About the farm:

From 2019 to 2022, the farm was completely rebuilt. The former farmstead was transformed into a modern residential estate with four spacious residential units. The residential house, built in 1881, was energetically renovated with new windows, new roof, new facade, new heating. The cowshed and feed shed, also built in 1881, were turned into living quarters and adjoining rooms. The chaff and hay loft became a cottage with a view of the pond and garden. The side building, built in 1840, whose first floor used to be stables and later garages, and whose upper floor served as a straw barn and move-out apartment, was also completely rebuilt into a large bright cottage. As a residential farm, the former farm is newly oriented to the future. The next 100 years can come.

About our history:

Come with me on a little journey through time! Back a little more than 200 years. To the year 1816:

Back then, people lived and worked who we now only know from history books: Goethe and Beethoven, Napoleon, Hegel or Hölderlin, Humboldt and Pestalozzi. Others, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Werner von Siemens, Thomas Edison, Alfred Nobel, Marx and Engels, Gottlieb Daimler, Carl Benz, Wilhelm Röntgen, Rudolf Diesel or Robert Koch were not even born yet.

In this year 1816 Johann Daniel Nitzsche from Dehnitz near Wurzen bought this three-sided farm in Großzschepa. Since then, since 1816, the Dreiseithof has been in family ownership and has experienced a lot in these 200 years:

Only three years earlier, Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated and driven out of Germany in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig. It was the largest battle in world history up to that time, with around 600,000 soldiers taking part. That was 18 times more people than the whole of Leipzig had inhabitants at that time! The supply of these armies alone must have been a catastrophe with long-lasting consequences for all villages in the near and far surroundings. The few hundred inhabitants of Großzschepa fled into the woods with bag and baggage and their livestock when the small village had to endure a field camp of 6,000 soldiers. A total of 125,150 soldiers were killed or wounded in the battle. After the battle, there were 39 military hospitals for 20,944 (!) wounded and sick. At the same time, the whole of Leipzig had only 33,000 inhabitants at that time. Since there were not enough doctors, paramedics and nurses and the hygienic conditions were catastrophic, many of the wounded on both sides died in the military hospital. Of the surviving wounded, many eventually died as a result of a typhus epidemic.

The social and economic consequences of this battle of the nations will also have burdened the farms in Großzschepa for years to come. Life was not easy at that time anyway. In 1816, there was no electricity. And without electricity, there was no telephone, no television, no radio, no cars, no railroads, no airplanes. Not even the bicycle had been invented back then! There were no cameras or cell phones. The apartments had no bathrooms. For there were neither electric water pumps nor heaters. The water for the washing jug had to be fetched in a bucket and carried away again after use in the bucket. There was no toilet. To go out, one had to use the outhouse, usually in the open, in the yard. In wind and weather. Without electric light. And without electricity there was no washing machine. Laundry had to be washed in a coal-fired boiler. If you wanted to cook, you first had to light the stove with wood and coal. Without electricity, there was no refrigerator, no freezer, no microwave, no coffee maker, no electric toothbrush, no razor. Not even a hair dryer. We owe all these inventions and life-savers to the contemporaries of those six generations who lived between 1816 and today.

Since 1816, the six generations of the family had to organize their lives and the farm under eight different forms of government or occupation:

• German Confederation (until 1866)
• North German Confederation (1867-1871)
• German Empire (1871 to 1918)
• Weimar Republic (1919-1933)
• National Socialism (Third Reich, 1933-1945)
• Soviet occupation (1945-1949)
• Gerrman Democratic Republic (East Germany) (1949-1990)
• Reunified Germany (since 1990)

The farm and family also survived several revolutions, warlike uprisings, monetary and economic crises, and the two world wars during this period (source including Wikipedia):

