Skip to main content

News

Update on Clara Bauerle and the Bella in the wych elm story

  • 16th December 2016

Earlier in the year we posted a blog ‘Who put Bella in the wych elm‘ as part of our Monthly Mysteries series.  In it we hinted that the link with Clara Bauerle, the German singer and actress, was one which was still being actively explored.  We can now reveal that the researcher who was following this lead believes she has finally laid this story to rest.

Giselle Jakobs recently published a blog in which she stated that she had finally traced a copy of Clara Bauerle’s death registration.  This indicated that Clara died on 16 December 1942 from veronal poisoning in a Berlin hospital so could not be the mystery woman discovered in Hagley Wood in April 1943.

For details of Giselle’s discovery and a copy of the death registration please see her original blog post.

 

Maggie Tohill

Cataloguing Archivist

Comments are closed.

Related news


  • 4th May 2026
Victoria Woodhull Martin and Worcestershire

One collection that we’ve come across as part of our retroconversion project is this box of documents relating to Victoria Woodhull Martin, the first woman to run for US President in 1872, and Lady of the Manor of Bredon’s Norton, 1901-1927. Who was Woodhull Martin?   Described as “vastly avant garde”, Victoria Woodhull Martin was...

  • 23rd April 2026
True Crimes – Florrie Porter

With funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we are having a series of free talks at The Hive on ‘True Crimes’. Using documents found in a deposit made by West Mercia Police, our second talk focused on Florrie Porter. In 1944, Florrie’s body was discovered on the grounds of a school in Lickey End....

  • 10th April 2026
Bickmarsh Hoard – Life in 9th century Bickmarsh

Imagine walking along a quiet country lane in rural Worcestershire. Fields stretch away on either side, and the landscape feels peaceful and timeless. Yet over 1,100 years ago this same landscape may have been a place of uncertainty, where someone buried a small collection of coins in the ground and never returned to reclaim them....