In Jenny Erpenbecks book Heimsuchung, I got stuck on the the word "Kleereiber", which seems to be a machine that first took 4 fingers, then the life of one of the characters.
Googling the term, and looking it up in standard dictionaries have not resulted in anything useful.
As far as I know, "Klee" means clover and "Reiber" means grinder or grater, but a machine grinding clover does not make much sense.
What kind of machine is this and what is it used for?
I didn't know the term either, so I also googled for »Kleereiber« and learned form the results that »Kleereiber« seems to be a synonym of »Kleereibe« (without ending -r) and that is must be a machine to clean clover seeds. Then I entered »Kleereibe« and the very first two links are these:
Other links lead to similar sites or to agricultural boards where people discussed where to buy and how to use these machines.
If you follow the first link, you will see some pictures, one of them even explains how the machine works:
And there you also can read this:
... zum Lösen von Kleesamen aus den Blütenständen.
If you feed it into a good translator like deepl.com you will get this translation:
... for loosening clover seeds from the inflorescences.
So, a Kleereibe (fem.: die Kleereibe) or Kleereiber (masc.: der Kleereiber) is a machine to clean clover seed, but it can also be used to clear other grains. It is a cylinder of wire mesh and an moter-driven impeller that rubs the seed through the mesh. This is in a housing made of wood or metal. Since it rubs clover through something, it is called »clover-rubber« which is »Kleereibe(r)« in German.
A machine grinding or rubbing clover does actually make sense if you want to harvest the clover seeds :)
Red clover, for example, can be cultivated for many uses, from fodder to bee food to green manure to use in the kitchen or as a medical herb. If you want to harvest the seeds, you can "dreschen" (thresh) the clover like you would for example with wheat.
A "Kleereiber", "Kleereibe", "Kleereibegerät" or similar is an ancillary maschine used in treshing the clover:
Nicht ausgedroschene Samen, die noch in den Hülsen stecken, müssen in einem ersten Arbeitsgang nach dem Trocknen über einen Kleereiber ausgerieben werden.
Erfolgreich Rotklee vermehren (Sucessfully cultivating red clover)
which translates to something like
Seeds that have not been threshed out, that are still in their husks, need to be rubbed out in a preliminary work step after drying with a "Kleereiber".
This (pdf) is a manual for a "Vorsatzgerät zum Kleedrusch mit Dreschmaschine K 115 und K 117" (a front-end attachment for threshing clover with threshing maschines K 115 and K 117).
Das nachfolgend beschriebene Kleereibegerät ist als eine Zusatzvorrichtung für die Dreschmaschine K 115 und K 117 zum Reiben von Klee während des Drusches gedacht. Durch dieses Gerät ist es möglich, den Klee in einem Arbeitsgang zu dreschen und zu reiben.
which translates to
The "Kleereibegerät" described in the following is meant as an attachment for the threshing machine K 115 and K 117, for the rubbing of clover during the threshing. With this device it's possible to thresh and rub the clover in one work step.
As an aside, while looking into this topic I've learned that there's a noun for the threshing process: It's called the "Drusch", in this case the "Kleedrusch". I'm not sure whether this word is still regularily used in agricultural jargon.
