WW1

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

/ Peter Klopp / 11 Comments

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 …

Gustav Robert Hermann Klopp – Friedrich and Emma’s Eleventh Child – Part 1

/ Peter Klopp / 14 Comments

Fighter Pilot and Hereditary Estate Farmer

Friedrich and Emma’s eleventh child, Hermann was the first one to be born in the recently acquired house on 30 August 1892. In 1903 the eleven-year-old boy moved with his mother Emma and his six younger siblings to the farmstead at the village of Elsenau near Schönsee (now Polish: Kowalewo Pomorski) in West Prussia. Hermann completed an agricultural apprenticeship in that area and found before 1916 an administrative post of the Prussian state property Wtelno near Gogolinke, county of Bromberg (now Polish: Witelno near Gogolinek, about 20 km northwest of Bydgoszcz). The agricultural area of the domain was 385 ha.

In 1916 Hermann became a soldier and participated in World War I. He enlisted at the newly established air force unit just as his brother Ferdinand, who had served from 1915 on at the airstrip Großenhain. In August 1917, according to an army postcard, he became a fighter pilot trained at the “Flieger-Ersatz-Abteilung I”.

From March 21 to November 10, 1918, the day of the unit’s closure, Hermann Klopp belonged as a lieutenant and fighter pilot to the Airforce Unit I, which was headed by Manfred von Richthofen (1892 – 1918). Hermann was on active duty when his leader was fatally shot down on 21 April 1918 between Bray and Corbie (France).

Since the end of March 1918 the headquarters of the famous unit JG I was moved forward to the airport Léchelle as part of the German March offensive. After Richthofen’s death, First Lieutenant Reinhard became Herman’s new leader. On 6 July 1918 Captain Hermann Göring (1893 – 1946) was installed as the last commanding officer of the Imperial Airforce.

Under Göring’s leadership, the distinguished and audacious unit suffered heavy losses in the summer and fall of 1918. During the course of these air battles, during which Lieutenant Hermann Klopp flew the fighter plane Fokker D VII, his flying machine was shot down in the vicinity of Léchelle/Cappy. Seriously wounded he was transported to the nearest field hospital. It was found that he received a non-operable lung shot, from which he suffered for the rest of his life.

To be continued …