Hermine Elsbeth Emma Klopp – Friedrich and Emma’s Thirteenth Child

/ Peter Klopp / 9 Comments

The Consumptive Captain’s Wife in Farther Pomerania

Elsbeth, called Else, was the thirteenth child of Friedrich and Emma Klopp. She was born in the Wolmirstedt home on 21 September 1895. When she was 18 years old, she left Wolmierstedt and moved with her mother in 1903/04  to Elena, West Prussia. Already at that time, she must have carried the horrible lung disease within her, to which her sister Selma had succumbed.

At the beginning of the 1920s during a visit to her sister Jula Steuer (1877 – 1960) in Diensdorf she got acquainted with the Reichswehr officer Drusus Stier and married him. He was at that time stationed in Fürstenwalde/Spree and used to frequent with his army buddies Jula Steuer’s hotel, where he had met his wife. The name Stier is recorded in the position tables of the Prussian army for Stettin and Magdeburg. His father had been a royal-Prussian general, who also named his other son after a prominent Roman family Tiberius Stier. After viewing two portraits, which were taken in the photo-studio M. Kowalski in Stettin at the beginning of 1920, the author of the Klopp Family History states that the 26-or-27-year-old Else appeared to have been the prettiest of all the Klopp/Bauer daughters. She passed on her open and level-headed characteristics to her son Felix.

Captain Drusus Stier was an infantry officer and was wounded in World War I. Before the end of the war he was relocated to the fortress city of Strasbourg/Alsace. After the war, he took on his last Reichswehr employment in the early 1930s, presumably due to his poor health he was assigned a ‘retiree’ position at the army’s training camp in Groß Born (today Polish: Borne Sulinowo) in Pomerania. In Alt Valm near Bärwalde, the couple Stier lived in a no longer identifiable house at the village entrance.

Here an escalating marriage crisis eventually led to their divorce. According to vague family memories Else’s new husband Filter was supposed to have worn a police uniform. Perhaps he was a comrade of Drusus Stier. Apparently, Herr Filter did not want to deny himself the pleasures of Else’s intense passion, which often went hand in hand with women suffering from tuberculosis. The second marriage lasted only a short time. Else died in Alt Valm at the age of only 39 years. Her first husband, Drusus Stier, retired in the 1930s and moved to Berlin, where he lost his life by burning to an unrecognizable shell during a bombing raid in 1943.

Natural Splendour of the Arrow Lakes

/ Peter Klopp / 35 Comments

Wednesday’s Photos

Winter Retreating Slowly from the Arrow Lakes

Last weekend under a bright sunny sky, my wife and I went for a leisurely stroll over the local golf course in search of more signs of spring. More and more patches of green had emerged from under the snow. The Canada geese were honking happily at the sight of some fresh grass. The catkins were ready to blow their pollen into the wind,  buds even on the pine trees were already swelling, and the clouds darkening Ingarsol Mountain added drama to the otherwise cheerful scene. Enjoy.

Lucia Selma Elsbeth Klopp – Friedrich and Emma’s Twelfth Child

/ Peter Klopp / 4 Comments

Another Early Death in the Klopp Family

The twelfth child, born in Wolmirstedt on 4 August 1894, did not reach adulthood just as the seventh and tenth child. Although Selma had been mentioned in family circles, nobody could recall any details about her final resting place. The date and place of death could not be found in the official records of the town of Wolmirstedt, Jersleben or Elsenau. However, a photo of her exists (not in my possession), which was made in 1903 or 1904 by the photo store owned by Paul Lorenz. It shows her when she was about nine or ten years old. Her face, no longer childlike, already displays features of early adolescence. In all likelihood, she suffered from a lung disease just as her sister Else born a year later, who will be the topic of the next post. In 1903 or 1904 she moved with her mother Emma to Elsenau in West Prussia, and there she must have passed away a little later having suffered from tuberculosis.

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Church in Elsenau (Olszanowo)

Natural Splendour of the Arrow Lakes

/ Peter Klopp / 43 Comments

Wednesday’s Photos

Still in the Grip of Winter

While day time temperatures have been climbing above the freezing mark, there is no real sign of spring except for a few tulips on the south side of our home, where they had come up with a few leaves to test for spring-like conditions. But the longer days adorned by plenty of sunshine and a splendidly blue sky make up for the snow and ice still present in the Arrow Lakes region, Here are the most recent photos of our excursions around the lakeshore. Enjoy.

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Gustav Robert Hermann Klopp – Friedrich und Emma’s Eleventh Child – Part 5

/ Peter Klopp / 14 Comments

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.

Natural Splendour of the Arrow Lakes

/ Peter Klopp / 22 Comments

Wednesday’s Photos

Canada Geese in Distress

Last Sunday we woke up from the howling of an Arctic blast of cold air, which had brought down the temperature to -6 C. But there was no cloud in the sky and the sun was shining brightly. So my wife and I decided to venture outside for our walk along the lakeshore at the boat dock. The stiff wind blowing from the north whipped up the lake surface and produced giant white caps. We felt like retreating back to our cozy home. But when we saw Canada geese trying to stay warm by sticking their heads into their feathers, we had to take a few photos to document their discomfort and distress. Add to this scene the lack of food which normally is available from the grass on the local golf course, you get a picture of how these poor creatures have to suffer. Let’s hope for the timely arrival of spring!

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