Cosmopolite meeting place and artists' house

by Tobias Mahl

The Villa Waldberta in Feldafing, positioned high over Lake Starnberg in an expansive park, was built as part of the Höhenberg villa colony in 1901/02. From the beginning the grand residence was a place where cosmopolites and artists met, but it also became politically significant: after the Second World War the villa served as quarters for "Displaced Persons" for many years, providing lodgings for those persecuted by the Nazi regime whose repatriation to their native country was untenable. In 1972, during the Olympic Games in Munich, the then Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt stayed in the...