The German House
The tenement at 15 Głęboka Street, which currently houses the Municipal Library, has gone down in CieszyrTs history as the German House [Deutsche Haus]. The building bore this name off icially at the turn of the 20th cen tury, when it was erected in the form in which it is seen today. The history of the premises where it was constructed is, however, like everything in Cieszyn, considerably longer.
As early as the Middle Ages, it was one of the most important buildings on the street running from the town towards the castle, the street which was originally called Polska Street, then Głęboka Street. It had at one end the current Old Market Square, which in former times was one of the ma i n town squares in Cieszyn. At that time it was a corner tenement, as a narrow alley ran alongside it, linking the old square with another of the towrTs important landmarks the Bracka Well, later known as the Three Brothers' Well. This alley was never given a name of its own, but it is visible on all the old town plans of Cieszyn.
More importantly, this was a noble dwelling, and was the property of the wealthiest local families. In the first half of the 16th century, its owner was Chancellor Jan Czelo of Czechowice who, in the time of Duke Kazimierz II and later during the regency of Annę of Brandenburg and Jan of Pernstein, played a leading role in the life of the Duchy of Cieszyn. The house remained in the possession of his descendants, Kasper and Jerzy Czelo, into the 17th century- After a short period in the hands of the Bludowski family of Dolne Błędowice, the building became the property of a long-time associate of Elisabeth Lucrezia Jerzy Prócki of Proksdorf, who managed her estate. Then it was owned by Jerzy's widów, Ewa Borkowa, and afterwards was briefly in the possession of the St.Genois family.
Throughout most of the 18th century, the premises in question were the property of the Cselest family of Cselestin, who originated in Italy. The Cselests' coat-of-arms adorned their townhouse here when they were raised to the status of Czech barons in 1748. Unfortunately, although it appears on 18th century panoramas of Cieszyn, it is mostly in damaged or illegible places. The Cselests1 tenement is only properly visible on a panoramie plan of Cieszyn from the second half of the 18th century, and even then only from the back. This shows us that it was a large, three-storey building, twice the size of its neighbours and with a double roof. It had a large garden, with business premises located near the bottom by the Bracka Well.
The dynasty of barons from Cselestin died out with Karol Cselest, whose will established a foundation for the maintaining of a boarding school for 10 pupils of noble blood. The school was attached to the Catholic secondary school, and its purpose was to educate and raise youth. Baron Cselest allocated 80,000 Austrian guilders to the foundation, along with the tenement on the main street. The first principal of the school, later renamed the Cselest school, was Fr. Leopold Jan Szersznik. The pupils lived in the former tenement until 1824, when the school moved into new premises on what is nów Kochanowskiego Street. All that remained of the Cselests was a carved stone coat-of-arms, and the memory of the old boarding school [altes Stift].
As the building was no longer necessary to the boarding school, it was bought in 1827 by Józef Gusnar of Komorno. After the Gusnars, it became the property of Fr. Antoni Hełm, who fulfilled the function of generał vicar of the Austrian part of Wrocław diocese between 1850-72. Hę almost certainly madę frequent use of it immediately after his nomination, when hę was still parish priest in Strumień, and as a vicar must have had a lot of business to take care of in Cieszyn, as hę did not become parish priest here until 1855. In 1860, Fr. Hełm carried out some work connected with lavatory installation. Shortly after, the tenement became the property of Veronika Kottwitz, and after her death in 1868, the new owner was Maria Osietzka. During this time, a part from being the residence of the owner it was rented out to "good" burghers, tenants included the widows of a mayor and a professor, and the merchant, Karl Holler, who had a popular snop trading a variety of goods on the ground floor. This commerce took place under the arcades, as the houses on Głęboka Street were at that time adorned with wooden bowers. The property still included the premises adjacent from the bottom of the alley at 59, Three Brothers' Well (Studni Trzech Braci).
In the early 1890s, Maria Osietzka's tenement burnt down, then stood in ruins for the next few years until 1895, when it was purchased for 30,000 Austrian guilders by the well-known Cieszyn architect and builder, Alois Jedek. The contract was signed on May 2nd, demolition of the old building commenced the very next day, and the new owner declared in the press that hę would build in its place a three-storey building, the most beautif ul and modern in the town.
