Family Research

Otto Klopp – Friedrich and Emma’s Fifteenth Child

/ Peter Klopp / 14 Comments

Otto Klopp (1898? – 1915)

Killed in Action in World War I

It was very difficult to obtain any concrete information on Otto Klopp, as no birth and place records were found. It is not even certain if mother Emma had taken him with her to her new residence in Elsenau, West Prussia in 1903 or 1904. In any case, he was mentioned among family circles as a 15-year or 16-year old in Wolmirstedt.

Hermann Weihe (1888 – 1947), the brother of his sister-in-law Marie-Luise Klopp (née Weihe) of Zielitz, arranged a job for Otto at a farm in Farsleben near Zielitz before 1914. There Otto in all likelihood started an apprenticeship program in agriculture. He was, therefore, the only one of the Klopp-Bauer children with whom mother Emma maintained a connection with the otherwise avoided Klopp-Weihe family. The author, Eberhard Klopp, offers the following explanation. Emma tried very hard to keep financial and family responsibilities within a manageable scope. For that reason Otto had to be taken care off in Farsleben.

At Wolmirstedt, Otto was presumably drafted into the German army to fight on the Russian front where he was killed in the 1915 offensive. As cause for his ‘hero’s death, several events during that year in World War I could be considered: his involvement in the Winter battle of February March 1915 in Masuria, East Prussia. Furthermore, he could have lost his life during the establishment of a new front and munition line of the Tenth army northeast of Suwalki. Finally, in connection with an attack at Kowno, he could have been killed during an enemy counterattack in the summer operation against Russia in July or August 1915. Otto Klopp received a shot through the lungs and bled to death in a wire entanglement.

A death notification similar to the one above was sent to Emma Klopp, Otto’s mother..

Meta Emma Klopp – Friedrich and Emma’s Fourteenth Child – Part 7

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Tante Meta
Aunt Meta with sister Anna von Waldenfels on the left

Meta’s Sunset Years

After the war, Vincenz and Meta Mülbert moved into an apartment on Maria-Theresia-Street 4. At the end of 1946 Meta offered to her sister-in-law Erika Klopp (1899 – 1994), mother of this blog writer, a first dwelling. Erika was a refugee, who had fled from Gutfelde near Znin via Belgard/Pomerania to Freiburg.

The close contacts with her sister Anna von Waldenfels were also kept alive. It was perhaps Meta, who provided for her nephew Georg von Waldenfels first insights and orientation about the residential construction opportunities in the nearby town of Stauffen, before he settled down there with his wife and family.

When Anna became a widow in 1954, Meta invited her sister, who was quite wealthy, but now very lonely without any close relatives left in Bavaria, to stay with her in Freiburg. Both devoted their time and love to the care of their ailing husband and brother-in-law Vincenz. He died on October 2, 1958, after a long and painful battle with cancer in the Freiburg apartment. He had reached the ripe age of 79. He was buried at the main cemetery on the left of the entrance hall on site 16.

From Freiburg Meta and Anna undertook the occasional trip, such as visiting their brother Ernst Klopp (1900 – 1964), this blog writer’s father, who had been living in Michelbach/Vogelsberg since 1957. They also travelled to Lake Titi in the Black Forest shortly before Anna’s granddaughter Carola’s departure for America.

When Anna von Waldenfels died in November 1967, Meta was on her own. Nobody of the Klopp family lived in close proximity. The stepchildren of Mülbert’s first marriage put the woman, who had converted to the Catholic faith into a Protestant home. There the lady died at the age of 86 on January 16, 1984. Next to her husband, whom she had survived by 26 years, Meta found her final resting place.

A post describing my visit as a child to Tante Meta in Freiburg can be found here.

