Villa Billa

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On this postcard from 1905, the "Villa Billa" in Bonn's Südstadt at Weberstrasse No. 49 is shown on the right back. B. in the ornaments over the windows - had a great resemblance to the lower neighboring house No. 47 in front of it. The "Villa Billa" was demolished in 1938.
The former Römerplatz (later renamed Remigiusplatz) in 1939. In the area that is covered by the exhibition pavilion, Sibilla Schmitz had her business in 1900 in Römerplatz No. 6, which later became part of the new Blömerhaus.

Villa Billa is a Schunkel - Waltz in the Rhineland dialect of Cologne composer and singer Willi Ostermann , who by the sudden wealth of Bonner Marktfrau Sibilla Schmitz (Schmitze Billa) told. The song was published in 1913 and is still a classic in carnival today - also interpreted by the group Bläck Fööss .

Content and background

For a long time historians were concerned with the question of where the Villa Billa in Bonn-Poppelsdorf was and how the “Schmitze Billa” could have gotten to the sudden windfall and to the villa. Undoubtedly, according to the biographers, Ostermann used experiences and events made in everyday life in order to process them in his songs, so that one could rightly assume that there is also a true core in the Villa Billa waltz. Reinold Louis gives a little hint in his 1986 book "Kölnischer Liederschatz", in which it is said that Ostermann brought what was rumored "behind the cupped hand" with the song to the public. According to this, a "high born" from the Hohenzollern house had a "Malörchen" (love affair with consequences) with Billa Schmitz, which he wanted to forget with the 25,000 marks mentioned in the song.

While researching for the book "Rheinische Unterwelt", the author Udo Bürger from Remagen found an article in the Cologne Court Newspaper of April 14, 1906 that provides more detailed information. The article reports on a much-attended trial by the Bonn criminal chamber that had taken place a few days earlier. The curiosity was probably so great because the two women accused had previously caused quite a stir in Bonn. It was about Sibilla Schmitz, who was already known under the name “Et Schmitze Billa”, and her daughter Else (Elsa).

Sibilla Henriette Francisca Maria Schmitz was born in Bonn. She was born on February 17, 1852 in the then street Am Bahnhof 1 as the daughter of the innkeeper Wilhelm Heinrich Schmitz (1813-1896) and his wife Catharina (1820-1894), née Piel.

The fact that Louis was not so wrong with his suggestion of a love affair between Sibilla Schmitz and a “well-born” is evident from the fact that Else Schmitz, born on February 28, 1882 in Berlin, was an illegitimate daughter of Ulrich von Schack (1853–1923 , lived in St. Goar for a long time ). Although he was married to Sibilla Schmitz's sister, Gertrud Schmitz, who was three years younger, he also had a relationship with Sibilla, from which the child Else emerged. (A son of the count, Adolf Friedrich Graf von Schack, later became known as a resistance fighter in the uprising of July 20, 1944 against Hitler).

In the trial, Else Schmitz was accused of cheating on herself with a false name, namely as Countess von Schack, and under false pretenses, in several cases of money and goods with a total value of more than 210,000 marks. Her mother was charged with aiding and abetting this fraud and pimping.

In 1896 Sibilla Schmitz founded a small butter, egg and cheese business in Bonn, which she ran with her daughter Else, but had to give up as early as 1900 (the Ostermanns song says that Sibilla Schmitz had given up a shop on the market ). They moved their business several times within these few years (Marktbrücke No. 5, Römerplatz No. 5 and Römerplatz No. 6). At that time Sibilla Schmitz lived on Fürstenstraße (No. 4), in 1901 she moved to Bachstraße (No. 28) and in early 1902 to Kaiserstraße (No. 3).

A year later, she and her daughter moved to the house that became known as "Villa Billa". The later demolished house in the Wilhelminian style was located at Weberstrasse 49: The "Villa Billa" was not in Poppelsdorf at all, but in the southern part of the city. Sibilla Schmitz rented the house with the intention of "renting furnished rooms to gentlemen". Coupled with the indictment of pimp, this suggests what purpose these rooms might have served. It should be noted that Sibilla Schmitz did not buy the villa on Weberstrasse, as Ostermann's text shows, but only rented it.

