Griss Gott, Fra Ott! Ich hob nuch kaana Rehmer in Fleisnitz gsäng: Tales from Franconia

The history of the Ott and Popp families reflects the turbulent events in the heart of Europe over the last millennium. The Fichtelgebirge is the heart of the central European mountain range that divides the Slavic populations in Bohemia, the modern Czech Republic, from the Germanic population west of the mountain range. Being located in the center of the German "Holy Roman Empire," the area and its people were situated in the center of many political and religious internal wars that characterized the history of this fragile political construct of numerous German states and European peoples. The people who settled in these mountains at the turn of the first millennium were of both Slavic and Germanic origin. They settled and mixed with each other over the centuries, as farmers harvesting the stony ground and, later, as weavers building one of the first textile industrial centers in Germany. The people remained in the area and were closely connected through intermarriage between the various villages and families, as reflected in the characteristic names such as Popp and Ott that are found in nearly every village and town. This is the tale of these two families, who can be recorded back for centuries through the records of the small parishes in the highlands between Fichtelgebirge and Frankenwald where most of them settled until modern times forced them to emigrate, leaving their home to build new families on the American continent.