It is undisputed that the origin of our family coat of arms can be traced back to the Rotenburg-Böhme tribe. However, it is disputed whether the symbols that adorn the coat of arms were first used as a seal by Johann Michael Ehlermann (1773-1837), founder of the Böhmer line, when purchasing the noble Böhme estate to sign the purchase contract in 1817, or whether these were used already by Johann Michael's father Johann Dietrich Ehlermann (1732-1799), founder of the Rotenburg-Böhme tribe, in 1782 when acquiring the Schleppegrell property.
As far as the colored design of our coat of arms is concerned, there are two variants that show the coat of arms, which was initially made without colors, in different ways: The Hamburg painter Schöpel designed the coat of arms in red and white, in collaboration with the heraldist Eduard Lorentz-Meyer (Fig 1) as we know it from the cover of our family newsletters. Heraldically, however, this coloring had an unfavorable effect. In the mid-1920s, Councilor Dr. Erich Ehlermann in connection with the Saxon Foundation in Dresden for family research. As a result, the colors green were chosen as the basic color and gold (Fig. 2). The foundation confirmed this variant as heraldically correct and certified the green and gold coat of arms. On 02/21/1928 the Ehlermann coat of arms was entered in the civil heraldic register of coat of arms (Association for Heraldry, Sphragistics and Genealogy) under the number 1423/28 for the Ehlermann family from Nordkampen.
         
There are different interpretations of the symbols of our coat of arms. Former museum director Tewes writes about this in the 'History of the Ehlermann Family' in the 1920s: "... Perhaps the tree refers to Böhme, like the river; and the arm with the wreath is supposed to embody success on the floe. The wreath must be a straw wreath. If it were a laurel wreath, branches would be indicated; such a coat of arms or, more correctly, seal came into consideration at the moment when the ancestors had to execute documents (purchase from Böhme?). "In der bürgerlichen Wappenrolle wird das Wappen wie folgt beschrieben: "In green a golden diagonal right foot, accompanied above by a golden tree with gold roots and below by a golden armored arm with a golden laurel wreath. On the green-gold-clad helmet with green-golden covers an armored arm with the golden laurel wreath."