• The "year without summer" (1816) in the northern hemisphere of the earth as a result of the eruption of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in April 1815.
• Leipzig riots in 1830
• Foundation of the German Customs Union in 1834. 14 thaler feet were minted from the mark of fine silver in the Kingdom of Saxony. In 1870, the territory of the German Customs Union was the third largest industrial power in the world after Great Britain and the United States.
• Revolution of 1848/49
• the first world economic crisis in 1857
• The Vienna Mint Treaty of 1857 introduced decimal arithmetic. The mark was replaced by the customs pound of 500 g. From the Zollpfund at 500 g, 30 Vereinstaler were minted.
• Franco-Prussian War 1870/1871
• With the founding of the German Reich in 1871, a uniform imperial currency was introduced: the mark, divided into 100 pfennigs, which was designed as a gold-backed currency.
• "Gründerkrach" 1873, when 60 German banks went bankrupt.
• "Long Depression" 1873-1896
• World War 1 1914-1918.
• During the war, abolition of gold backing of the mark and introduction of the "paper mark". Gold coins had not existed in Germany since 1918.
• November Revolution 1918
• Hyperinflation of 1923: One U.S. dollar cost 4.2 trillion marks. One kilogram of beef cost 4.8 trillion marks.
• Introduction of the Rentenmark to stop hyperinflation on November 15, 1923, replacing the paper mark at a ratio of 1:1 trillion.
• When gold reserves were again sufficient in 1924 to cover a currency in international payments, the Rentenmark was replaced by the Reichsmark on August 30, 1924. The exchange rate ratio was 1:1 to the Rentenmark in circulation.
• World economic crisis 1929-1932. Industrial production fell by 41.8%. In February 1932, there were 6,128,429 unemployed. About a quarter of them received no government assistance at all. The hardship of the population grew immeasurably.
• World War II 1939-1945.
• When my father Hans Schmidt (1921 - 2018) returned wounded from the war, farm, land and family were at an end. His aunt had fallen victim to the euthanasia laws of the 3rd Reich in 1941/42 and was killed in Pirna-Sonnenstein. His father fell victim to the second great dictatorship of the 20th century three years later and died of starvation typhus in the Russian concentration camp Tost (Silesia) as late as 1945. He was just 51 years old. Only 24 years old and without experience, Hans had to maintain the farm. In 1950 he married his Christa, née Ae', had two sons, qualified as a master field farmer and was awarded several times in the 1950s for best grain harvests.
• From 1944 to 1948, the Allies issued the Allied Military Currency for occupied territories, which was valid parallel to the old Reichsmark until the currency reform of 1948.
• On June 20, 1948, the Reichsmark was replaced by the Deutsche Mark at a ratio of 10:1 in the three western zones. The banknotes had previously been printed in the U.S. and brought to Germany via Bremerhaven in the top-secret Operation Bird Dog. Until the early 1970s, the Deutsche Mark was indirectly backed by gold via the peg (Bretton Woods system) to the U.S. dollar.
• On June 23, 1948, all Reichsmark notes in the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) were marked with adhesive marks ("Klebemark"). It was not until July 24, 1948 that a currency reform could be carried out in the SBZ. The Reichsmark was replaced by the Deutsche Mark of the Deutsche Notenbank at a ratio of 10:1.
• On October 13, 1957, a second currency cut took place in the GDR to reduce the cash surplus. Only 300 DM (GDR) could be exchanged, the rest could be credited to the Deutsche Notenbank.
• On June 17, 1953, there was a popular uprising in the GDR, and at least 55 people died in its suppression by Soviet troops. Some 1600 insurgents were sentenced to prison terms, some of them for many years. In Großzschepa, too, an evening joke over a beer in the village pub was enough to be imprisoned as an "anti-state agitator."
• What was glorified as the "Socialist Spring" from 1952 to 1960 was the forced collectivization of agriculture in the GDR along Soviet lines. Some 8,000 political show trials took place. More than 200 farmers were driven to suicide, and more than 15,000 fled to West Germany to escape the repressive measures.
• My father also had to involuntarily give up being a free farmer in 1960 and became a member of an LPG (agricultural production cooperative).
• In 1964 and 1968, currency renaming took place in the GDR: The Deutsche Mark of the German Central Bank became the "Mark of the GDR" with the establishment of the State Bank of the GDR. The abbreviation was M.
• First and second oil crises in 1973 and 1979/1980
• Peaceful revolution in the GDR in 1989, abolition of the GDR currency and introduction of the D-Mark in 1990
• German reunification 1990, collapse of the GDR economy
• 1991 to 2001 Yugoslav wars
• Dotcom bubble 2000
• Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in USA, followed by the "war on terror" lasting for years
• Introduction of the euro as book money in 1999 and as cash in 2002, thus abolishing the deutschmark
• International financial and economic crisis from 2007
• Euro crisis from 2010
• Economic crisis from 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic
• 2022 Russia's war in Ukraine ...

