The final solution is very simple. But when you get on a wrong track at the beginning, you end up in a terrible maze...
So here the most important hint:
The JBoss repository (http://repository.jboss.org/maven2/) is quite a mess.
In the root of the repository you find directories (matching Maven GroupIds) for
hibernate , hibernate-annotations and hibernate-entitymanager.
Do not use them!
They are outdated, do not provide current versions and most annoying do not declare their dependencies... so your pom will get a mess.
All dependencies should use the GroupId
org.hibernate (browse into the org directory in the Maven repository).
So here is my working pom.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>domain</groupId>
<artifactId>cascaded-locking</artifactId>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<name>cascaded-locking</name>
<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.0.2</version>
<configuration>
<source>1.5</source>
<target>1.5</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-entitymanager</artifactId>
<version>3.4.0.GA</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
<version>1.5.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>3.8.1</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.derby</groupId>
<artifactId>derby</artifactId>
<version>10.3.2.1</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<repositories>
<repository>
<id>jboss</id>
<url>http://repository.jboss.org/maven2</url>
</repository>
</repositories>
</project>
After 
I am reading Stephen Colebourne's 
For years 