This afternoon, President of the Republic received in Kadriorg the participants of the world-wide gathering of the Mühlen family. Such traditional gatherings have been held by the Mühlen family in every two or three years ever since the 1950s, the last gathering in Estonia took place in 1925, fourteen years before resettlement to Germany. This year's gathering, once again in Estonia, is attended by about one hundred family members of four generations; the eldest of them grew up in Estonia before the World War II and know the Estonian language well, the youngest participant in today's gathering is one and a half years old. The main branch of the family still lives in Germany, and many of them have visited Estonia several times after Estonia's independence was regained. In the garden of Kadriorg Palace, President of the Republic thanked the von zur Mühlen family for their support to Estonia throughout the years. Bengt von zur Mühlen, a chevalier of the Order of the Cross of St. Mary's Land, who produced films about Estonia and asserted the inevitability of the restoration of the Baltic independence in his films at the beginning of the 1980s, is a good example, as well as Heinz von zur Mühlen, born in 1914, whose friendship with Lennart Meri dates back a quarter of century already, and 30-years-old Niels von Redecker, who has worked at the Estonian Ministry of Justice and also lectured at the law department of Tartu University in 1996.


Press Service of the Office of the President
Kadriorg, July 21, 2000

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