Picture shows a draft for the modification of the Salt House in Heilbronn
Adolf Cluss admired the drawings of his uncle Carl, who worked as an architect as well - here a draft for the modification of the Salt House in Heilbronn (about 1800), which was eventually torn down.

Portrait von Henriette Faisst
Henriette Faisst, nee Cluss (1831-1902). The half sister of Adolf Cluss was married with the director of a sugar factory - Andreas Faißt. They lived in the Villa at Caecilienstrasse 66 - today's WineVilla.


Family stories - Stonecutter, Construction Foreman, Vineyards

43 years before the birth of Adolf Cluss, in 1782, his grandfather, Georg Andreas Cluss (1750 - 1822), settled in Heilbronn and became a citizen of the city. He had moved with his wife from nearby Weinsberg. A mason and construction foreman, he was the fourth generation of the Cluss family to work in the building trades. The Protestant family Cluss had its roots in Silesia, having migrated to Wuerttemberg after the Thirty Years' War, when Silesia became Catholic again.

Georg Andreas Cluss had six children, but only three of them reached adulthood: Heinrich, Caroline, who married Reiner, and another son, Carl (1748 - 1831), who apparently died in a psychiatric institution. After his death, Adolf wrote about him: "It seems to have been a prejudice of the time that insane people, even those with very agreeable temperaments, were seldom spoken of and then only in very hushed voices. For this reason, I know very little about this man, whose posthumous papers and drawings inspired tremendous respect in me as a young man. It always saddened me that we heard so little about him."

The Cluss family exemplifies Heilbronn's changing social structure. Grandfather Georg Andreas accumulated wealth as a skilled construction worker and invested in his children's businesses. The daughter Caroline became a successful businesswoman. The Rainer company, founded by her husband, existed until 1967. Her descendants belonged to Heilbronn's "Hautevolee" (high society), comprising families linked by blood and marriage. Her granddaughter Mathilde Hauck (1843 - 1940) married August Cluss (1832 - 1904), the youngest son of her brother Heinrich, and in 1865 founder of the region's leading brewery Cluss.

Adolf Cluss's sister Henriette ascended into the first class of the city by her marriage to Andreas Faisst, the director of a sugar factory founded in 1853.

Ancestors of Adolf Cluss

 

 

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