The History of the Villa Waldberta and its Residents
The Villa Waldberta was built as the
Villa Felsenheim according to the plans of the architect G. Baierle for the Munich banker
Bernhard Schuler who was also an author and publisher of mainly Catholic literature. The Villa Waldberta formed part of a colony of villas known as the "Höhenbergkolonie", put up around the turn of the century by the Munich-based property and construction company
Heilmann & Littmann on the
Höhenberg hill overlooking Lake Starnberg as an exclusive residential development. About fifteen plots of varying sizes feature individually designed villas and country houses all cleverly perched at different levels on the undulating and in places quite steep side of the hill. The Villa Waldberta is located in a 22,000-square-metre park at the highest point of the brow of the hill, with not only a panoramic view of the east shore of the lake but also of the Alps to the south.
Presumably because of financial problems,
Bernhard Schuler had to sell his
Villa Felsenheim again in 1903. The new owner was the internationally-known publisher
Albertus Willem Sijthoff from
Leyden in the Netherlands. He used the mansion as a retirement home until his death in 1913, living here in Feldafing together with his wife
Waldina and members of various branches of his German-Dutch family. Shortly after the purchase, the
Sijthoffs renamed the villa »
Waldbert« using a combination of their forenames. At this time, the house was being already used as villa for artists, with the
Sijthoffs offering lodgings, for example, to a painter, a violinist, a sculptor while they worked there.
In 1917,
Sijthoff's widow Waldina sold the villa to the
Dresden-based papermill owner
Hugo Schmeil. The famous art collector also used this house as his retirement home. Following his death in 1923, his heirs sold the mansion in August 1925 to the German-American couple
Franz and
Bertha Koempel from New York.
Franz Koempel, who was born in the southwest German town of Amorbach im
Odenwald, was a famous doctor and one-time student of
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, later playing an important role in the spread of x-ray methods in the USA. As the founder and long-time chairman of the "
Steubengesellschaft", a traditional association which cultivates the German roots of many Americans, he was also regarded as one of the most prominent and influential representatives of German-American culture in the interwar years. His wife
Bertha was the daughter of a chemist who had emigrated to the USA at the end of the 19th century and made her fortune with an alkaloid factory.
Franz and
Bertha Koempel spent every summer from May to October in
Feldafing. The villa had meanwhile been renamed »Waldberta«- probably to incorporate
Bertha Koempel's forename. The villa developed into a meeting place for the
Koempels' friends from Germany and elsewhere. Among them were not only many prominent German-Americans but also the family of Munich's Chief Burgomaster, Karl Scharnagl. The
Koempels also became patrons. Thus, in 1931, they set up the George Washington Foundation with funds of 100,000 US-Dollars, intended to help reconstruct the glass palace, a famous art gallery in Munich which had been burnt down. Furthermore, the couple decreed that after their deaths the villa was to be used as a place of rest and recuperation for artists and scientists.
After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the couple did not return to Germany any more but stayed in New York. The house was confiscated by Nazi authorities in April 1943 and used as military hospital for the
Wehrmacht, the German army. After the end of the war, the American occupying forces promptly requisitioned the building for members of the US Army. From the autumn of 1945, the Villa Waldberta served as emergency accommodation for displaced Jews from a huge camp which had been set up in
Feldafing. Until its dissolution in the early 50s, as many as 70 survivors of the concentration camps, waiting to journey on to the USA and Israel, were living in the
Villa Waldberta at any one time.
Bertha Koempel, whose husband had died back in 1950, was given her mansion in
Feldafing back in the mid-50s and used it until her death in October 1966 to spend the summer by Lake
Starnberg just as she had done before the war. In 1965,
Bertha Koempel signed an officially recorded contract with Munich state capital to set up a foundation. Since her death in October 1966, the city of Munich, as the body responsible for the "Bertha Koempel Foundation", has been obliged to maintain the
Villa Waldberta, including its neighbouring buildings and grounds, as a "monument to past and present property and residential culture" and to use the villa for non-profitmaking activities.
From 1968 to 1974, the
Villa Waldberta was rented out to
Willi Daume, the president of the organisation committee of the Summer Games of the 20th Olympiad in Munich in 1972, as private residence. During the Olympic Games, the German chancellor of the time, Willy Brandt, lived together with his staff in the Villa in
Feldafing. He used the residence for talks with invited international politicians such as the British Prime Minister Edward Heath, the French President
Georges Pompidou or the American presidential adviser Henry Kissinger, when they visited Munich for the Olympics. Thus, for a short time, the
Villa Waldberta became a centre of world policymaking.
From 1975 on the city of Munich granted the right of use to the "Haus Feldafing - Gesellschaft für Pädagogik und Kreativität in Schule und Familie", an association supporting education and creativity in schools and families. In addition to educational seminars and conferences, the association organized courses leading to the acquisition of the Montessori diploma. In 1982, the city council decided in line with a reworked concept to devote the property to culture, and since then the villa has been accommodating artist from all over the world as guests of the city of Munich.
Back to the top
Application criteria
Back to the Villa Waldberta home page
