Baptized “Captured Turks”: Ludwig Maximilian Mehmet von Königstreu (1715)

During the many wars between European powers and the Ottoman Empire in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many Christians and Muslims were kidnapped and forcibly taken either into the Ottoman Empire (in the case of Christians) or from the Ottoman Empire (in the case of Muslims). Ludwig Maximilian Mehmet von Königstreu (1660-1726) was taken prisoner after the fortress commanded by his father was conquered. He was taken to the court of Hannover, where he became a valet after his baptism. He married a woman from Hannover and was ennobled in 1716.