Haus Molthan
our Story

BREAKING NEWS: +++ Currently for students 1 Apartment to rent +++ monthly total rent: 815 € +++ move-in date from: 01/01/2025 +++ 2 parking spaces to rent +++ monthly rent: 30 € +++
0-Haus Molthan: Story
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the initiator

5-Haus Molthan: Story
The single-family house, the predecessor of the current Molthan house, was built in 1960 by my father, Josef Molthan.

My father was born in Mainz in 1897 and, as a high school student, volunteered for military service at the beginning of the First World War in 1914. After four years of military service in France, he returned home as a first lieutenant and then passed his high school diploma. He was unable to study law as he intended because he had to take over the company of his father, who died unexpectedly. In the economically difficult 1930s, after inflation and high unemployment in 1923, he liquidated the company - it was a wine wholesaler - and joined the re-established Wehrmacht in 1936. In 1938 he was transferred to the military district command in Darmstadt and was then head of the military registration office until almost the end of the war, ultimately with the rank of lieutenant colonel. 

On the night of the fire in Darmstadt on September 11, 1944, he and his family suffered the fate of many Darmstadt residents: the total bombing at Heinrichstrasse 140. In the years that the family spent in the countryside in Groß-Umstadt - everyone had gotten out of the cellar of the burning house - he tried to make his long-held dream of owning his own house come true.

1958

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Meanwhile, head of the district military replacement office in Darmstadt, an employee, Inspector Gimbel, made him aware of a property that a farmer Schneider from Bessungen had for sale. 
However, my father initially didn't want to pay the required 15 DM because the property prices, it was 1958, were generally 10 DM, he said. 
But then my mother, Lucie Molthan, spoke up: “You go there tomorrow and say yes.” And that was a good thing, a day later our future neighbor, Mr. Glass, would have bought this property. 
After purchasing this field, my father was able to recruit the renowned Darmstadt architect, Sixtus Großmann, with whom he was well acquainted and to whom he had shown some favors during the war, to build a single-family home. 
Sixtus Großmann later placed some of the buildings under monument protection.

1959 to 1960

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Construction was supposed to begin in September 1959, but a few days before that my father became seriously ill and had to undergo surgery. 
My mother initially canceled the construction of the house with the architect, but Mr. Großmann was able to change her mind, and so the excavation began on September 7, 1959. 
The house was completed in April 1960. 
The family moved in with two daughters who were still in training.

1961 to 2004

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However, my father died in January 1961. He was only able to enjoy his dream come true for a short time. A great achievement for my mother was to meet the financial obligations that came with the newly built house over several years and to enable her two daughters to complete their education.

After both daughters married in 1966, my mother lived in the house at Heinrichwingertsweg 51 alone until her death at the age of 99 in 2004, but was repeatedly visited by her daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

2005 to 2023

Afterwards, three rooms in the house were rented to students for almost 20 years, who always felt very comfortable in the house on Heinrichwingertsweg and its surroundings. This gave rise to the idea of ​​using the property for students in the future. A fundamental decision had to be made: renovate the house or build a new building with more living space. The decision was made to build a new building. The demolition took place in February 2023 and construction began in April 2023. But before that, the monument office got in touch. An employee came and the house, planned by Sixtus Großmann, was photographed in every detail.

I wish all students who will live in the new Molthan House in the future that they will feel just as comfortable there as my family did in this wonderful environment for many years: in the orangery garden, on the Steinberg, at the Lichtwiese, in the forest around the Herrgottsberg and at the Goetheteich - but still in the middle of Darmstadt!
Author: Evelyne Becker, geb. Molthan
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