From the German Information Center Newsletters February 28 1997:

Germany was gripped by "Elvis fever" as early as the Fifties, when the "King" went to Bad Nauheim (Hessen) to fulfill his military obligations. Little did his German fans know that they had another reason to love him he was, it turns out, a German.
According to Donald W. Presley and Edward C. Dunn, both distant relatives of the King, a direct link can be made from Elvis back to a certain Johann Valentin Pressler, a winegrower who emigrated to America in 1710. Pressler came from a village in southern Palatinate called Niederhochstadt. Niederhochstadt became Hochstadt sometime during the 250 years after Johann Pressler left it, but there are still many Presslers there, among them a winegrower like Johann Valentin.
Johann Valentin first settled in New York and later moved his family to the South. The name was Anglicized during the Civil War by a Pressler serving in the Confederate Army, Presley and Dunn report in a forthcoming book on the Presley family. There was no word, however, on whether Hochstadt was planning any Elvis shrines along the lines of Graceland in Memphis, the last residence of the "King of Rock'n Roll."

Die Familienforscher Donald W. Presley aus Little Rock, Arkansas, und Edward C. Dunn aus Albuquerque, New Mexico, haben ermittelt, dass ein Winzer namens Johann Valentin Pressler, der 1710 von einem Auswandererschiff in New York an Land gegangen ist, der Urahn von Elvis ist. Pressler kam mit seiner ganzen Familie aus Niederhochstadt in der Suedpfalz, wo auch heute noch viele Presslers leben. Das Dorf heisst heute Hochstadt und damit genauso, wie der Ort in Pennsylvania, den der Pressler-Clan damals gegruendet hat und der heute noch besteht.

Ein spaeterer Pressler, Teilnehmer der Schlacht von Gettysburg, anglisierte den Familiennamen in =>Presley". Elvis selbst, der in den 50er Jahren seinen Militaerdienst in Deutschland absolvierte, hat von seinen deutschen Wurzeln nichts geahnt.

Die Elvis-Forscher wollen die Ergebnisse ihrer Forschungen demnaechst in einem Buch veroeffentlichen.

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Created March 3, 1997.