Hanseaten (class)
The (, "Hanseatics") is a collective term for the hierarchy group (so called "First Families") consisting of elite individuals and families of prestigious rank who constituted the ruling class of the free imperial city of Hamburg, conjointly with the equal "First Families" of the free imperial cities Bremen and Lübeck. The members of these "First Families" were the persons in possession of hereditary grand burghership (') of these cities, including the mayors ('), the senators ('), joint diplomats (') and the senior pastors ('). ' refers specifically to the ruling families of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen, but more broadly, this group is also referred to  as patricians along with similar social groups elsewhere in continental Europe. The three cities since the Congress of Vienna 1815 are each officially named the "Free and Hanseatic City Hamburg" ('), the "Free Hanseatic City Bremen" (') and the "Free and Hanseatic City Lübeck" ('), since 1937 merely the "Hanseatic City Lübeck" ('). Hamburg was one of the oldest stringent civic republics, in which the Hanseatics preserved their constitutional privileges, which were granted in 1189 by Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, until the German Revolution of 1918–19 and the Weimar Constitution. Hamburg was strictly republican, but it was not a democracy, but rather an  oligarchy. The Hanseaten were regarded as being of equal rank to the (landed) nobility elsewhere in Europe, although the Hanseaten often regarded the (rural) nobility outside the city republics as inferior to the (urban and often more affluent, and in their own view, cultivated) Hanseaten. Thomas Mann, a member of a Lübeck Hanseatic family, portrayed this class in his Nobel Prize-winning novel "Buddenbrooks" (1901), for which he received the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature. Relationship to the nobility. The relationship between the Hanseatic and noble families varied depending on the city. The most republican city was Hamburg, where the  nobility was banned, from the 13th century to the 19th century, from owning property, participating in the political life of the city republic, and even from living within its walls. Hamburg, however, was not a true democracy, but rather an oligarchy, with the Hanseaten as its elite occupying the position held by noble and princely families elsewhere. According to Richard J. Evans, "the wealthy of nineteenth-century Hamburg were for the most part stern republicans, abhorring titles, refusing to accord any deference to the Prussian nobility, and determinedly loyal to their urban background and mercantile heritage." Many grand burghers considered  the nobility inferior to Hanseatic families. A marriage between a daughter of a Hanseatic family and a noble was often undesired by the Hanseaten. From the late 19th century, being integrated into a German nation state, a number of Hanseatic families were nevertheless ennobled (by other German states, e.g. Prussia), but this was often met with criticism among their fellow Hanseaten. As the Hanseatic banker Johann von Berenberg-Gossler was ennobled in Prussia in 1889, his sister Susanne, married Amsinck, exclaimed "' [But John, our good name!]" Upon hearing of the ennoblement of Rudolph Schröder (1852–1938) of the ancient Hanseatic Schröder  family, Hamburg First Mayor Johann Heinrich Burchard remarked that the Prussian King could indeed "place" (') Schröder among the nobles, but he could not "elevate" ("") a Hanseatic merchant. Hanseatic rejection. The long standing tradition that Hanseaten do not accept medals and honors "of foreign powers" is called the "hanseatic rejection". It is reflecting the spirit of unconditional independence, modesty and equality of the citizens of hanseatic citys. In an early version of the Hamburg constitution from 1270 it is written that "the fact that the externally visible insignia of the order should distinguish the decorated one from his colleagues and fellow  citizens as a superior one" as a circumstance that was in decisive contradiction to the spirit of the city constitution. Politican Hans Koschnik (Bremen), former chancelor Helmut Schmidt (Hamburg) and several others people from Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen refused the Order of the Federal Cross of Merit referring to the "hanseatic rejection". Bremen and Hamburg are also the only federal states that have not donated their own Order of Merit. Hanseatic families. A few prominent families are listed here.