Alois Jedek was the very mań for the job, as a fashion-able architect his works included the Imperiał Baths [Kaisebad] constructed in 1888 89. By July 1895, hę had applied to the town council for planning permission, but hisoriginal plan wasthwarted by other important concerns. The first was the question of the boundary of his property. During this time, a new street plan came into being in Cieszyn which erwisaged a widening of the high street, among other things. This required the owners of the adjacent tenements to give up a relevant part of their possessions, and Jedek agreed to hand over to the town that part of his newly acquired plot which stood on Głęboka Street. That which hę had to give up was an 18 metre long stretch that included the arcades. As can be seen today, it was only hę and his neighbour on the left (Karl Gorgosch) who did so, the rest of the neighbours kept their arcades on their houses and they arę there to this day. Inexchangeforgiving up his land, the town gave Jedek the rights to the nameless alley running from the Old Market to the Bracka Well along the right hand boundary of his property. Hę decided to build on it, which aroused protests from his neighbour on the right - Heinrich Griinfeld, owner of a shop selling assorted goods. Griinfeld claimed hę had the right of access along this alley to the Three Brothers Well, and also referred to the so-called right to light, arguing that building there would deprive him of light and air to his kitchen at the back of the building. This dispute reached far beyond the offices of Cieszyn magistrate court's clerks, and was taken up by the Provincial Government in Opawa, and the Appeal Court of Silesia and Moravia in Brno. Jedek refused to give in, although hę had to take Griinfeld's protests into consideration at least partly, and left a considerable free space at the back on his side, which ensured a supply of light to his neighbour's house. Hę exploited this free space by designing domes to provide light for restaurant rooms in the cellar. Thus it was only right up against the street that hę built up the whole area of his premises, but the little forgotten alleyway still ultimately vanished from the map of Cieszyn.
The owner's main problem was, however, ensuring a steady source of income to maintain the property after building was completed. After all, this had not been motivated exclusively by aesthetic concerns.
Jedek combined the solution to this problem with the long discussed plans of the German Reading and Educational Society [Deutsche Lese- und Geselligkeitsverein], known as the German Reading Room, to arrange a permanent and comfortable headquarters for them. Jedek proposed to design his newly-built building for the needs of the "German House", which would house not only the German Reading Room, but also other German societies operating in the town. This plan was in keeping with ideas being realised at the time in other towns in the multi-ethnic monarchy. A particular source of inspiration was the German House then under construction in Ostrava in Moravia.
Jedek himself had been a member of the German Reading Room sińce 1883, holding various posts in the society, and his proposal was accepted. The finał blueprints were accordingly drawn up, and Jedek presented them to Cieszyn's building department in 1896, along with a request for planning permission which was granted on June 2nd 1896. These plans envisaged the construction of a three-storey building on the 800 square metre site of the former boarding school, with a cellar and mezzanine. The second floor was to be set aside for two spacious and comfortable flats and the first floor was to house one flat as well as a billiards room, a games room, a reading room and a large hali looking out onto the street with a bay window. Space was allowed for commercial development and storę rooms on the ground floor.
The cellar was designed to be home to an elegant restaurant area with a vestibule and entrance decorated with the coat-of-arms of the Cselests, which had been salvaged from the old building. The restaurant area was to consist of two large restaurants with all the necessary facilities, such as a kitchen, winę cellars, etc. Onto these premises located at the back of the building off Głęboka Street was to be constructed another tenement reaching down to the Brotherhood Well, containing Iower quality flats, which would have a fuli five storeys at the bottom owing to the sloping of the ground. The main facade was maintained in the German renaissance style.
Work progressed swiftly on this large construction, which is hardly surprising considering its builder. It was completed morę or less in its entirety within a year, by November 1897 most of it was ready and on 3rd June 1898 Jedek was granted permission for the whole building to be put into use.
The authoritiesof the German Reading Room had been carefully observing the progress of Jedek's work fitting out the German House, and gave it its positive assessment at an extraordinary generał meeting on Oct. lOth 1897. Even though the building was still incomplete, it was making a great impression. It was believed that the Reading RooirTs premises were to be luxurious, with high plafonds partly stuccoed; it was proposed to adapt the largest room for use as a concert and dance hali. The future underground restaurants were also accepted, as it was pointed out that their layout displayed the hallmarks of a great architect, the splendour of which a big city would be proud. The local press referred to the columns dividing the restaurant hali creating a great glass-covered dome, on the smaller vaulting allowing additional light in through the side windows. The organisation of the side rooms where the various societies were to be based was also praised as practical and prudent.
