I.   CARL SIGISMUND SPILHAUS IN LUBECK

Having moved to Lübeck Carl Sigismund Spilhaus (9th generation, 1770-1861) endured the punishing period of the occupation of the city by Napoleonic troops from 1806 to 1813. He married for a second time during the occupation, and his second wife was the mother of six girls and two boys, Christian Ludwig Karl Spilhaus (1815-1906), our direct ancestor, and one other boy, Ludolphe, a distinguished Lubeck military man,  whose family died out after one further generation.

Carl Sigismund Spilhaus was a successful Lübeck trader. His trading premises were at Engen Krambuden 255, situate on a narrow lane opposite the Rathaus (town hall), running between the Markplatz and Marienkirchhof : the entire area of the building was destroyed in the Allied bombing raid of March 1942, and not subsequently restored. Today in that location there is a discordant modern building, functional but out of place in its surroundings. An indistinct photograph of the building in the online register of Abgegangener Lübecker Bauwerke (Former Lübeck Buildings) shows the merchant house as an elegant stepped gable building, typical of old Lübeck.

Carl Sigismund Spilhaus lived in the city until he died at the ripe old age of 91.

II. CHRISTIAN LUDWIG KARL SPILHAUS IN LUBECK

Carl’s son, Christian Ludwig Karl Spilhaus (‘Karl’), 10th generation, 1815-1906, was the father of Arnold Wilhelm Spilhaus, his elder son and the first member of the family to emigrate to the Cape. Karl was also grandfather of Karl Antonio Spilhaus, the businessman who later followed his uncle out to Cape Town, and of Nita Spilhaus, the artist. Grandfather Karl, as we will call him, ceased his activity as a trader before his father died, and became a senior government official in the tax office.

The Spilhaus family lived in a rambling merchant house on An der Untertrave, from which Karl also traded. When Peter Elliott wrote his book on the family history in 2015, he concluded that the original house had been demolished and replaced by a new building as part of the 1853 harbour works. However, the recent visit to Lubeck and observation of the elegant house now on the site, numbered An der Untertrave 107, calls this into question. The decorative architectural style of the building appears baroque/rococo i.e. pre-1800. It is more likely that, at least, the façade of the building is the original 1800-1853 building in which the family lived.

After the family moved from the merchant house on An der Untertrave, they found a house in the Johannis District of the city, now Konigstrasse 58.

Karl’s younger son, also named Karl Spihaus (11th generation, 1847-1878), moved to Lisbon, Portugal, married a Portuguese lady, named Virginia Coelho, and established a trading agency there.  The couple had three children, Virginia, Karl Antonio (‘Carlos’) and Pauline (‘Nita’). The children were orphaned in 1878, when their mother died in childbirth, and their father fell ill and perished in the same year. As a result, their aunt took the three children to Lübeck, where they were cared for by their grandfather, Karl, and his housekeeper, Mary Brownfield, who became the old man’s wife a few years after the death of his first wife in the mid-1880s.

In about 1888 the couple and their three grandchildren moved to a comfortable newly constructed suburban house at Klosterstrasse 28, within walking distance of the Wakenitz river, near the childrens’ school. The family owned this house until 1913. It still stands today, more or less unchanged, save for an extension constructed at the rear of the building.

Karl Antonio Spilhaus, (‘Carlos’) 12th generation 1876-1968) and his two sisters spent most of their Lübeck childhood in this family house. Carlos completed his apprenticeship training as a merchant in the city. In 1896 he emigrated to the Cape and founded our branch of the family there. Nita attended Lübeck Art School, and subsequently trained as an artist in and around Munich until she herself joined her brother in the Cape in 1907.

BELOW: THE HOUSE AT KLOSTERSTRASSE 28, THE SPILHAUS HOME IN LUBECK, 1888-1913

III. HOW MUCH OF 19TH CENTURY LUBECK, FAMILIAR TO THE SPILHAUS FAMILY, REMAINS TODAY?

A visitor to Lübeck today is confronted with two different aspects of the city; on the one hand, there remain many of the beautiful historic buildings, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo and the Classic buildings of the second half of the 19th Century. However, interspersed with these heritage buildings are modern functional, practical, buildings built simply to enable normal life to resume as quickly as possible in the decades after the Second World War.

Lübeck suffered considerable bombing damage in 1942. This is evocatively recorded in the photograph in the central Marienkirche, depicting the horrific scene of that church in a cauldron of fire, in the aftermath of the bombing. The church bells fell to the ground, leaving a crater in the church floor. The scene of the shattered bells has been preserved in the church to this day as a memorial to the destruction.

NITA SPILHAUS 1901 ETCHINGS OF LUBECK: AN EVOCATIVE REMINDER OF OLD LUBECK

Nita Spilhaus depicted a series of scenes of Lübeck in 1901.

The major work of her Lübeck period is her folio of 10 etchings made in that year, but there are also other individual etchings of scenes of the city.

In view of the wartime destruction within Lübeck it is remarkable that seven of the original ten scenes of the city and it’s surrounds in this 1901 folio can still be readily identified today. If you are interested in the story of her Lübeck Etchings, do go to the tab ‘Lübeck Etchings 1901’, and then scroll down to Part II of that section, entitled: ‘The Lübeck scenes in the etchings that can be readily located in the modern city’. There you will see scenes, unaffected by the ravages of war, that remain unchanged despite the passage of over 120 years.

THE SPILHAUS FAMILY TREE, LUBECK AND THE CAPE

PETER ELLIOTT’ BOOKS ON THE SPILHAUS AND MUIR FAMILIES

All three books are available worldwide on Amazon, both as printed editions and eBooks. This includes the book on the Spilhaus history, and on the life and artwork of the painter Nita Spilhaus. However, additionally the book on the life and work of Sir Thomas Muir may interest readers (Nellie Muir married Carlos Spilhaus in Cape Town, and therefore was the maternal founder of that branch of the Spilhaus family).

In addition for South African readers, who cannot readily access Amazon for print books, all three books can be obtained via Africana Books in Woodstock, Cape:

Contact: Stefan Blank

Africana Books, 374 Albert Rd Unit 2 Salt Circle Arcade Woodstock 7925 Cape Town South Africa