Siegfried Hottelmann: An Opportunistic Migrant, Part 1

Siegfried Hotelmann married into Glenn Martin's family: Ellen Royall, in Sydney, in 1939, just before World War 2. He was a sailor, but he was also a German Baron, with an ancient title. This is Part 1, up until he was interned because of the war.

1. Siegfried Hottelmann
An Opportunistic Migrant: Part 1
Research by Glenn Martin, 2024

2. Siegfried Hottelmann (1911 – 1980), married Glenn Martin’s father’s
cousin, Ellen Royall (1913 – 2006), in Sydney in July 1939. He was
German, and he had recently arrived in Australia as a sailor.
Most migrants plan their migration. Siegfried’s move was
opportunistic – taking the opportunity of circumstances.

3. Ellen was a dressmaker, born 1913. She worked for a clothing firm in
Dymock’s building in the city. She was the sixth of eight children.
Her parents had divorced when she was eight, and her father had
remarried when she was twelve. She had lived in a boarding house
at Arncliffe since she was fifteen.

4. Siegfried had been born in 1911 in
the small town of Holzminden in Lower
Saxony, Germany. He was a sailor, but
he was also the heir to the title of
Baron von Einsiedel, an ancient
German family.
But Ellen did not know this until later,
well after her marriage to him.

5. Siegfried and Ellen met in May 1939, at the Sydney Trocadero. Opened
in 1936, it was one of Sydney’s main entertainment venues. It featured
“dancing every night”. It was the place to meet new people. Siegfried
and Ellen met at a dinner-dance.

6. On 1 July 1939, in the Registry Office at Rockdale, Siegfried Hottelmann and
Ellen Royall were married. He is a “Salesman”, but that was a brief diversion;
he was a sailor, and had been for most of his adult life. Note that his mother’s
name is von Einsiedel, but nothing else is said of that. It was much later, on 28
January 1948, that a correction to Siegfried’s name was made in the entry.

7. Siegfried had left home when he was sixteen. He boarded a ship, the
Dresden, at Hamburg, and got off in Ireland. He then joined the sailing ship,
the Gustav (above; one of the last working sailing ships), as a member of
the crew. It was sailing to Australia with cargo. Despite the threat of
icebergs, it reached Melbourne safely in March 1928. Siegfried deserted.

8. Siegfried spent two years in Australia and New Zealand. At first he worked on
farms in Victoria, then he stowed away to New Zealand, where he joined
Wirth’s Circus as an elephant handler. He toured New Zealand with the circus,
then stowed away back to Australia. In June 1930 he headed back to
Germany.

9. Siegfried joined the crew of the Magdeburg, which was transporting wool
from Australia to Europe. He arrived at Antwerp (Belgium) in August 1930, and
went back to Germany. His family wanted him to take up his role as Baron of
the von Einsiedel estate, but his parents had both died, and he did not get on
with his grandfather. He went to Hamburg and Rostock, for study and work.

10. It was Germany in the 1930s, and Hitler was pushing his way to power, with
brutal success. Siegfried obtained a passport at Hamburg in 1935, and left
Germany in 1936 as a seaman on the Hagen, arriving at Boston in September.
For the next two years we know little of him. He may have gone to Brazil to visit
family there, and he probably worked as a seaman.

11. Siegfried may have been
interested in America
because a von Einsiedel
relative was there in 1930,
working at the Ford motor
car factory in Detroit. He
was a Count. He was
getting clues in order to
develop the family estate
back in Germany.
Siegfried’s views about
development were
different to the Count’s.

12. Siegfried was in San Francisco in July 1938 when a Swedish ship, the
Tisnaren, arrived in port with cargo for Australia. He joined the crew.
When it berthed in Melbourne, he went straight to the Customs Office
and applied to be a permanent resident of Australia, and when the
ship arrived in Adelaide, on 9 September, he deserted ship.

13. After Siegfried deserted, he remained in Adelaide, waiting for approval
of his application for residency. He became an instructor with the local
Sea Scouts, and he got a job working on a dredge in the harbour. In
December he got a job on the Mungana, and then on the Aeon. They
were steamers transporting coal, coke, lead and copper between
Adelaide and Sydney. His residency was approved on 1 March 1939.

14. Siegfried got his passport back from Customs in Adelaide. He was still
working as a seaman on the Aeon, but he disembarked in Sydney in May
1939, and Wirth’s Circus was in town. He would have gone, and he could
have met Ellen there, but that occurred instead at the Trocadero. But
Siegfried was soon to perform on another stage.

15. After Siegfried and Ellen were married, they lived together at the boarding
house where she had lived for over a decade: 134 Forest Rd, Arncliffe.
Siegfried had some work on a coastal ship, the Macedon, but when the war
began (3 September 1939), he was dismissed because, as a German, he was
under suspicion. The landlady, Mrs Buckley, must been very understanding.

16. Then Siegfried performed a role in a
movie: “Forty Thousand Horsemen”.
A hugely successful Australian
movie, it was filmed in Sydney
between May and August 1940.
It tells the story of the Australian
Light Horse in World War I.
Siegfried played the role of a
German officer.

17. Siegfried’s stint in the movie was
over, Ellen was pregnant, and
Ellen’s father refused to recognise
the existence of Siegfried
because he was German.
Siegfried was now living by
himself at Woolloomooloo, at
Kenton Court in Cathedral Street.
But Ellen’s three sisters were
supportive. She lived with Doreen
for the baby’s birth, on 20 July
1940. It was Ellen’s own birthday.

18. Siegfried was interviewed several times by the police and the security forces.
He was accused of spying, and of supporting Hitler. His ancestry as a Baron
was considered suspicious. The authorities had files on all Germans in Australia.
Finally, they made the decision to intern them.
Siegfried was arrested on 2 August 1940. At first he was sent to Long Bay Gaol,
then he was transported to Tatura in Victoria, where a camp was being set up
to house the internees. More internees were sent there from British territories in
South Africa, western New Guinea, Palestine, Singapore, and England.

19. CONTINUED IN PART 2
© Glenn Martin, 2024
www.glennmartin.com.au