Austrian campaign aims to save writer Stefan Zweig’s Salzburg villa after Porsche tunnel row

The villa was home to Stefan Zweig and his family until 1934, when they driven out of Salzburg by the Austro-fascist regime. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/Getty Images View image in fullscreen The villa was home to Stefan Zweig and his family until 1934, when they driven out of Salzburg by the Austro-fascist regime. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/Getty Images Austrian campaign aims to save writer Stefan Zweig’s Salzburg villa after Porsche tunnel row Supporters hope to stop 17th-century Villa Europa passing into private hands after Wolfgang Porsche unexpectedly put it on market Austrian cultural figures have launched a campaign to buy a villa once home to the writer Stefan Zweig after its owner, the automotive magnate Wolfgang Porsche, unexpectedly put it on the market following a row over his plans to build a private tunnel for his car collection. Zweig, the Austrian Jewish writer whose novels inspired the Wes Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel, lived in the 17th-century property until 1934 when he was driven out of Salzburg by the Austro-fascist regime and his family was forced to sell it at a rock-bottom price. The Villa Europa, as it was known in his lifetime, was not only the place where he did much of his writing but was also a cultural meeting point for prominent figures, including James Joyce, Thomas Mann and Richard Strauss. View image in fullscreen Wolfgang Porsche bought the property in 2020 and has put it on the market for £11m after plans to build a private tunnel led to a public outcry. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy It was bought in 2020 for €8.4m (£7.2m) by Porsche, who has put it on the market for €12.7m (£11m) after undertaking renovations. His plans to build a private 500-metre tunnel to transport his car collection to the house had created a public outcry. Singers, composers and writers are among several thousand people who have signed a petition to the federal and local government, which calls the plans to acquire the Zweig Villa “a cultural responsibility to future generations” and an “opportunity to make this unique place publicly accessible and usable … and to make its significance for Austrian and European cultural history tangible for everyone”. Bernhard Fügenschuh, the rector of the University of Salzburg, which he said has the means to secure the villa, said Austria had a moral obligation to keep it as a place of commemoration for Zweig. The university would see itself as an interim owner until others were able to raise the funds, he added. View image in fullscreen A view of the Kapuzinerberg in Salzburg, the hill on which the villa is built. Photograph: Helena Lea Manhartsberger/The Guardian “There’s very much a societal responsibility here. As a university, and as a public institution, we’ve decided to take this on because we believe the window of opportunity is potentially very short,” he said. ‘One rule for the rich’: the Salzburg mansion, the Porsche heir and the writer Stefan Zweig Read more “This Stefan Zweig