germany it influenced people to come. Hermann
Seele, who would join the first settlers in New Braunfels and serve as the town’s
educator, first heard about Texas from acquaintances and felt his destiny lay across the
ocean in this place. Like many others he read guidebooks on Texas. One in particular,
Texas und seine Revolution, sparked his interest. Hermann Ehrenberg wrote the
travelogue upon returning to Germany after fighting in the Texas Revolution and living
in Texas for a while. The popular book, like Ernst’s letter, convinced many to come.
Seele wrote in his diary that after reading it he was “pleased in particular by its
37 Ibid, 47.
38 Ernst’s letter is widely known and referenced in written works about the Germans in Texas. See Terry
Jordan-Bychkov and Mona Domosh, Human Mosaic; Walter Struve, Germans and Texans, 44-45; Glen E.
Lich, The German Texans (San Antonio: University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures, 1981): 38-73;
Terry Jordan, German Seed in Texas Soil, 40-43; Biesele, History of the German Settlements, 43-47, and
Gilbert Giddings Benjamin, The Germans in Texas: A Study in Imigration, first published in 1910, (Austin:
Jenkins Publishing Co., 1974), 7-19.
39 Biesele, History of the German Settlements, 47.
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