Blues Versus Reds.(Brief Article)

Baron Gotthard von Winterfeld hadn't seen his ancestors' feudal estate in nearly half a century. When he finally did so 12 years ago, after the fall of the Berlin wall, his eyes filled with tears. His forefathers first settled in the tiny village of Neuenfeld, on the plains of northern Brandenburg, in the 13th century. A hundred years ago they'd built a handsome manor house on the property. But all that remained was a low pile of stones, overgrown with birches and weeds. The brick outbuildings still stood, but their roofs leaked and the interiors were rotting. "Everything was gone," the now-73-year-old recalls thinking as he sat on an old gravestone with his son Jorn, but he knew what he had to do. "We owed it to the family to come back and rebuild."

Many other blue-blooded German families feel the same way. Driven off their agricultural estates in East Germany by the Soviet Army in 1945, their homesteads pillaged and lands expropriated, these rustic country squires were considered "class enemies" and banished. But since the communist regime collapsed, some 50 families of the old nobility have gone back, drawn to their ancient roots. With them, they've brought much-needed Western initiative to a backward and struggling region. But it's not been easy: most of the rural land in east Germany is owned by powerful, ex-communist officials known as "red barons." Most aren't very keen to see the blue bloods return, viewing them as traitors to the working class--and unwelcome competitors.

Before they can buy their old property, the former gentry must first persuade local officials to rent it to them. A dubious 1990 law forbids any purchase of land until it's been leased for 10 years. That's what Baron Winterfeld did, and he's only now starting to buy back his 400- hectare former property, parcel by parcel. He has fixed up the old outbuildings, cleared the grounds and turned the former estate into a modern farm, where he and his sons grow wheat, barley and rye. The manor house is still rubble, but the baron dreams of the day when his sons or grandchildren will be prosperous enough to rebuild it. Most of the blue bloods have sold ...