Orendi-Hommenau, Viktor
Banat Journalist, Writer, Editor, Translator and Cultural Politician
Born June 13, 1870 in Elisabethstadt, Dumbraveni, Transylvania, Hungary (now Romania) and died February 24, 1954 in Bucharest, Romania.
His father Wilhelm Orendi was a pianist and his mother was Jeanette Farkas, Noble von Hommenau. From 1876 he grew up in Neumarkt am Mieresch with his uncle. Orendi-Hommenau was a teacher. From 1894 to 1895 he published the newspaper “Das kleine Universum” in Neumarkt. From 1895 to 1896 he edited the “Szász-Reener-Wochenblatt.” As a freelance journalist, he also worked for the “Weißkirchner Volksblatt”.
At the request of Edmund Steinacker and Ludwig Kremling, he moved to Timisoara in 1901, where he published the “German Tagblatt für Ungarn.” The sheet was discontinued in March 1903. From 1903 to 1907 he published the political weekly “German-Hungarian People’s Friend”. Viktor Orendi-Hommenau was a co-founder of the Hungarian German People’s Party, founded in December 1906. In 1906 he was a candidate for a deputy in the Lowrine electoral district and in 1910 in the Lippaer. From 1909 to 1937 he published the magazine “Von der Heide. Illustrated monthly for Culture and Life” in Timisoara and Bucharest.
In 1912 he was invited to Germany by the German School Association , where he spoke about the needs of the Germans in Hungary in Munich, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Wiesbaden, Koblenz, Frankfurt am Main and Tübingen. In 1915 he was threatened with treason because he had taught Field Marshal Mackensen about the persecution of the Germans in Hungary in an hour-long audience . At that time he made contacts with important Romanian political figures.
After the division of the Banat into three parts, whereby the eastern part fell to Romania with Timisoara, he campaigned for the interests of the German minority in Romania. Orendi-Hommenau was a founding member of the German-Swabian Cultural Association in 1919 . In 1923 he became examination commissioner of the Romanian Ministry of Education at the German elementary schools in Banat, in 1930 press attaché in the Ministry of Directorate Timisoara. In 1934 he moved to Bucharest.
Viktor Orendi-Hommenau was buried in the Evangelical cemetery in Bucharest.
Source: Anton Peter Petri : Biographical encyclopedia of the Banat German, Marquartstein, 1992, ISBN 3-922046-76-2
Photo: Geschichte der Deutschen Literatur in Ungarn 1867-1918
Last updated: 07/21/2025