About the host:

I, Dr. Helfried Schmidt, 65 years old, am the owner and operator of the three-sided farm in the 6th generation.

• In 1975, I graduated from the extended Goethe secondary school in Wurzen with the grade "very good".
• Also in 1975 I graduated from the upper school of the music school Wurzen with the grade "Excellent".
• In 1981 I completed direct studies at the Mathematics Section of the University of Leipzig and graduated as a teacher of Mathematics/Physics with the grade "Very Good".
• In 1984 I received a doctorate in Mathematical Psychology / Psychological Statistics (Dr. rer. nat.) with the highest distinction of a dissertation in German-speaking countries, the predicate "magna cum laude".
• The dissertation received the "Prize of the Scientific Council for Psychology of the GDR" in 1985.
• From 1985 to 1989 I worked as Scientific Secretary to the Director of the Psychology Section at the University of Leipzig, with the rank of Senior Scientific Assistant.
• I presented my own research papers at national and international conferences, published in professional journals, and supervised several diploma and doctoral students in their qualification work.
• My teaching duties were related to methodology. Thus, for several years I gave the basic lecture "Mathematical Psychology" in the 1st year of study.
• At the same time, I completed several examinations and tests as a guest student in the graduate program in psychology.
• In 1989 I started to work on my habilitation thesis.
• Then events came thick and fast: Peaceful Revolution and fall of the Wall in 1989, reunification in 1990 with the complete restructuring of higher education, the economy and the whole East German society. As a result, I resigned from my permanent position at the university in 1991.
• I sought new challenges in the free economy, which had returned for the first time after six decades of command economy.
• In 1993, I founded a publishing company for a magazine for small and medium-sized businesses and developed a competition for small and medium-sized businesses.
• For almost 30 years, together with my business partner Petra Tröger, I have been the managing partner and editor-in-chief of the Germany-wide PT magazine (IVW-verified circulation 40,000 copies).
• Since 1994, we have organized the Germany-wide competition "Großer Preis des Mittelstandes".
• Patrons and speakers included Kurt Biedenkopf (1990-2002 Minister President of the Free State of Saxony) in 1995, Günter Rexrodt (1993-1998 Federal Minister of Economics) in 1998, Helmut Schmidt (1974-1082 Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany) in 2002, Roman Herzog (1994-1999 Federal President) in 2003, and Wolfgang Clement (2002-2005 Federal Minister of Economics) in 2004.
• In 1998, I established the nationwide Oskar Patzelt Foundation as the sponsor of this competition.
• The activities attracted attention and interest not only throughout Germany, but also internationally: Hollywood filed a lawsuit against the registration of our trademark in the German Patent and Trademark Register. Only after a seven-year legal battle did Hollywood give in at the Federal Patent Court and agree to an out-of-court settlement. Since then, the foundation has been called the Oskar Patzelt Foundation after my father-in-law.
• In 2007, I received the Theodor Heuss Medal, presented by Cornelia Pieper (2005-2011 deputy federal chairwoman of the FDP).
• In 2008, I received the Federal Cross of Merit, presented by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Böhmer (2002-2011 Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt).
• In 2012, the competition "Großer Preis des Mittelstandes" was included in the TOP 10 best list of German participants in the "European Business Promotion Award" of the EU Commission.
• In 2015, our Oskar Patzelt Foundation received the Company Change Award for the best change culture.
• In 2016, my business partner Petra Tröger was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, presented by Stanislaw Tillich (2008-2017 Prime Minister of Saxony).
• In 2019, in preparation for the internationalization of the "Grand Prix of Medium-Sized Businesses" trademark registered in Germany, we registered the "Grand Prix of Medium-Sized Businesses" trademark on the territory of the European Union, as well as in the USA, Russia, China and Japan.
• In 2019, I was a guest of the international Sino-German SME Conference (SMEC) in the Chinese metropolis of 10 million Jinan.
• In 2021, the competition "Großer Preis des Mittelstandes" was again included in the TOP-10 list of German participants in the "European Business Promotion Award" of the EU Commission.
• 2022 Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Reinhart, Vice President of the State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg, awarded me the medal of thanks of the State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg.
  

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