In order to get the business going properly, the rooms should be furnished "quite luxuriously". For this purpose, daughter Else went in a cab to the office of a Bonn furniture dealer and introduced herself as Countess Else von Schack. She paid her bill for a few hundred marks in cash within a short period of time. A few days later the “pretty young countess” car stopped again in front of the door of the furniture store. Now the merchant received the order to equip several rooms in Weberstrasse for approximately 30,000 marks, which he never got. In this way Else Schmitz not only cheated another supplier (again for around 30,000 marks), but also other business people and craftsmen from almost all industries. These and other crooked funds were "for the most part recklessly cheered and the rest used to pay off smaller debts with the devilish intention of making larger ones."

For many Bonn residents it was a mystery how the former cheese sellers could become rich women so quickly. Ostermann also wonders in his song how "the Minsch can change" overnight. Not long after the butter, egg and cheese shop closed, you saw “Else Schmitz, dressed like a countess, sitting in her own equipage and driving herself. In Weberstrasse she lived with her mother in a manorial house, which was furnished in the most luxurious way. "

The public prosecutor applied for three years in prison each against Else Schmitz and her mother. In its judgment of April 10, 1906, the court was somewhat more gracious: Else Schmitz received 16 months in prison, including four months in pre-trial detention, her mother got away with two months in prison. After serving her sentence in Cologne, Sibilla Schmitz stayed in Roisdorf; in 1907 she and her daughter moved to Nideggen. While Sibilla Schmitz was based in Buschdorf from August 1908, her daughter began traveling at the beginning of 1908 and could be found in Renens and Lausanne, and in 1912 in Pfaffendorf in the Koblenz district.

Although Ostermann did not bring the song out until years later, the idea for it evidently emerged in the years between 1901 and 1905, when the life of the “Schmitze Billa” had taken such a rapid turn and her villa had become a lively meeting place. He indicated the end of this - perhaps knowing the process - by warning in the last stanza that the "Schmitze Billa" 's way of life could not last long and that she could be forced to earn her money again on the market.

The villa was demolished in 1938 and replaced by today's house at Weberstrasse 49, which no longer has a Wilhelminian style facade. The house number has not changed over the decades, as the Bonn address books show. On a postcard from 1905 you can see that the villa was very similar to the neighboring house No. 47 (both houses are listed as a unit in the address books from 1914 to 1922), which still exists today and gives an idea of ​​the impressive Wilhelminian style architecture in which the " Schmitz Billa “welcomed her guests.

song lyrics


Twenty-five thousand marks ( = 150 Reichsmarks per month x 14 years of alimony = 25 thousand marks) kräge et Billa Schmitz
uspayed on a knall ("the lewd verb" knallen "),
what do you mean jitz? Eeztens jov et Bell om Maat opened his shop,
secondly wood en Poppelsdorf ( the Bonn district contains the suggestive verb: "poppen") sich en Huus jekauf.
Wat hückzodag nit üvver Naach ( on a night of love) the Minsch can change.

Now Schmitzen has Billa
En Poppelsdorf en villa.
Et hät en eijen Huus, dat Bell es fein erus!

Janz jenau the villa is like e Rotschildhuus,
only dat se nit jrad su jroß un su fine looks us.
If the plaaz och, wherever söns puts the cars,
But Bell knows what garages ( traffic building, enclosed on all sides, with a front entrance and exit) are .
If not already that Huus vun Jlanz, nevertheless heisch et hück üvverall: Now that

Schmitze has Billa ...

If at Bell Jesell manages it, visits from Cologne come
to the Villa Poppelsdorf to put on d'r Kopp.
Nit en Seid, next calico un mem Koppdoch ahn,
then däm Bell to your do de Maathall.
Eez singk et Ann su loud et can, the other then set:

Now has dat Schmitze Billa ...

