German Political Unrest Leads to Schimmer Emigration

Family lore states that the patriarch of our Schimmer family was murdered by the precursor of the Gestapo. As the Gestapo wasn't formed until 1933, almost 100 years after Joseph Matteus Schimmer's death, I have a difficult time accepting that as fact. Following both the American Revolution and the French Revolution, Germany in the 1800s [...]