Heroes of the Reformation or villains of self-interest?
The dazzling Stralsunders

Enewold Lorber, citizen of Stralsund, witnessed in 1424 in a sales letter about the village of Prietz. Died before 1429.

1st wife: Dorothea, daughter of Conrad Hosang, marriage 1409, died before 1424

2nd wife: Kyneke, daughter of Heinrich Eyen, citizen of Barth, married Heinrich von Orden in 1429 (second marriage)

Stralsund had become wealthy through tailoring. The Hanseatic city shipped clothes to Scotland and Spain. The Lorbers had also established themselves there as a cloth dealer and Christoph had married Gertrud, the daughter of the mayor Sabel Oseborn, and had been elected to the council. The robe guild was in charge of this committee.

Around 1523 two priests fled to Stralsund. They were pupils of Johannes Bugenhagen, the confessor and close companion of Martin Luther, whose new teaching they spread in the city. Her revolutionary words fell on fertile ground among the so far powerless middle and lower sections of the population. The majority in the council opposed the new teaching and its demands for social change. But there were also some councilors who were open to these ideas, including Christoph Lorber. When the People's Storm led to a coup in 1524, he was appointed mayor in 1524 together with the spokesman Roloff Möller. The city was divided - and depending on whether one reads the chroniclers who are well-informed about the innovation or writers who are rooted in the old, he is either a lifelike hero or a faithless villain. His merits as supporters of Luther's new teachers are undisputed. He protected and promoted the preachers, who praised him most highly. In this way he contributed to Stralsund becoming an engine of the Reformation in northern Germany.

Hair-raising stories have been handed down from his children Olof and Sabel and his grandson Christoph the Younger, most of which were written by proven adversaries of Christoph Lorber. They are said to have tortured and wheeled an innocent cowherd who only found a stealing wallet. They are also said to have broken the land law that their father died of anger after their conviction. After all, Olof is said to have stabbed a clerk with his cronies and was involved in a raid in which his son Christoph is said to have shot a monastery servant. How much of these stories were created to damage the family's reputation and how much truth they contain is up to the imagination.

The direct traces of this line in Stralsund end with Chistoph the Younger around 1590.

However, it is quite possible that some of the early Thuringian branches, such as the Rastenberger branch originated from this lineage. Not only is it evangelical, it also includes master tailors early on, which could suit the Stralsund cloth trade. In the absence of evidence, however, this must remain speculation so far.