Family Research, German language contributions, The Family Tree Project, Writing
Hermine Elsbeth Emma Klopp – Friedrich and Emma's Thirteenth Child
Posted on April 3 by Peter Klopp
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.
Drusus Stier Farther Pomerania Hermine Elsbeth Emma Klopp The Consumptive Captain's Wife
Natural Splendour of the Arrow Lakes
Stella, oh, Stella · April 3
It was brave of Else to get a divorce. That was really not the done thing at that time! A pity that she died so young.
Amy · April 3
What a sad, sad story. Poor Else. And I wonder what happened to the second husband—did he get TB also? And then for the first husband to die in a fire during the war—so awful.
Peter Klopp · April 4
At this time, I have no more information on the fate of the second husband. Thank you, Amy! Your comments are always appreciated. Stay safe!
You, too, Peter.
rabirius · April 3
Ann Coleman · April 4
That is so sad! It reminds us to be thankful for living in a time of peace….
kopfundgestalt · April 6
There is no preace…
Forestwood · April 5
Interesting reading about the times in Germany. Burning to an unrecognizagle shell sounds a horrific death. Did they Germans move around much in those days if they weren't attached to the army. My great great grandfather migrated to Denmark and thence to Australia. He was from an area of Prussia, east of Berlin, now part of Poland.