The Tugendhats were a German-Jewish family of textile and oil industrialists. The couple received the land for the family villa from Greta’s father, textile manufacturer Alfred Löw-Beer, who also financed the construction of the house. The Tugendhats lived in the villa for only eight years. Thanks to his good contacts in Germany, Fritz had information about the political situation that arose after Adolf Hitler came to power. He decided to leave Czechoslovakia even before the outbreak of World War II.
The Tugendhats and their two sons went to Switzerland, where they did not feel safe, and since the United States no longer accepted refugees, the family left for Venezuela in January 1941. There in Caracas, they set up a textile factory, which unfortunately did not prosper. After the was, the family wanted to return to Europe, so in 1950 they moved to Switzerland, where eight years later Fritz died of cancer in St. Gallen.
Fritz and Greta Tugendhat were the parents of German philosopher Ernst Tugendhat and art historian Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat, considered a pioneer of feminist art history.
