Dear Reinhard,
finally I found the relocation problem.
Make sure that at91bootstrap loads the full u-boot image (u-boot became larger quite a bit due to relocation and other changes).
That was the solution!
I left the old at91bootstrap from in-circuit on the board. This one only copies 256k from NOR flash to RAM, but the actual u-boot is 350k long. Besides that I fixed all the issues you pointed out.
Now I can see the menu from u-boot, but I spent the whole weekend searching for the problems with the I/O. - Ethernet won't work (TX timeout) - SSD card access freezes u-boot (seems to be a timing issue as adding #DEBUG to the driver will make some commands work a little more) - USB (which I do not really need, except if SSD card is not working) device is detected, but cannot be accessed. - The LCD display works great (I can see the denx logo and more) which hasn't done in the original u-boot from in-circuit
I think I will start a separate thread for reach issue, after some more searching. Thank You again!
Best Regards Cajus