Franz Welser

Fine glass grinder

* 1923 in Straža (today HR), +1995 in Voitsberg (AT)

Franz Welser grew up in and next to the Straža glass factory in the midst of people of many languages and nationalities on today’s Croatian-Slovenian border. His ancestors owned glassworks in Lower Styria (today SLO). His father worked as a glassmaker in the Vienna Siebenhirten glass factory and in Budapest. Welser’s parents moved from Budapest to Straža. After the unsuccessful attempt in Kamenz near Dresden to get a job with better working conditions, the family returned to Straža.

At the age of 13, Franz Welser began an apprenticeship as a fine glass cutter in Rogaška Slatina (today SLO). In order not to become a partisan in World War II, he fled to Voitsberg (AT). There he worked in the glass factory as an unskilled worker and glass smelter. In 1946 Welser enlarged the existing Kugler workshop in Oberdorf-Bärnbach (AT), where he also worked as a trainer.

According to research by Prof. Mag. Ernst Lasnik