Flying Ace and Inheritance Farmer

Finding himself in this financial emergency, Hermann turned to his sister Jula Steuer who as a guarantor helped him to procure a mortgage. However, all rescue efforts proved to be in vain, since Breitenberg was auctioned off by the order of the bank. Jula Steuer’s claim to the money dragged on till the 1950s and was verified and enforced by court proceedings only on behalf of the heirs of Hermann Klopp. It goes without saying that over this issue the harmony between the Lake Scharmützel family branch and Stechau fell apart. When the son Joachim Klopp (born 1926) consulted his Aunt Alma (née Klopp, 1882 – 1975) on this matter, the relationship between Jala Steuer and the Scholz/Thieß family in Berlin also had reached rock bottom in the end.

On 16 October 1935 Hermann Klopp bought with remaining funds a so-called ‘knight’s estate’ (Rittergut), which covered an area of 30.2 ha land. It was located in Stechau on the farthest eastern border of Saxony-Anhalt and Mark Brandenburg. Since the conditions of the NS Inheritance Law had been met, Hermann from now called himself an inheritance farmer. In Stechau the last son Manfred was born in May 1936. For the improvement projects of the estate, Hermann successfully tapped into the NS “Help East Fund”. The Klopp inheritance farm promised to fare better than all the previous enterprises.

The wound from the aviation disaster in WW1 had bothered Hermann for the rest of his life. The lung shot migrated passing his hips down to his upper thigh causing bone tuberculosis and blood poisoning. Only two years after he became an inheritance farmer, he died on the operating table in the Berlin hospital “Charité” at the age of only 43 years. He was buried at the Stechau cemetery located only 70 m from his sheep farm. Then 81-yer old mother Emma, who had travelled from Panwitz near Meseritz, attended the funeral.

Peter’s note: My brother Karl mentioned in a footnote added to the book that he and our parents were also present at the funeral.