Fighter Pilot and Hereditary Estate Farmer

The little village Kupfermühle including the mill estate and the forestry workers’ house Heidemühle is located on the southeast road from Meseritz at the Panwitz Creek, which flows out of the Lake Bauchwitz. Both mills, Copper and Heidemühle, existed long before 1500 and played an important role in the Meseritzian cloth-making industry as fulling mills.

The administration building into which Hermann and his wife had moved is located at the mill or copper pond, which was partially filled in the 1920s. The author (Eberhard Klopp) found almost unchanged the remnants of the canal’s lock and the still good-looking half-timbered house. About in the middle of 1923, Hermann Klopp began his job as an administrator. The old-time residents and new settlers having been displaced from the expropriated and now Polish regions began with the help of the government labour services to turn the swampy area into arable land. The initiatives of this kind were based on the agro-political programmes of various government agencies of the Weimar Republic within the framework “Eastern Assistance Action” (“Osthilfeaktion”). According to the census of 16 June 1925, there were 147 German only inhabitants. The official total area comprised of 910 ha. Johann Schaare functioned as the community foreman.

In Kupfermühle as well as at the Meseritz hospital Obrawalde (today Polish: Obrzyce) the daughter Jutta (1924 – 1958) and Bärbel (1925) were born. Then followed the sons Joachim (1926) and Hans-Hermann (1929 – 1939).

Around 1926 Hermann prepared the move of his brother-in-law Ludwig von Waldenfels and his sister Anna to Panwitz located about 10 km from Kupfermühle. The leasable estate Panwitz from the property of the castle baroness Lagowitz was available, as Hermann might have found out. With his advice and mediation, he may have decidedly contributed to the improvement of income and living conditions of the von Waldenfels family. In addition, more assistance from the German Settlers Agency could be depended upon in a similar fashion as he had made use of in West Prussia. The take-over of Estate Panwitz by Ludwig von Waldenfels took place in 1927.

To be continued …