Hermann Carl Otto Friedrich Jeppe was the favorite son, but also a special problem child of the Rostock economist Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jeppe at Hopfenmarkt 15 in Rostock. Favorite son because he was born as first son, but at the same time he was his problem child, as the economist later had to experience suffering. The idea for this special story around the person Hermann Carl Otto Friedrich Jeppe was born when the history professor Lindsay Frederick Braun from the University of Oregon in Oregon USA "fed" me with so far unknown material from South Africa and made it accessible to me. Since I had made some surprising coincidences concerning Hermann Jeppe from Mecklenburg time, it seemed time to work on Hermann Jeppe's youth and the first time in the British Crown Colony at the Cape of Good Hope and later in the Transvaal and put it on paper. I have a little guilty conscience, because it does not paint a very favorable picture of the Rostocker son. In contrast, his niece Friederika Elisabeth Dietrich describes in her biographical story "March Hare" a completely different picture of her uncle. She describes her uncle as a much humorous "Luftikus", always ready to joke, but also as a reliable member of the family, especially when the Dietrich family needed special help.

While I was working on the matriculation project at the University of Rostock, we stumbled upon unregistered documents in the basement of the university concerning Hermann Jeppe and his planned studies in pharmacy. A truly rare and surprising find, but more sources had to be developed to create a picture that adequately portrays the son of Rostock. In the aftermath of the Jeppe research some church book sources could be opened to which I found access only very late, but which were necessary for the representation of the person of the Rostock Hermann Carl Otto Friedrich Jeppe.

Herbert A. Peschel

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Main image: Hermann's house, Pretoria, subsequently owned by Pres. Burgers © Pretoria Geselsbrief Pta-04-06