Benoit Ahlers

From Circopedia.org

During their stay at Hamburg’s Heiligenfeld, the Krones had set up their Menagerie Continental near Ahlers’ Affentheater, a traveling monkey theater. Monkey theaters were quite popular at the time, and Ahlers show was one of the most successful in Germany. Its owner, Benuas Ahlers (1850-1940), known as Benoit, presented with his family a show consisting of costumed primates of various Species performing small pantomimes on a fully equipped theater stage.

Benoit Alhers had a daughter, Ida (1876-1957), born on the road on November 3, 1876. Over the years, the Krones and the Alhers had often worked on the same fairgrounds, and they had become friends. Ida was pretty and she and Carl eventually fell in love. Carl was thirty-two when he married the 26-year-old Ida Ahlers in Koblenz, in 1902. The two families were now one and, quickly thereafter, Krone absorbed the Ahlers show. Benoit Ahlers, now Carl’s father-in-law and partner, was soon to start Circus Krone's fabled equestrian tradition.
Raffaele De Ritis