Johann Ziehr

Johann Ziehr was born on March 18, 1913, in the small village of Viereth on the Main River in Upper Franconia, Bavaria. His mother was Kunigunda and his father was Michael Ziehr.

Life dealt early blows. Kunigunda had lost her first husband, the father of her two older children, Elizabeth and Oswald (Georg). She then married Michael Ziehr, who also passed away. Kunigunda herself drowned in the Main River while watching boats pass — leaving the children to be raised partly by relatives, including Tante Anna Hofmann from nearby Kargenberg, who lived right across the road.

Through hardship came a deep and unshakeable Catholic faith. The family worshipped at St. Jakobus, the parish church in Viereth, consecrated in 1932 and built beside a convent. Johann carried that faith through every chapter of his life.

After grade school, Johann apprenticed as a Webermeister (master weaver) and became a skilled cabinet maker. But Germany after the First World War was a hard place — depression and poverty gripped the country.

Like many young tradesmen, Johann took to the Wanderschaft — the centuries-old German tradition of journeyman travel. He roamed across Germany, working where and when he could, perfecting his craft and surviving lean years on the road.

In 1932, Johann arrived at the Marianhill Mission in Würzburg — a monastery and seminary run by the Missionaries of Mariannhill, originally a Trappist order. He became a Christian Brother, taking the religious name Widukind.

In 1937, he earned a tractor-driver license from the Heinrich Lanz company — the legendary Mannheim firm whose tractors were the workhorses of European agriculture. John Deere would later acquire Lanz in 1956. Little did Johann know how much this skill would matter on a different continent, decades later.

In November 1941, Johann was drafted into the German Army as a Panzer Grenadier with the 146th Regiment. Like over 17,000 Catholic clergy and seminarians, he was pulled from religious life into war.

He served on the Eastern Front and was stationed in Norway — the 146th Regiment was part of the 25th Panzer Division, which was formed in Norway and later deployed east. He was wounded in the hip and captured by the British Army.

His brother Onkel Georg was not so fortunate — captured by the Russian Army and sent to Siberia for seven years, not returning until 1951.

After the war, Johann was sent to a woodcutting camp in Northern Germany — a common assignment for prisoners in the post-war occupation. The operation was run by Hannelore Knözinger's grandfather.

Hannelore had grown up in Berlin, the youngest of three sisters. Her father had served in the Prussian Army in the First World War before becoming a street car driver. As a teenager, Hannelore had been involved in the Hitler Youth and later joined the Arbeitsdienst (Reich Labour Service) — as was mandatory for young women in wartime Germany. Her first boyfriend, a German fighter pilot, was shot down and killed.

She caught Johann's eye immediately — eighteen years old and a looker. But what truly impressed this Bavarian craftsman-turned-soldier was watching this beautiful young woman carry the outhouse pails to the septic tank without complaint. He was smitten.

Johann emigrated to Canada with $10 in his pocket — the maximum many post-war German immigrants were permitted to bring. He landed in Vulcan, Alberta, where he worked for roughly three years, saving every dollar.

He bought a lot in Calgary and built a house from the ground up — digging the basement by hand. When it was done, he brought Hannelore and the children across the Atlantic to join him — around 1952, when Norbert was five and Bernie was two.

Then he did it again. He bought a second lot, dug another basement by hand, and built another house. Two houses, two basements, one pair of hands.

Johann sold both Calgary houses and in 1958 bought a farm near Strathmore, Alberta from a family called the Greens. Everyone in the area said the old Green place was hopeless — nothing but a big sandhill where nothing would grow.

Johann proved them all wrong.

The boy from Viereth who'd apprenticed as a craftsman, prayed as a brother, survived the Eastern Front, and dug basements by hand in a country where he'd arrived with ten dollars — that man turned a sandhill into Ziehr Farms and started a dairy operation that ran for decades.

Johann and Hannelore had two sons — Norbert (born April 2, 1947) and Bernie (born September 16, 1949) — both born in Bamberg, Germany. They also adopted a third child, Clarke, who predeceased them. They raised their family on the farm near Strathmore.

The dairy operation continued until approximately 1999–2002. Johann passed away in 1993. Hannelore followed on January 18, 2013, at the age of 85.

The farm — the one everyone said was worthless — is still Ziehr Farms today.