A historic property in Wilhelmsfeld, Germany — the village where José Rizal lived while completing Noli Me Tángere — has been purchased by Batangas 1st District Representative Leandro Legarda Leviste, who intends to convert it into a museum accessible to both Filipino and foreign visitors.
The acquisition was formalized at a signing ceremony last week attended by Dr. Franz Hack Ullmer, a great-grandson of Pastor Karl Ullmer who had originally hosted Rizal during his stay in 1886, along with representatives of the Protestant church that had owned the property, Wilhelmsfeld Mayor Dr. Tobias Dangel, and Mr. Herbert Ehses, Germany chapter commander of the Knights of Rizal.
Rizal had come to Wilhelmsfeld at the invitation of Pastor Ullmer while pursuing ophthalmology studies at the University of Heidelberg. It was during this period that he completed the closing chapters of Noli Me Tángere and composed the poem A las flores de Heidelberg, a reflection of his longing for the Philippines written from German soil.
The house had served as the official residence of Wilhelmsfeld’s parish pastors since 1886, but fell out of use following the COVID-19 pandemic. With no buyer willing to preserve it, Senator Loren Legarda — Leviste’s mother, to whom the property was first brought — proposed that her son purchase it using private funds, with no government money involved.
Dr. Ullmer presented Leviste with a table resembling the one Rizal used when writing Noli Me Tángere, along with other items from the Ullmer family’s Rizal collection. Mayor Dangel and Dr. Ullmer also showed Leviste several sites in Wilhelmsfeld honoring the Filipino national hero, including a Rizal statue at Rizal Park and a street named Jose Rizal Strasse where the house stands. Ehses noted that the presence of a Knights of Rizal chapter in Germany reflects how Rizal’s legacy has endured well beyond Philippine shores.
The house is intended to stand as a site where visitors can engage directly with the period and place that shaped the ideas behind the novel widely credited with igniting Filipino national consciousness and helping spark the Philippine Revolution.
