merchants who had been raised to the status of a Junker.

Erich's mother, Klara Jeanette Henriette von Tempelhoff (1840-1914), was the daughter of the noble but impoverished Friedrich August Napoleon von Tempelhoff (1804-1868) and his wife Jeannette Wilhelmine von Dziembowska (1816-1854), who came from a Germanised Polish landed family on the side of her father Stephan von Dziembowski (1779-1859).