Aunt Anna and Aunt Meta

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

/ Peter Klopp / 5 Comments
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.

Baroness Anna von Waldenfels (née Klopp) – Part VIII

/ Peter Klopp / 9 Comments

Rumblings and Grumblings in the Klopp Clan

In Novenber 1939 Ilse von Waldenfels gave birth to her first son Jan-Frederik in Münster, Westphalia. Grand-mother Emma died in May 1941. The war against Poland and Great Britain soon changed all their plans and lives’ directions. In dark premonition my aunt Anna von Waldenfels  wrote the following lines to her sister ‘Frau Professor Meta Mülbert’ in Freiburg, Breisgau, for New Year’s Day 1941, “We wish you a happy and blessed New Year! May it keep you healthy and may it bring peace.” However, things would turn out much worse.

Five years earlier, the addressee Meta (1898 – 1984) had been married off in spite of her 37-years of age with Anna’s energetic support. Her marriage with the high school teacher Vincenz Mülbert (1875 – 1958) landed the trained nurse Meta the title ‘Frau Professor’. This prompted Anna to organize for her and her presentable brother-in-law a sumptuous wedding celebration in October 1935 in the prestigious “Hotel Adlon” in Berlin.

Anna’s role model eased Meta’s conversion to catholicism. The author’s grand-father Friedrich Klopp (my uncle) once remarked sarcastically, “There are swindlers and tricksters in the family, who sell their souls, and, if it must be, their own grand-mother.” That was clearly directed at Anna and Meta. Even though one could not speak of deep religious conviction on the part of the Klopp clan, they generally viewed conversion to Catholicism as the last straw. In spite of their own lax commitment to their faith, it was totally incompatible with their traditional protestant day-to-day living. Such a change was simply not allowed and its integrity was put into question. When the news of Anna’s and later on Meta’s conversion, “all because of the despicable mammon”, reached the ears of the family of the Altmark, the digging for scandalous titbits of Emma’s ancestry started all over again. “One does not need any innuendos. The explanation of their behaviour is so obvious. Never to have heard anything about their Jewish ancestry, but now to play the pious catholics, that really hits the nail on the head!” expressed Eberhard’s grand-father Friedrich in his anger and dismay.

In the next post I will summarize Georg’s ambitious plans to take advantage of his connections and dealings within the Nazi hierarchy as reported in the family chronicles written by my cousin Eberhard Klopp.