If et Bell mows su vöran, it doesn’t take long,
take dat met dä Kühl and Kröpp sing ahle Jang.
Instead of being the homeowner brängk et Billa then
Koonschloot un Andivius widder an d'r Mann.
But vör d'r hand do it withstands, what later it doesn't matter: now the

Schmitze has Billa ...

literature

  • Jutta Gay (ed.) And Stephan Meyer (red.): Das Urkölsche Liedbuch , Cologne (Lund Verlagsgesellschaft) 2006
  • Udo Bürger: Rheinische Unterwelt: Criminal cases in the Rhineland from 1815-1918 . Emons Verlag, Cologne
  • Reinold Louis : Kölnischer Liederschatz (wat kölsche Leedcher vun Kölle verzälle) , Greven Verlag, Cologne 1986

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFJUtXHYdv4
  2. ^ Louis, Reinold: Kölnischer Liederschatz. Wat kölsche Leedcher vun Kölle verzälle , Cologne 1986, p. 25; Bürger, Udo: Rhenish underworld. Criminal cases in the Rhineland from 1815-1918 , Cologne 2013, p. 234.
  3. ↑ Bürger, Udo: Rheinische Unterwelt. Criminal cases in the Rhineland from 1815-1918 , Cologne 2013, p. 234/35; Cologne Court Newspaper and Rheinische Criminalzeitung No. 15 of April 14, 1906; identical in: Düsseldorfer Rechts-Zeitung No. 15 of April 14, 1906.
  4. ↑ Bürger, Udo: Rheinische Unterwelt. Criminal cases in the Rhineland from 1815-1918 , Cologne 2013, p. 235; Stadtarchiv Bonn, registry office register Bonn 1852 (births) as well as 1894 and 1896 (deaths); City archive Bonn, old population registration files 1880–1919 (under Schmitz Sibilla and Schmitz Wilhelm Heinrich).
  5. ↑ Bürger, Udo: Rheinische Unterwelt. Criminal cases in the Rhineland from 1815-1918 , Cologne 2013, pp. 235/36; Cologne Court Newspaper and Rheinische Criminalzeitung No. 15 of April 14, 1906; Else Schmitz's date of birth: Bonn City Archives, old residents' registration files 1880–1919 (under Schmitz Sibilla and Schmitz Wilhelm Heinrich, Sibilla Schmitz's siblings are also listed there).
  6. ↑ Cologne Court Newspaper and Rheinische Criminalzeitung No. 15 of April 14, 1906.
  7. ↑ Kölner Rechts-Zeitung and Rheinische Criminalzeitung No. 15 of April 14, 1906 (here it says that the business was only founded in 1897, but this is refuted by the address book of the city of Bonn from 1896, p. 224); Address books of the city of Bonn 1899 (pp. 90 and 233) and 1900 (pp. 91 and 240); Addresses of the places of residence: Stadtarchiv Bonn, old residents' registration files 1880–1919 (under Schmitz Sibilla and Schmitz Wilhelm Heinrich) and address book of the city of Bonn 1898 (p. 225), 1901 (p. 258) and 1902 (p. 271); Bürger, Udo: Rhenish underworld. Criminal cases in the Rhineland from 1815-1918 , Cologne 2013, p. 236.
  8. ↑ Bürger, Udo: Rheinische Unterwelt. Criminal cases in the Rhineland from 1815-1918 , Cologne 2013, p. 237; The house number 49 is not mentioned in the article from 1906. This results from the address books of the city of Bonn from 1903 (p. 151 and 274) and 1905 (p. 178 and 353) as well as from: Bonn city archives, old residents' registration files 1880-1919 (under Schmitz Sibilla and Schmitz Wilhelm Heinrich).
  9. ↑ Cologne Court Newspaper and Rheinische Criminalzeitung No. 15 of April 14, 1906; Bürger, Udo: Rhenish underworld. Criminal cases in the Rhineland from 1815-1918 , Cologne 2013, pp. 237–239.
  10. ↑ Cologne Court Newspaper and Rheinische Criminalzeitung No. 15 of April 14, 1906; City archive Bonn, old population registration files 1880–1919 (under Schmitz Sibilla and Schmitz Wilhelm Heinrich).
  11. ↑ Bürger, Udo: Rheinische Unterwelt. Criminal cases in the Rhineland from 1815-1918 , Cologne 2013, pp. 239–240 (the postcard from 1905 on p. 240); General-Anzeiger Bonn from November 12, 2013; Express Bonn No. 232 of October 6, 2011, p. 27; Bönnsches Karnevals-Magazin Session 2012/2013 , pp. 40–44; VIP. News for the parish association Bonn-Melbtal , 9th year, 4/2001, pp. 6–9; Blick aktuell - AW-Journal on Saturday for the Ahrweiler district No. 37/2001 from September 17th, 2011.