Speculation

From this time on the history of the two houses is one of commercial speculation. The town had long been pressed by Handel admirers from all over the world to convert the house of Handel’s birth into a worthy memorial. Instead the building was sold in 1896 to the banking house of H. F. Lehmann. The efforts of the Händelverein (Handel Society in Halle) founded in 1918 and also of Newman Flower to acquire the building were finally brought to nothing in 1922 because of the exorbitant purchase price demanded by the new owner, the merchant Heinrich Lifschütz.
 
Meanwhile in a commemorative publication for the Halle Handel Festival of 1922 Bernhard Weissenborn had once more proved - and this time without any chronological gaps - that the Handel family had owned the corner house Große Nikolaistrasse / Kleine Ulrichstrasse. But it was not until 1937 that the Handel House was taken over by the city. Other accommodation was made available to those living in it so that the building could finally be converted into a Handel Museum. Now empty, it was left to decay when the outbreak of the Second World War prevented the planned renovation. But the then head of the Culture Department in Halle, Dr. Herbert Koch, was very successful in purchasing items for the collections of the museum. And the first booklets of the “Schriftenreihe des Händelhauses in Halle” were edited.