Cosmopolite Meeting Place and Artists’ House

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 villa, where he received international politicians like Georges Pompidou and Henry Kissinger. In 1966 the establishment of a private foundation saw the villa pass into the ownership of the City of Munich. In 1982 the City Council decided to open the Villa Waldberta to international scholarship holders, providing them with free accommodation in the villa and allowing them to work creatively.