The Hollitzer Group

Founded in 1849, the HOLLITZER Group is a traditional Austrian company based in Vienna.

Starting with quarries in the Bad Deutsch-Altenburg area, the group was active throughout the Danube Monarchy. Today it operates plants and factories in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, Graz and Linz. The core business there is the production of building materials.

Culture has always been a special concern of the HOLLITZER group. Carl Hollitzer (1831-1917), son of the company founder Anton Hollitzer (1797-1866) and member of the Carnuntinum Association founded in Vienna in 1884, provided a house (former “Bastlerhaus”) in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg for the archaeological excavations. This, along with Petronell Castle and Ludwigstorff Castle, housed most of the finds from the area - his collection of Roman finds is still a central part of the Carnuntinum Museum opened by Emperor Franz Joseph in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg in 1904, one of the largest Roman museums in Austria.

Carl Leopold Hollitzer (1874-1942), singer, cabaret artist, stage and costume designer, caricaturist and painter, amassed the largest collection of weapons and uniforms in Europe, which was later acquired by the Vienna Museum of Military History. Many of his drawn and painted works are in the Albertina in Vienna as well as in important private collections. His daughter Lilly Hollitzer (1895-1964), married to Dillenz, was known far beyond the borders of Austria as an actress and pilot, and was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1927. With her husband, the artist Richard Dillenz, she founded the "Filmproduktion Wien", which produced such box office hits as Frühlingsstimmen (with Paul Hörbiger) in the legendary Vienna film era of the 1950s. In 1959 she founded the Carl Leopold Hollitzer Museum in the Bad Deutsch-Altenburg family villa. H. E. Weidinger (1949–2023 obituaries) continued this business tradition - not least as founder of the Don Juan Archive.

Initially, archaeological research in the area of the company's own quarries was the focus of the group's scientific interest, but this spectrum broadened as early as 1999 with the founding of the Redaktion Tagbau editorial office. The occasion was the double anniversary "150 years Hollitzer group" and "150 years of the free municipality of Bad Deutsch-Altenburg" as well as the desire of the group of companies to scientifically research and document the history of the area around the Hungarian Gate, which is so important for Europe/Austria, and to present it to a broad public by issuing well-founded publications.

Hollitzer Verlag, as well as Don Juan Archive Wien and Stvdivm Fæsvlanvm, all three divisions of HOLLITZER Graz GmbH, continue this corporate tradition, which has already existed for more than 150 years, by producing and publishing outstanding academic publications and exclusive literary books, as well as by carrying out projects at national and international level.

Some pictures by Carl Leopold Hollitzer: