“As long as I can stand here and breathe, as long as none of the rigours of old age or modern-day events drive me out of here, then I will be a powerful man. More powerful than all the rich and those who exercise power. I have neighbours, I have made friends in this place and I know all my friends in the world and their gravestones.”

Carl Zuckmayer

The ‘Zuckmayer-Ensemble’ project in 2003 formed the nucleus for tourism project development and paved the way for the naming of VOGELWEID. The challenge was to maintain the existing, while at the same time creating something new. The historic ‘Vogelweid’ chalet, which dates from the 1920s, served as the final stop in the moving life of the author Carl Zuckmayer and his wife. The personal retrospective of his world-famous autobiography ‘Als wär`s ein Stück von mir’ (A Part of Myself) was written here, in which the final chapter also refers to the Vogelweid and the magic of the Saas mountains.

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The family of Carl Zuckmayer, honorary citizen of Mainz and Swiss resident, had the heartfelt desire of preserving the “eternal home of the father” after their own departure. The transition was big, labour intensive and also highly worthwhile at the same time. By using Harald C. Jaeger’s project concept, it was possible to keep the historic building at the heart of the complex through a non-imposing building development of smaller single chalets in the vicinity. The in-house management, financing and implementation of the project led in 2007 to the naming of the company VOGELWEID. 

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“I learned that it’s not the stone and building timber, but rather the air in the empty rooms, the relationship of the empty rooms to one another, that supports a house.“

Saas Fee sits enthroned between Alpine peaks like a pearl in a shell: On the western side, the Mischabel Group with Switzerland’s highest mountain, the Dom, – on the eastern side towards the Saas Valley, the Almageller Horn. In the early morning the first rays of sunshine hit the Oberi Wildi, where the Vogelweid is also situated; long before they reach the village.​