Bad Wildungen, Germany /// 2017.06.05. @Ati @Dóri @Kati RATING: ✪✪✪✪ DIFFICULTY: easy SIZE: 1 building, 5 stories

Attila Deák

20:00 2nd February 2020 Published by: Attila Deák

The Story
Videos
Location
Close-ups

This is the best Urbex place we’ve ever visited by far. We’ve seen so many amazing images of the Arzt Villa before, and it became the first spot in our urbex bucket-list. And then it happened, we were there, near the streets, and suddenly we were here – in the library room. Wow!
Unfortunately, the state of the villa was much worse than on the photos. The formaldehyde bottles with dead animal bodies are already disappeared, but the amazing surgery spotlight set on the first floor and the grand piano on the second-floor hall was still there.

We’ve spent here almost half day, exploring every detail of the more than dozens of rooms full of furniture, books, and stuff.

This place should become a museum, the perfect showcase of the seventies.

Bad Wildungen, Germany /// 2017.06.05. @Ati @Dóri @Kati RATING: ✪✪✪✪ DIFFICULTY: easy SIZE: 1 building, 5 stories

Attila Deák

20:00 2nd February 2020 Published by: Attila Deák

The Story
Videos
Location
Close-ups

This is the best Urbex place we’ve ever visited by far. We’ve seen so many amazing images of the Arzt Villa before, and it became the first spot in our urbex bucket-list. And then it happened, we were there, near the streets, and suddenly we were here – in the library room. Wow!
Unfortunately, the state of the villa was much worse than on the photos. The formaldehyde bottles with dead animal bodies are already disappeared, but the amazing surgery spotlight set on the first floor and the grand piano on the second-floor hall was still there.

We’ve spent here almost half day, exploring every detail of the more than dozens of rooms full of furniture, books, and stuff.

This place should become a museum, the perfect showcase of the seventies.

LOCATION

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The Urbex Club’s Map

Approximate location:

THE STORY

The background story of the Arzt Villa

It’s hard to find anything about the story of the Art villa or Urulogien Villa, but nowadays this is one of the most visited urbex sites of Europe.

The owner was Dr. Anna L (Hildegard), and her husband was a urologist Dr. med Klaus Kraft (01.07.1910 – 06.10.1988) based on the tomb-sign.

Here is the story what we’ve found:

Dr. Anna L, Hildegard, died at the age of 106, she is said to have died in a nursing home in Reinhardshausen. In 2010, she gave an interview to a local reporter on the occasion of her 104th birthday.
Hildegard Kraft-Hux was born on April 9, 1906 in Teutschenthal (near Halle an der Saale). Here she lived with her mother Frida and her father Robert (he was Swiss), who was involved in the construction of the local potash plant. Hildegard received Swiss citizenship, which she retained until the end of her life. The first years of her school education she got through a private teacher. Afterward, she completed a 2-year education in a municipal study center in Halle. On April 1, 1918, the family moved to Kassel. The father then worked there in the potash plant. In Bischofferode a house was bought. Dr. Kraft, a friend of the family doctor, was looking for a doctor’s assistant for his urologist’s practice in Bad Wildungen. At the request of the parents, Hildegard took the job and moved in April 1931 to Bad Wildungen.

First, she was a receptionist, then became a wife of the urologist dr. Karl K., with him she had met in 1931 in her parents’ home in Bleicherode. The physician visited the family doctor there and looked for a housekeeper and receptionist for his practice, which at that time was already housed in this villa in Bad Wildungen. Three months later, the employee had become a wife. The information on how many children were given to both is contradictory. In 1936, a son was born (Dieter) who now works as a doctor in Berlin. (Probably he owns the villa now). The speech goes like: she had also a daughter, who is said to have committed suicide later. But the existence of such cannot be verified.
In April 1945, the family was forcibly evacuated by the Americans for 8 months. Her husband is said to have died at the age of 78 as a result of a car accident.

The widow subsequently leased the practice rooms in the basement to other doctors to continue using the overlying living area for herself. Hildegard K.H. – she kept her maiden name even after marriage – lived in the house until at least 2006. Shortly after her 100th birthday and serious illness, Hildegard is said to have gone to a nursing home.  The transfer there must have been pretty abrupt. All or at least the most important testimonies of her previous life remained untouched in the house and were never picked up. To the delight of the ruins romantics. Apparently, the son, who visited his mother repeatedly in the home, showed no interest in the house later. And the practice rooms, which were allegedly rented, were also given up precipitously, is another mystery. Maybe someday it will be solved.

A Grotrian-Steinweg grand piano among several interesting medical objects can be still found here. Tweezers, scissors, syringes with dried blood residues, drip trays, an old eagle typewriter (model “Junior 10”), behind the portrait photo of a boy of about ten years. An old Grundig dictaphone type “Stenorette”, a hospital calendar in 1978, yellowed prescription and notepads, receipts, index cards, journals….

Best photos from 2016:

Articles about the Arzt Villa:

The two versions of the story in German language:

VIDEOS

Videos from Youtube:

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