Dresden, Germany was home to many legendary instrument makers.  Theodor Karl POPPE was one woodwind specialist. POPPE would become the last name of the owners of a famous Dresden workshop and highly regarded for his oboes, flutes and clarinets. Three famous makers, all born and trained in Adorf, in Vogtland owned the workshop, one after the other, between 1823 and 1913. They were (Christian) Wilhelm LIEBEL (1793-1871), Gottlieb Louis ZENCKER (1813-1886) and Heinrich Franz Eduard PINDER (1857-1913). World War Two would finally put an end to the legacy.

Theodor Karl Poppe

Theodor Karl Poppe was born in Dresden on 29 December 1865 – the son of the manual worker Friedrich August and Christiane Eleonore Wagner née Schulze. It is not known to date where he began his profession as an instrument maker. However, there is a clue in his personal life as to where he could have trained. In Berlin, on 25 February, 1888, he married Elisabeth Dorothee Marie LÄMMCHE. Their address is recorded as Alvenslebenstraße 24, Berlin. The same address was home to the acclaimed clarinettist Oskar OEHLER (1858-1936). The Berlin directories list him as musician and resident there from 1884. From 1889 until 1891, he is listed as an instrument maker. Could TH. Poppe have worked with Oskar Oehler?

Just a month after TH. Poppe’s marriage, the first POPPE child was born in Berlin, registered at the same address. Her name was Dorothea Elisabeth Erna.

TH. POPPE – Dresden

Later 1935 Th. Poppe advertising in the Dresden press cites 1887 as the year he started his workshop. We can already see in ads from 1894 that he specialises in Boehm system flutes and clarinets. He also advertises his own new F-sharp/G-sharp “brille” [German for spectacles) key for flutes that was pooh-poohed by the music press. That same year, another daughter Erna Babetta was born. In 1899, his son and successor Theodor Hans POPPE was born and the workshop moved to Wolfsgasse 5.

On 4 June 1902, Theodor Poppe registered a patent-like German Reich Utility Model [D.R.G.M – Deutsche Reichs-Gebrauchsmuster]. He had designed a clarinet bell that could be adjusted to all pitches with a slight twist.

According to the literature, in 1929, he took over the workshop of Heinrich Pinder, which had been managed until that time by Pinder’s widow. His son, Theodor Hans Poppe also became a woodwind instrument maker. He and his mother took charge of the workshop after his father passed away on June 30, 1934, at the age of 68.

13 February 1945

Like many other instrument makers, the Poppe family likely faced tough challenges during the World Wars. From February 13 to 15, 1945, more than a thousand heavy bombers from the Royal Air Force and the U.S. 8th Air Force targeted the city of Dresden. On the night of February 13, a firestorm was unleashed by British bombers, engulfing the central area of the city. Tragically, that night, an estimated 25,000 civilians lost their lives – among them were Theodor Hans Poppe and his wife Martha Elisabeth Poppe (née Kneeper). In the same timeframe, Theodor Hans’s widowed mother was also killed and the workshop was completely destroyed.