Family

Georg and Franziska Zell are proudly photographed with their only child Franz in 1867. They have made it, they are living in Munich and can afford the family portrait taken at a photo studio. They can also offer their son a good education. Years later, young Franz poses for the photographer with corresponding self-confidence.

At the age of 26, having just finished his studies, he marries 20-year-old Maria in Munich. A family portrait shows the proud family father with his first two children.

In 1908, Zell’s architecture firm is one of the "busiest" in Munich, his wife dies. The three children, the youngest nine years old, become half-orphans. In the same year, 42-year-old Zell marries 27-year-old Paula. She raises Zell’s children and is considered a patron of Munich’s children’s homes. The marriage remains childless and they divorce in 1934, when Zell is 68 and Paula 43.

A photo of the three children, around 1909, looks like a glimpse into the future: Georg, with his rifle over his shoulder, is to die six years later at the beginning of the First World War in January 1915. Franziska, the eldest, becomes a paediatric nurse and Maria Magdalena an actress. In 1923 she marries Karl Hiltl, the brother of the later auxiliary bishop of Regensburg, Josef Hiltl.

At the end of the Second World War, Zell loses one of his two grandsons. His daughter Franziska dies in 1951, Maria in 1962. Her son and Zell’s grandson Georg Hiltl settles in Regensburg as a painter.

Michaela Thomas