Alma, the Sixth Child of Friedrich and Emma Klopp

Foreword by Peter Klopp

Aunt Alma is the only person in the Klopp family, with whom I maintained a correspondence until her death in 1975. As a young man I paid two visits to Berlin-Köpenick, where she resided, the first before and the second after the building of the Berlin Wall. Her son-in-law Arthur Thieß, whom I called Uncle because of the huge age difference, continued the correspondence. Until his passing we  exchanged letters, documents and photos providing an invaluable source of data on my early childhood environment at Gutfelde (Zlotniki) near Dietfurt (today’s Znin in Poland).

Aunt Alma from Berlin and Peter, Gutfelde 1942

Alma was born as the sixth child in the ‘Düppler’ mill of Olvenstedt near Magdeburg on December 6, 1882. At the age of 22 she got married in Berlin on January 14, 1905 to the farmer’s son Otto Scholz. He had his roots in Sosnitza-Steinksheim (today Polish Sosnica at the Lutynia river) about 10 km southwest of Pleszew, where he was born on November 27, 1880.

Aunt Alma from Berlin and Peter, Gutfelde 1942

Otto Scholz was employed as coachman by lamp manufacturer Wessel, who at that time the entire 25 ha peninsula Schwanenwerder/Havel (known as Sandwerder until 1902). Here the children Otto (1906), Else (1907), Charlotte (1908), and Willi (1910) were born. Otto Scholz participated in the battles of WWI and returned safe and sound from the war to his hometown. In the starvation year of 1917 their daughter Charlotte was sent to a children’s care facility in East Prussia, where she died after coming down with dysentery. Since Otto was noticed for the adroit handling of horses during the war years by an army veterinarian, he found employment in 1918 at the Berlin Veterinarian Institute (later taken over by the Humboldt University). During the production of serum Otto Scholz contracted blood poisoning and anthrax, of which he died on February 13, 1919.

Schwanenwerder Peninsula Berlin – Photo Credit: wikipedia.org