Meta Emma Klopp – Friedrich and Emma’s Fourteenth Child – Part 6

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Meta is Getting Married

The Gestapo Mülbert case contains for the perhaps forgetful descendants all the ingredients, which empower a dictatorship to oppress with the aid of dug-up trivialities its subjects and if found to be correct, to set into motion their elimination. The bitter cup filled by his own wife went by Vincenz only because of his political insignificance, which she had convincingly put on the table.

Nothing stood in the way to Meta Klopp to get married. Vincenz, having been found blameless, experienced in Meta understanding and compassion. In the eyes of Anna von Waldenfels, he represented after initial speechlessness certainly an acceptable person. She could not have imagined in her wildest dreams her little sister Meta as Frau Professor. The fact that the nerves of this – for Klopp standards and social status – highly educated humanist were presently stretched to their breaking point, added wings to Meta’s tender loving care. Her love enabled her to easily overlook his somewhat scurrilous outer appearance. Also the other religious (Catholic) denomination and the sudden onslaught of a large number of stepchildren were manageable burdens to bear. On the other hand, the much pampered and youngest Klopp girl was looking forward to a social climb of unimaginable proportions. They did not equal, to be sure, to Anna’s spectacular journey into the Bavarian nobility, but nevertheless brought her the respectable title of a ‘professor’s wife’.

Berlin,_Mitte,_Bebelplatz,_Hedwigskathedrale_02
Photo Credit: Wikipedia

On October 24, 1935 the Catholic wedding for the new couple Mülbert took place at the Saint Hedwig Cathedral in Berlin. Meta had converted to the Catholic faith out of love for her husband. The news reached the Wolmirstedt-Zieglitz branches of the Klopp family. They were in no way involved, but found fresh food for gossip and wallowed in their pseudo indignation.

Meta treated like a true mother all her stepchildren with tender loving care. She could not have children of her own. Until 1940 she lived with her husband in Mannheim. During his last year of service he seemed to have suffered from constant health problems. On April 1, 1942, the couple rented an apartment in Freiburg, Breisgau. On December 11, 1940 Vincenz Mülbert was granted early retirement. They lost their new residence in the heavily bombed city in World War II.

Meta Emma Klopp – Friedrich and Emma’s Fourteenth Child – Part 4

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Denunciation by a Spiteful Housemaid

Vincenz’s wife did not overcome the family tragedy. Disputes with the husband and domestic quarrels were on the increase. Amalie Mülbert went her own separate way. In 1934 she was admitted to the Heidelberg Psychiatric Clinic. Vincent had to look after the four remaining children all by himself.

In this unfortunate private situation, a dangerous threat came about through the denunciation by the former housemaid, Appolonia Bitsch. Since 1933 the Nazis ruled in their fortress Mannheim. On 3 October 1934, the NS leader of “District Group Mannheim Quadrant 7” reported to his boss Fehrmann that the wife of the party member Friedrich had found out through her new housemaid Bitsch the following remark made by Professor Mülbert: “Adolf Hitler associates with loose women and prostitutes.” Frau Friedrich insisted that the case as related to “the charge of defamation of the Führer be officially recorded at the court of the Party.” Thus, the mechanism of the  new regime was set into motion.

Group leader Fehrmann passed on the original message to Mülbert’s school superintendent Heck. He demanded an inquiry and asked if the NS Party court, the school district office or the NS Teachers’ Association should deal with the matter. Heck, himself a member of the party, took due notice and arranged on 15 October 1934 further investigation by the school office leader Kuh. The noose around Mülbert’s neck was getting tighter, especially as the party and the office of the civil servants were working hand in hand together.

Mülbert’s file did not contain the official statements of the two informers. For that reason, Vincenz Mülbert was summoned to appear before the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) in Mannheim. His wife, in the middle of divorce proceedings, was being questioned in the meantime by the Gestapo.

