Comeniusstraße 32, Dresden, Heritage villa in Johannstadt district, Dresden, Germany
This villa in Johannstadt is a two-story residence from the early 20th century with sandstone elements on its facades. Inside, elaborately designed wooden ceilings feature inlaid details and artistic ironwork railings on the stairs.
Built in 1906 for chemist Walter Luboldt, co-owner of the Gehe & Co. AG pharmaceutical firm, the villa was designed by Heinrich Tscharmann. In the 1930s and 1940s it served as the Dresden residence of Saxon Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter Martin Mutschmann, who had a private reinforced-concrete bunker built in the garden by SS pioneers in 1943. The villa burned out during the air raids of 13–14 February 1945; the bunker was demolished in the 1990s for new construction.
The house is known locally as the "Mutschmannvilla" after Martin Mutschmann, Saxon NSDAP Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter, who lived here in the 1930s and 1940s. Its neo-Baroque facade carries architectural sculpture by Karl Groß, while the interiors were designed by Oswin Hempel.
The building is easily accessible in a mixed residential area and can be viewed from the street. Since commercial tenants now occupy the interior spaces, visiting inside depends on the current occupants' access policies.
The bunker was built in 1943 by SS pioneers in the garden of the villa, and it was the only civilian air-raid shelter erected in Dresden; the rest of the population had only cellar shelters. It was demolished in the 1990s to make way for new buildings, so nothing of it remains today.
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