Fick, Roderich.

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Fick, Roderich, born 16-11-1886 in Würzburg, the second child  of the eye specialist Adolf Eugen Gaston Fick and Marie Katharina, born Wislicenus. Daughter of Johannes Wislicenus   a German chemist who died age 67, on 05-12-1902 in Leopzig. Roderick’s sister Hildegard was born in Richmond in 1885. In 1887 the family moved to Zürich where his father became a private teacher at the University. He grew up in Zürich and studied architecture in Zürich, Munich and Dresden. In 1911 he participated in an expedition to Greenland and in 1914 he left for the German colony Cameroon where he worked as an engineer. With the outbreak of the first war he became a Leutnant of the Reserve in Kamaron. His brother Roland was severely wounded in the battle of Tahura and died on 09-07-1916 in a French hospital, a lost which hit him hard. Next to his brother Roland, Fick had five sisters from whom Hildegard as oldest died, age 3,  of diphtheria in 1890. On 27-12-1919 he married Marie Günther from Dresden and they settled in Herrsching, Bavaria. He started working as an architect. He built a home in Herrsching for the sculptor Ernesto de Fiori
   and designed the new cemetery in Herrsching.  Larger commissions followed and in 1933 he was building new parts of Munich in Laim and Friedenheim.
He trained under Theodor Fischer, and became professor at the Munich Technical University in 1935. Fischer Theodor-fischer-1933 was a German architect and teacher, he died age 76, on 25-12-1938 in Munich.  After a building near the Braunen Haus in Munich  attracted the attention of Adolf Hitler. To his surprise Hitler provided him with further commissions in Munich and also for buildings at the Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden. Roderik Fick designed the Munich residence of Rudolf Hess
     in 1936, joined the NSDAP  in 1937, was involved in a number of projects for members of the Nazi leadership (see Adolf Hitler) (did you know), these projects included the building of both Martin Bormann’s own villa in Berchtesgaden and Hitler’s first and original Teehaus on the nearby Mooslahnerkopf, Hitler was the adviser .
        
        Bormann’s house after the bombardment.                       Hitler’s Teahouse on the Mooslahnerkopf.  
     
However, none of these previous projects were to be as spectacular and as technically testing as the Teehaus on the Kehlstein mountain. Fick’s structure was essentially a massive granite square with the largest room, the main reception hall, being octagonal in shape with a large panoramic window. This and other specially-placed windows would provide both the Führer and his visitors with a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains as well as both the Scharitzkehl Valley and the Königssee lake.
 Difficulties with Martin Bormann led to his dismissal from his post in Berchtesgaden, but he continued his career in Linz, where he worked directly for Hitler,
   and held on to his professorship. In Linz he also had difficulties with the Gauleiter SS Obergruppenführer, and leader of all concentrations camps, August Eigruber a despicable man. Fick remained among Hitler’s favourites: Hermann Giesler, Paul Giesler, Albert Speer and Magarete and the sculptor Arno Breker.
  Fick also was given the task of redesigning Linz. His work was part of the architecture event in the art competition at the 1936 Summer Olympics. After the war Fick was officially classified as “Mitläufer”, “Follower” a person passively complicit in Nazi crimes, participated in the reconstruction of Linz and retired to practice in Herrsching, Bavaria. In 1946 his conduct in the Nazi era was investigated. He was forced to pay a huge fine and support the rebuilding of Munich. In 1948 his case was re investigated and it was concluded that he had never enriched himself. All he had to do way pay a much smaller fine and he was free to work again. In 1938 his wife Marie had died and in 1948 he married his former student Catharina Büscher, who was 28 years his junior. His daughter, Friedrike Orth (Fick),  was born in 1950. They worked together until he retired in 1954.

Death and burial ground of Fick, Roderich.

   

Roderick Fick died at the age of 68, on 13-07-1955 and is buried on the by his own designed new village cemetery of Herrsching, in front of his chapel . His wife continued her work as an architect until the late 1970s.  Their daughter Friederike Orth, became a musician.

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  1. Jeanie Hostland

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    I would like to know what happened to Herr Fick’s daughter, who was born in 1950.

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