Franz Wettel House

In December 1909, Franz Wettel buys a house at the junction of Mező (now Inocențiu Micu-Klein street) and Kis Kereszt street (now Cezar Bolliac street) for the sum of 38.000 Austrian kronen. According to the 1906 Timișoara adress book, the building had been the residence of Karoly Kimmel family, its footprint being visible on pre-1897 plans of Timișoara. Up until 1911, their house was the only building on Mező street (now Inocențiu Micu-Klein str.), a street that runs perpendicular to Uri (now Dr. Ioan Bontila street) and Kis Kereszt ( now Cezar Bolliac street).

At the time, the land near the former Wettel house, on which buildings numbered 1 and 3 are situated today, belonged to the municipality of Timișoara. According to the Municipal Code of the City of Timișoara, the plot of 339-5 austrian square klafters (about 610 square meters) was purcharsed by Franz Wettel in 1910 for 5092 kronen. In April of the same year he received a building permit for a one story, 6 room house built in an eclectical-historicist style that was anachronical both for Timișoara and Europe, which was swept at the time by the third wave of Art Nouveau style. The generous amount of land on the plot allowed Wettel to create an exquisite park on the site, a large part of it being conserved to this day. In 1937, the building became the property of Eugene Salamon family. Nowadays, the current owner insures the building’s conservation, doing constant repairs and upkeep.

About Franz (Julius) Wettel

Franz (Julius) Wettel, born on the 24th of February 1854 in Vârșeț, was a known politician, historian, writer and owner of printing houses and bookshops. He was one of the four children of Karl Wettel (of Vârșeț, Servia) and Aloisia Schesherko (of Bela Crkva, Serbia), a family originating in Pleinfeld, Bavaria, part of the first wave of German colonists that came to the Banat region in the 18th century. The German colonization was a frequent subject in the work of  Franz Wettel, who sometimes adopted the pen-name of Beautus Streiter.

Franz Wettel attended elementary school in Vârșeț between 1860 and 1868 and then began a commercial apprenticeship at Bela Crkva between 1868 and 1871. Between 1871 and 1876 we find him employed in Wien at a bookshop, a time he uses to visit the various German Länder along with Switzerland and to learn to play several musical instruments. He returns to the Banat region in 1876 and opens a bookshop, a musical instrument store and a printing house in Vârșeț. In 1877 he opens a bookshop in Deta, followed by another one in Timișoara in 1880 (a bookshop later known as the Corvina). His business brings him wealth, allowing him to buld a manor in the village of Blajova and in 1885 he buys the estate of baroness Stephanie Ambrozy. In 1899 this estate is enlarged with 531 Austrian Joch, about 3.055.374 square meters, and renamed Wettelhaim. The Wettel family lived in Blajova until 1902, when they moved to Buziaș.

Franz Wettel was married to Adele Einsenhofer (born 1860, Iosefin, Timișoara – died 1942, Buziaș), daughter of Mathias Eisenhofer (1827, Deutschbentschek, now Bencecu de Sus), a bank teller in Timișoara and of Katharina Jungblut. They had 9 children together, according to the family’s tree: Hugo Julius Wettel (1881-1924, Timișoara); Adele Wettel (1882, Timișoara - 1888, Blajova); Bruno Wettel (1883, Timișoara - 1884, Timișoara, Elisabetin); Herta Elisabeth Wettel (1886, Timișoara - 1990, Timișoara); Isolde Elisabeth Wettel (1888, Nițchidorf - 1893, Blajova); Olga Hildegard Wettel (1891-1893, Blajova); Oskar Richard Wettel (September 24th, 1893, Blajova - 1967, Buziaș); Helmuth Wettel (March 4th, 1895 - 1916), killed in action on the Italian frontline, at San Marino; Frida Wettel (1896, Timișoara – 1977, Timișoara).

At the turn of the century, Franz Wettel was a co-owner of the Gutenberg printing press in Timișoara, located in Elisabetin neighbourhood on Stefania street at nr. 16 (Virgil Madgearu street, nr. 33, today). In the same year, on the 16th of December, Wettel founded the Deutsche Tagblatt newspaper alongside Janos Anheuer and Alvin Cramer (who was the newspaper’s editor). On December 30th 1906, Franz Wettel establishes the Popular Party of Germans in Hungary alongside Edmund Steinhacker in Vârșeț and in 1910 he becomes the owner of the “South Hungary” typography, located in Timișoara, in Cetate neighbourhood. 

A large part of the Wettel estate in Blajova was expropiated during the land reforms of 1921, and later on, in the fifties, his manor was demolished. Franz Wettel donated his entire book collection to the Banatia elementary school in Timișoara, but after its dissolution by the Red Army in 1944, Wettel’s book collection was lost forever.

Franz Wettel died on the 5th of August 1938 and is buried in Timișoara.