To be continued …

Meta Emma Klopp – Friedrich and Emma’s Fourteenth Child – Part 3

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The Tragic Loss of a Son

In 1910 the sons Werner (died in 1990) and Paul (died in 1932) were born in Weinheim. In 1910 came the transfer of their father to the renown senior high school in Mannheim, which was named after the French major and geographer “Tulla Oberschule”. The unremarkable years of a tranquil teacher’s existence were interrupted in the middle of World War I. In June 1916 Vincenz Mülbert was drafted into military service by the 14th Army Corps of the State of Baden. He served as a truck driver at the Recovery Unit I (Genesungsabteilung) of the Reserve Infantry Regiment 109. In October his daughter Hildegard was born in Mannheim.

During the static warfares in 1918, Vincenz took on active duty at the Aisne (east of Reims) and in the Upper Alsace. At the beginning of September 1918, he was declared “no useable for service at the front” on account of his highly strained nerves. As “being capable of garrison service”, he experienced the war’s end at the balloon battalion 139. On 22 November 1918, he received his demobilization papers and was released from his military service.

He returned to the former teaching post at the school in Mannheim. In May 1923, his wife Amalie gave birth to the twins Gertrud Ida and Hedwig Margarethe in Mannheim. In December followed the birth of the sixth and last child Rudolf Pius. It was according to a teacher’s news bulletin a premature birth. At that time the family possessed a home in Quadrant L of Mannheim.

From an application for financial assistance in September 1932 to the school administration one may be able to reconstruct the circumstances of a serious fateful event. The 19-year old son Paul, a commercial employee, suffered from depression and had already been receiving medical treatment for a long time. On 30 August 1932, he withdrew from his parental home and for ten days was reported missing. On the fourth of September, the Hessian police found his clothes on the banks of the riverbank of the River Main near Frankfurt. “Whether it was an accident or suicide could not be determined”. The body was retrieved from the river on the 7th of September, transferred to Mannheim and buried there. Mülbert already owed a large amount of money to the bank and was forced to borrow some more to cover the cost of transportation and burial expenses, He had asked for assistance in the amount of 258 marks.

To be continued …

Meta Emma Klopp – Friedrich and Emma’s Fourteenth Child – Part 1

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The ‘Baby of the Family’ and ‘Frau Professor’ Later

Meta, the fourteenth child, was born in Jersleben on 5 January 1898. Her birth took place at a time of disputes about the ownership of the house in Wolmirstedt. Her eldest brother Friedrich (1875 – 1946) was beginning to assert his independence at the expense of the family. The steady new arrivals of siblings and consequently increasing competition for the modest inheritance was getting on the nerves of the ‘faithful’ and now 23-year old rope manufacturing apprentice.

Meta was baptized, as prescribed by tradition, eight days after her birth in the newly consecrated church in Jersleben. The officiating pastor was Dr. Friedrich Daniel, the historian of the Altmark. Very little is known about Meta’s childhood. In all likelihood, her sister Jula Steuer arranged for her the enrolment in a nurses’ training programme. According to vague family memories, it started in a branch of the evangelical church in Waldbröl, Westerwald. At the start of the 1920s, because of the proximity to Neu Rosow, she resided in Stettin. it probably was the first place of her employment in the hospital ‘Bethany’ in Kreckow Street. At the same time, her sister Else and brother-in-law Stier were living in Stettin. When the couple moved to Alt Valm, Pomerania, Meta felt more and more drawn to her sister Anna in Panwitz. At the end of the 1920s, one could find her noticeably more often, almost like a permanent resident, at the von Waldenfels estate at Meseritz. From there she must have found employment at the hospital Limburg, Lahn.

Meta was the youngest daughter of the Klopp children and maintained close contact with her elder sisters. Anna von Waldenfels, Jula Steuer and Else Stier took turns in taking the yet unmarried ‘late bloomer’ under their wings. Photos of the Panwitz time show her as a good-looking young woman, who appears not unhappy but a little bit shy. She suffered mildly from a ‘lazy eye’ problem.

In Limburg happened a fateful encounter, which will be the topic of the next post.