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Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll. Germany was gripped by "Elvis fever" as early as the Fifties, when the "King" went to Bad Nauheim (Hessen) to fulfill his military obligations. Little did his German fans know that they had another reason to love him he was, it turns out, a German. According to Donald W. Presley and Edward C. Dunn, both distant relatives of the King, a direct link can be made from Elvis back to a certain Johann Valentin Pressler, a winegrower who emigrated to America in 1710. Pressler came from a village in southern Palatinate called Niederhochstadt. Niederhochstadt became Hochstadt sometime during the 250 years after Johann Pressler left it, but there are still many Presslers there, among them a winegrower like Johann Valentin. Johann Valentin first settled in New York and later moved his family to the South. The name was Anglicized during the Civil War by a Pressler serving in the Confederate Army, Presley and Dunn report in a forthcoming book on the Presley family. There was no word, however, on whether Hochstadt was planning any Elvis shrines along the lines of Graceland in Memphis, the last residence of the "King of Rock'n Roll." |
