Helene von Reitzenstein

Helene Hallberger in a portrait of a youth around 1870 after a painting by Friedrich August von Kaulbach

Friederike Marie Helene Freifrau von Reitzenstein (born Hallberger ; born November 15, 1853 in Stuttgart , † December 19, 1944 in Darching ) was a multimillionaire and lady of the court society during the Kingdom of Württemberg .

Life

Helene von Reitzenstein on an oil painting made by Ferdinand Keller in 1882 . The painting is in the entrance hall of the Villa Reitzenstein in Stuttgart

Helene Hallberger was the younger of two daughters of the Stuttgart publisher and entrepreneur Eduard Hallberger and his wife Friederike geb. Bauzenberger.

On October 3, 1876, Helene Hallberger married the royal Württemberg Chamberlain and later Lord Court Marshal Carl Friedrich Sigmund Felix Freiherr von Reitzenstein , the only son of General Karl Bernhard von Reitzenstein, at her father's country estate in Tutzing on Lake Starnberg . He came from the Zoppaten line of the Franconian noble family von Reitzenstein .

Almost four years after their marriage, their father Eduard Hallberger died in the summer of 1880. Now Helene von Reitzenstein inherited half of her father's fortune with her sister Gabriele Eichborn (1850–1915). The publishing house was converted into a stock corporation in 1881, which has been called the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt ever since .

Due to her fortune of around 5 million marks and an annual income of around 250,000 marks, she was able to buy back the ancestral seat of the barons of Reitzenstein, Reitzenstein Castle in Issigau near Naila in Upper Franconia , for her husband and his noble family. The marriage led by Helene and Carl von Reitzenstein remained childless, but was in the limelight of the society of the royal residence in Stuttgart.

Since the death of her husband in 1897, Helene von Reitzenstein lived relatively withdrawn either in Stuttgart or at Reitzenstein Castle in Issigau. The widowed baroness only occasionally received visits from her close circle of acquaintances, including her friend Baroness Woellwarth and Queen Charlotte, among others, Sibylle von Bismarck, the wife of the Chancellor's son Wilhelm von Bismarck and Bismarck's doctor Ernst Schweninger and Marie Fehling (the wife of the Lübeck Senator Emil Ferdinand Fehling ) belonged to people hardly known today such as Ulla and Max von Uexküll, Elsa von Falkenstein, Freiherr von Gemmingen, Freiherr von Cotta, Elise von Lindquist, Marie Federer and Melanie Taxiy.

In 1906, Helene von Reitzenstein went on a world tour , which she started in Hamburg on board a luxury steamer. During or after this trip the idea arose to erect a representative building in an outstanding location in Stuttgart.

Owner of the Villa Reitzenstein

Between 1910 and 1913 the architects Hugo Schlösser and Johann Weirether built the Villa Reitzenstein for 2.8 million gold marks . In the autumn of 1913 Helene von Reitzenstein was able to move into the new villa, which, including personnel expenses, cost around 1,000 gold marks a day to run. The owner named the building after her deceased husband. Helene von Reitzenstein probably had planned to live in the villa with the then widowed Queen Charlotte. Since Queen Charlotte also remained childless and the death of King Wilhelm II of Württemberg, who was 16 years her senior, was to be expected earlier than that of Queen Charlotte, this plan could have been implemented as early as 1921. However, since the royal couple had moved to the living quarters in the Bebenhausen monastery due to the events during the November Revolution and Charlotte von Württemberg showed no willingness ever to return to Stuttgart after the death of her husband in 1921, Helene von Reitzenstein sold for a cheap 5 in 1922 during the inflation period , 5 million paper marks (approx. 400,000 gold marks) the Villa Reitzenstein to the People's State of Württemberg . The villa was rebuilt and from September 1925 initially served as the seat of the Württemberg state president and from 1933 to 1945 the NSDAP Gauleitung . In the post-war period, the villa was temporarily the seat of the state council of the American zone of occupation and has been used as the official seat of the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg since 1952 .

Old age in Upper Bavaria

The baroness took part of the inventory of the villa to her new residence in Darching in Bavaria. She lived there until the old age of 91, with her spiritual powers becoming increasingly darker over the years. On the advice of a lawyer, she finally wanted to transfer a large part of her fortune to the NSDAP , which the party refused. Her remains were transferred to Stuttgart in 1952 and buried in the Hallberg family crypt in the Prague cemetery.

literature

• Kurt Gayer, Heinz Krämer , Georg F. Kempter: The Villa Reitzenstein and its masters. The history of the Baden-Württemberg seat of government . DRW-Verlag, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-87181-257-9 .
• Willi A. Boelcke : Millionaires in Württemberg . DVA , Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-421-05110-0 , pp. 80-82, pp. 121-122, pp. 194-195, p. 248
• Christine Breig: The construction of villas and country houses in Stuttgart 1830–1930. Hohenheim Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-89850-964-8
• Gerhard Konzelmann : Villa Reitzenstein: History of the seat of government of Baden-Württemberg . Hohenheim Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-89850-104-3 .
• Jörg Kurz: The Gänsheide. History and culture. Verlag im Ziegelhaus, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-925440-16-8 , therein the section Die Villa Reitzenstein pp. 84–94

References and comments

1. ↑ Helene von Reitzenstein's date of birth can be found e.g. B. in Willi A. Boelcke: Millionaire in Württemberg , p. 194, the date of death is missing in many places in the literature (only the year of death 1944 is sometimes given).
   The exact date of death can be found e.g. B. with Christine Breig: The villa and country house construction in Stuttgart 1830 - 1930 , p. 440
2. ↑ Willi A. Boelcke: Millionaires in Württemberg , p. 194
3. ^ Gerhard Konzelmann: Villa Reitzenstein: History of the seat of government of Baden-Württemberg , p. 41
4. ^ Gerhard Konzelmann: Villa Reitzenstein: History of the seat of government of Baden-Württemberg , p. 49
5. ↑ Gerhard Konzelmann: Villa Reitzenstein: History of the seat of government of Baden-Württemberg , p. 66 ff.
   Wilhelm Murr , the head of the NSDAP-Gau Württemberg-Hohenzollern, moved into the villa after he was elected President of the Württemberg state on March 15, 1933 . After the abolition of this office on May 5, 1933, Murr was, in addition to his party function as Gauleiter, Reich Governor until 1945 .
6. ^ Gerhard Konzelmann: Villa Reitzenstein: History of the seat of government of Baden-Württemberg , p. 85 ff.
7. ↑ Gerhard Konzelmann: Villa Reitzenstein: History of the seat of government of Baden-Württemberg , p. 89 ff.
   Reinhold Maier used the Villa Reitzenstein as his official seat in his function as Prime Minister of Württemberg-Baden since September 1948 , but only since April 25, 1952 Maier was Prime Minister of the newly formed state of Baden-Württemberg .