History of Vienna

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The old coat of arms of Vienna from 1465 to 1925 with an imperial double-headed eagle

The history of Vienna , the capital of Austria , begins around 4000 years ago. Because of its location on the Danube between the foothills of the Pre-Alps ( Vienna Woods ) and the Pannonian Plain, today's metropolis is one of the early settlement areas for people and has steadily gained importance as a trading center and strategically important point in the heart of Europe .

etymology

In connection with the Hungarian battles, the first written mention of the city's name appears in the Salzburg annals in 881 . This is the medieval name ad Vveniam , ie "near Wenia", where a battle against the Magyars had taken place. Etymologically there is no connection to the Roman camp name Vindobona , the origin and meaning of which are disputed. The form Wenia is traced back to the Celto-Romanesque form Vedunia . What is certain is the meaning of “Waldbach”, which is used to refer to today's Wien River .

Prehistory and early history

Archaeological finds from the 13th district (Titlgasse) show that people already visited the area during the Paleolithic Age . Finds in and around the city show that the Vienna Basin was continuously inhabited from the Neolithic Age. The favorable climatic situation and the fertile soils of Vienna offered the Neolithic farmers good opportunities for settlement. In addition, the for which it was stone tools coveted -Production, reddish brown and greenish chert in Vienna mined in open pit mining are obtained (13th District, Red Mountain, 23rd District, Wall Antonshöhe ). Finds from the Copper Age were also found in Vienna (6th district, U6 station Gumpendorfer Straße; 13th district, Ober St. Veit– Gemeindeberg ; 21st district, Eipeldauerstraße; 22nd district, Aspern, Stadlau).

Several cremation graves in Vienna (19th district Höhenstraße / Leopoldsberg) but also traces of settlement (23rd district, Sulzengasse) bear witness to the Bronze Age urn field culture. Manipulations of human skull fragments for cultic purposes are considered special features of this time. For example, a human lower jaw was found in a Late Bronze Age rubbish pit (23rd district, Sulzengasse) whose joint heads were removed.

Finds on the Leopoldsberg prove a settlement from the Bronze Age , especially from the older Iron Age ( Hallstatt Age ). The older Iron Age Hallstatt culture is represented in Vienna by the remains of settlements (10th district, Fontanastraße; 19th district, Leopoldsberg). The fortified hilltop settlement ( oppidum ) dates to the younger Iron Age, the time of the Celts . Around the birth of Christ, today's Vienna came under Roman rule and thus appeared for the first time in the light of written history. Even under Roman rule, however, burial mounds were created , which are called Noric-Panonnian burial mounds . About fifteen small specimens are in the Vienna Woods, in the Hütteldorf cadastral community .

In the Roman Empire

Roman excavations under the high market

In the 1st century AD, the Romans adapted the Celtic settlement Vindobona on the site of today's Vienna city center near the Danube as a military camp ( castrum ) with the attached civil town ( canabae , in today's 3rd district) to secure the border of the province of Pannonia . Even today you can see the course of the wall and the streets of the camp on the streets of the 1st district (Inner City). The camp wall ran along the streets: Tiefer Graben , Naglergasse, Graben , Kramergasse, Rotgasse, Rabensteig and roughly parallel to the Salzgries. After a flood of the Danube in the 3rd century and the associated destruction of the northern corner of the camp, the strictly rectangular shape had to be deviated from. The warehouse thus reached a width of approx. 455 m and a length of up to 500 m. The construction of the legionary camp of Vindobona began around 97 AD. The barracks at Judenplatz, which have been archaeologically researched, were initially made of wood. A gravel road with drains on both sides ran between the barracks. Around 150 AD the barracks were replaced by stone buildings. The foundations and load-bearing inner walls were raised with rubble stones and mortar . Unburned clay bricks were used for dividing walls . The floors were made of clay or mortar screed . According to an uncertain tradition, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius died here in 180 AD during a campaign against the Marcomanni . The settlement was raised to a Municipium in 212 and thus upgraded compared to the nearby Pannonian provincial capital Carnuntum , which had recently received the title of Colonia . Around this time, the civil town of Vindobona also received Roman city rights. This dating is a thousand years older than the medieval city law. From the early 3rd century, the finds of Germanic graves increase. After 430 to 600 there are no more traces of settlement to be found.

middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

The original Celtic settlement Vedunia and the later Roman legion camp Vindobona in today's Vienna were located far to the east of the Western Roman Empire and therefore quickly fell victim to the turmoil of the Germanic migrations . There is evidence of a catastrophic fire around the beginning of the 5th century AD. However, the remains of the camp were not abandoned, instead a small settlement remained. The streets and houses of early medieval Vienna followed the course of the Roman camp walls, which suggests that some of the fortifications were still standing and were used by the settlers (parts of the Roman camp wall including the gates were integrated into the Vienna city walls in 1156 and remained there received until around 1200). Byzantine copper coins from the 6th century were also found several times in the area of ​​today's Inner City , which suggests brisk trade. The center of early Vienna was the Berghof (today Salvatorgasse, a side street to Marc-Aurel-Straße). Graves from the 6th century were found during excavations in this area. At that time the Lombards ruled the Vienna area.

