House der Wannsee Conference
Oscar Huldschinsky
Industrialist and patron
Oscar Huldschinsky (1846-1931), a Jewish businessman from Breslau, held a top position in the coal rnining and iran industries in Upper Silesia. As well as the pipe rolling worts in Sosnowic and the Eisenwerke A.G. (iron works corporation) he owned the iron and steel worts named after him in Gleiwitz. Along with Fritz Friedländer-Fuld he was the most important representative of Silesian heavy industry in Berlin. In 1914 his fortune was estirnated at some 30 million marks.
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In 1890/1891 Oscar Huldschinsky had a villa built on the site at Friedrich-Karl-Straße 19 (today: Am Sandwerder 33/35) and in 1907/1908 a smaller adjacent villa for his children. The estate contained a garden pavilion with a series of open archways. In the western corner of the estate there was a marina, the roof of which served as a viewing terrace. The adjacent villa was built in the neo-Baroque style. The house also had a conservatory with three large round arches, to which was added an extension designed by Alfred Breslauer and Paul Huldschinsky. Huldschinsky had to sell his Wannsee residence as a result of financial difficulties. The villa was renovated in 1929/30 for the new owner, the banker Georg Schicht, who emigrated to London during the Nazi period. |
On 10 April 1942 the whole estate was transferred to the Reich by bill of sale and used by the Reich forestry comrnission. The Italian Ambassador moved into the villa when the embassy building in Tiergarten was destroyed in a bomb attack. On 19 June 1948 around 50 prominent figures, among them Ernst Reuter and Edwin Redslob, met there to take the first steps towards founding the Free University in Berlin. The villa served as a hospital between 1954 and 1995. The adjacent villa is currently undergoing restoration work to be preserved as a historical monument whilst a buyer was found for the main building in 1999.
Villa Huldschinsky,
dining-room 1930
With his fortune Oscar Huldschinsky was able to accumulate a valuable private art collection which included paintings from Botticelli and Tiepolo as well as worts by Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Peter Paul Rubens. Along with James Sirnon and Amold von Siemens, Huldschinsky was one of the most prolific patrons at the turn of the century. He donated many valuable pieces to the Berlin museums; the Nationalgalerie for example received Edgar Degas' painting "Conversation" as well as Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture "The Thinker". In 1928 Huldschinsky was forced to auction off parts of his art collection.
Upon his death in 1931 Oscar Huldschinsky was buried in the farnily grave at the Neuen Friedhof in Wannsee where, on his initiative, both Christians and Jews could be buried.
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His son, Paul Huldschinsky, made his name above all as an interior designer in the Berlin society of the 1920s. He decorated libraries and rooms for art collectors and on request would supply the complete collection together with the decor, for which he would use valuable materials. Paul Huldschinsky fled Germany, probably in 1938, and went to America where he worked as an artistic director and set designer in Hollywood.
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Update: 20 August 2004
