Stefan Zweig’s Salzburg mansion for sale

From The New York Times:

The Paschinger Schlössl, the former home of Stefan Zweig, the Jewish Austrian writer, unexpectedly appeared for sale with the French luxury real estate company Le Figaro Properties in June. The mansion has long been meaningful to Salzburg, Austria, which is also home to the namesake six-week festival celebrating classical music, opera and theater now in its 106th year.

Hidden within two acres of wooded parkland on the Kapuzinerberg, a city mountain in Salzburg, this stately home has belonged to Wolfgang Porsche since 2020. The 83-year-old German car magnate purchased it from the same local merchant family, the Gollhofers, to whom Zweig’s first wife Friderike sold it, for 63,000 shillings, in 1937.

The castle, which cost Porsche €8.4 million ($9.59 million), is now priced at $14,540,900. It has been beautifully restored. Exactly what prompted the sale remains unclear. In 2025, the city controversially granted Porsche planning permission for a private access road and parking space tunneled into the mountain. The current listing highlights this permission, should its future owner act on it, as “an unparalleled feature within historic Salzburg.”

A longstanding campaign for the city or the University of Salzburg to secure the property for public use has been revived. A petition underscoring Zweig’s legacy in promoting “cosmopolitanism, understanding between nations, and peace in Europe” has garnered more than 6,000 signatures from actors, playwrights, musicians and others. When asked if the university stands a chance to purchase the property, Bernhard Fügenschuh, the school’s rector, said in a phone interview that it depends on the seller, but he hoped so.

Zweig fled Austria for England in 1934. In 1940 he left England with his second wife for the United States. He left the United States for Brazil in 1941, where he committed suicide in 1942. The dramatic film Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (dir. Maria Schrader, 2016) is a brilliant portrait of a writer lost in exile. Zweig’s memoir The World of Yesterday (1943) is eerie reading in these times.

Related reading
All OCA Stefan Zwieg posts (Pinboard)