The ceremoniał opening of the German House took place on Jan lOth 1898 as part of CieszyrTs celebration of Emperor Franz Joseph I's Golden Jubilee, and his bust on plush velvet was of course on hand to welcome visitors. The chairman of the German Reading Room, Rudolf Karbasch, madę a speech about the role his society had thus far played in the life of Cieszyn, finishing by stating that the society was nów beginning a new life. Hę thanked Jedek, of course, for his idea and his work on the construction, hę thanked the artisans and industrialists for the tasteful design of the premises, and all those who had given theirservices to the Reading Room. A buffet was organised by the well-known firm of Leopold Florianek, known as CieszyrTs Hawełka, to the accompaniment of the 54th infantry regimenfs orchestra. The whole event was rounded off by a visit round the building, a part from the second floor which was still not ready for use.
The monumental building, the brainchild of Alois Jedek, was the pride of CieszyrTs German community and the tenements function was that of the "German House", as the large inscription "Deutsches Haus" between the first and second floors testified. A second inscription "Deutscher l_eseverein" on the cornice between the ground floor and first floor was a re-minder of the building's official main resident. It was after all to be the seat of the German Reading Room, which was to hołd meetings here, at which its members would review the press, read books and discuss the major and minor matters of the day. For the ladies, subscriptions had been taken out for some illustrated womerTs magazines. Other German Societies a part from the Reading Room were also based here, including the German Union [Deutsches Verein], which had contributed its iron f unds to the construction of the German House.
The German House occupied mainly the first floor of Jedek's tenement; an elegant restaurant was run in the basement, advertised as the German House Restaurant. The main entrance led in here from the middle of the facade. The ground floor, on the other hand, was divided into four commercial premises and was entered directly from the street through a wooden shop window with large doors. After the tenement was put into use, the famous Cieszyn doctor, Artur Kohn, and the dental technician, Karl SuBmann, had their surgeries here. On the other side, Rudolf Ullrich had his shop stocking materials, clothes and wallpaper, and Adolf Heisig had a clothing shop where outfits could be madę to measure. This later housed the dress shop of the Spitzer & Klapholz company.
After a few years, however, in around 1905 the owner's professional relationship with the management of the German House began to turn sour, mainly due to the various German societies' contributions to the rent of the various premises. In addition, the German House Restaurant seemed to change hands almost every year. As it was, the German House ceased to function in 1907, and it was not until early 1908 that Jedek reached an agreement with the restaurateur, Andrzej Kłapsia, to rent him not only the restaurant, but also the premises previously rented by the German House in exchange for his pledge to take care of them. On April Ist, the German House reopened its grand doors and "Silesia" appealed to the local Germans for greater generosity for the sake of maintaining their shared headquarters, referring to the examples of other nationalities. This of course meant the Poles, whose Polish House had been operating sińce 1901. The Polish press, for its part, was scathing in its criticism of the Germans, who it claimed were well able to organise a high standard of social and cultural life, providing it was financed from municipalor state coffers. Alois Jedek died soon after, and his two sons, Theodor and Alois, inherited his estate, including the building at 15 Głęboka Street. The idea of a German House was one which tempted fewer and fewer of the townsfolk of Cieszyn to part with their money, and by the First World War the building had fallen into the hands of the German Catholic House Society [Deutsche Katholikenheim] in Cieszyn.
This was still a German society, but of a Christian and social naturę. The building no longer functioned as the German House, and was morę commonly referred to as the Catholic House. Finally, with the outbreak of World War I, the society was unable to develop its activities very widely. Even before the end of the war, in March 1918, the premises became the property of the Central Bank of German Building Societies [Centralbank der deutschen Sparkassen]. In the months which followed, the bank began to re-tailor the building to suit its own purposes, adapting the ground floor into banking offices according to designs by Eugen Fulda. This work continued into 1919, and the main entrance was walled up, new doors to the banking halls were installed at the side. The subsequent owner also used the German House for banking, as this was the Silesian Escount Bank [Schlesische Escompte Bank] of Bielsko. The German inscriptions were still visible in 1923, with the words "Deutsche Haus" still emblazoned on the front of the bank.
The Escount Bank owned the tenement until 1932 when it was purchased by Nelli Jager. Along with her husband, the clerk Adam Jager, she immediately set to work renovating the building. The intention was to return the ground floor to its original function, namely to divide the former bank into four separate commercial premises with a main entrance from the centre of the facade. The design was drawn up by the architect Henryk Menzel, and the renovation cost 7,000 zloties. Sińce then, the former German House can be seen in the form in which it was originally created by Alois Jedek.