After the Lombards withdrew to the south in 568, the Avars under Baian took control of the entire region. Besides the Avar upper class, other peoples lived in the Avar Empire. The majority of the population was formed by Slavs , over whom the Avars asserted a right to protection and rule. In some of today's Viennese districts, such as Währing , Döbling , Liesing or Lainz , the names can be derived from Slavonic. From 627 to 658, according to the Fredegar Chronicle, the Vienna area was the scene of a great Slav uprising under the leadership of the Franconian merchant Samo against the Avars. As early as 650 the first Avars returned to the rebellious areas. In 791, Charlemagne led the first unsuccessful campaign against the Avars, but was still able to push the Avars back to the Vienna Woods . A civil war in the Avar Empire in 795 ended with a new ruler, the Tudun, offering the Franks his submission and the acceptance of Christianity, which the Franks used for a new attack and subjugated large parts of the Avar Empire by 796. The Tudun received its own ruling organization within the Franconian Avarmark, the so-called Avar principality east of Vienna. After that, the Vienna area was the scene of important Avars uprisings and incursions by Avars who were not subject to them.

The Duchy of Bavaria with the province of Marcha Orientalis in the 10th century.

From around the middle of the 6th century, the Agilolfingers formed the first Bavarian tribal dynasty, which expanded its sovereign territory from its seat in Regensburg to the middle of the 8th century to the east to the Enns and south to today's South Tyrol . In 788, the Frankish king, Charlemagne, incorporated the previously independent Duchy of Bavaria into his empire. To the east of it he built the so-called Avarsmark around 800 and to the south of it the Karantanien region , which, given as a fief, should serve to protect his empire against the Avars advancing from the east. After the succession conflicts among Karl's successors and the resulting Treaty of Verdun in 843, the Duchy of Baiern with the two brands finally belonged to Eastern Franconia . The province of Marcha Orientalis ("Mark in the East"), established in the area of ​​the former Avarmark, extended on both sides of the Danube from the Enns in the west to the March and Leitha in the east.

Shortly after the turn of the 10th century, the area around Vienna fell into the hands of an Asiatic cavalry people, the Hungarians , who were defeated by the East Franconian King Otto I the Great in 955 in the battle of the Lechfeld . This marked the beginning of the way into the High Middle Ages for early Vienna.

High Middle Ages - time of the Babenbergs

Duke Heinrich II made Vienna his capital in 1155

From the 8th century onwards, the Franconian colonization from the west by the Bavarians , which increased after the victory over the Hungarians in 955. In 976, the Margraviate of Ostarrichi was established under the Babenbergs , on whose territory (near the border to Hungary ) Vienna was also located. Vienna was an important trading center as early as the 11th century. In the Mautern barter between the Bishop of Passau and Margrave Leopold IV , Vienna is referred to as a civitas for the first time , which indicates a well-ordered settlement. In 1155 Heinrich Jasomirgott made Vienna his capital. In 1156 Ostarrichi (Austria) was elevated to a duchy with the Privilegium Minus and Vienna was the seat of the duke. During this time, the Schottenstift was founded and the remains of the Roman camp walls were expanded to form the first Viennese city wall.

The events after the Third Crusade , in the course of which the English King Richard the Lionheart was captured by Margrave Leopold V (the virtuous) two days before Christmas 1192 in Erdberg near Vienna, brought an enormous ransom of 50,000 silver marks (about 12 tons of silver , a third of the Emperor's demands on the English; Richard was extradited to them in March 1193). A mint was established in Vienna and the new Vienna city wall was built around 1200 . Remains of the city wall can still be seen at the Stubentor underground station . Leopold V was from Pope Celestine III. excommunicated for the capture of Richard the Lionheart for wrongdoing a protected crusader and died of gangrene after falling from his horse. At his deathbed, the excommunication against the promise to repay the ransom was lifted.

On October 18, 1221 Vienna received from Leopold VI. the city and stacking rights granted. The latter meant that merchants who wandered through Vienna had to offer their goods for sale in the city. This made it possible for the Viennese to trade in between, so that Vienna soon had extensive trade relations, especially along the Donaustraße and to Venice , and was considered one of the most important cities in the Reich.

It was felt all the more painful that Vienna did not have its own bishop: it belonged to the Diocese of Passau . It is known that Duke Friedrich II negotiated the establishment of a diocese in Vienna, and Ottokar Přemysl is believed to be.

In 1276 the city suffered from a fire. After March 28 and April 16, the third fire on April 30 caused further damage. Churches, monasteries and the ducal castle were destroyed by fire or badly damaged. The roof and bell stalls of St. Stephen's Church were lost. Around two thirds of the city burned down after this disaster. The reconstruction was supported by King Ottokar II.

Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance - Rise of the Habsburgs

Archduke Rudolf IV, called "the founder" for his benefits for the city

In 1278, after a victory over Ottokar II of Bohemia , Rudolf I took the Austrian states under his own administration, and the rule of the Habsburgs began . In Vienna, however, it took the Habsburgs a relatively long time to establish themselves, and Ottokar's supporters remained strong for a long time. There were several attempts at revolt against Albrecht I. The leaders here were the Paltrams family from Stephansfreithof .

Around 1280 the prince book - the first history of the city of Vienna - was written by Jans den Enikel . A siege of several months by Duke Albrecht I of Austria after an uprising by the Viennese patricians ended on February 18, 1288 with the capitulation of the city, which then forfeited part of its urban privileges and had to razor part of its curtain walls.

With the Luxembourg emperors, Prague became the royal seat of the Holy Roman Empire , overshadowing Vienna. The early Habsburgs tried to expand the city to keep up. Duke Albrecht II, for example, had the Gothic choir built by St. Stephen.

On January 21, 1320, Frederick the Fair issued a privilege: the city was allowed to keep a city book, which was named Eisenbuch at the latest in 1494 , in which its privileges were recorded and which from then on served as the basis for its legal claims. Whether the name of this book is actually derived from iron fittings (the current fittings are made of brass, but could have replaced iron fittings over time) or whether it means that the rights contained in the book are unchangeable, virtually “iron” , is open.

Archduke Rudolf IV did a great job of raising prosperity through a clever economic policy. Two things have given him the nickname of the founder : the establishment of the University of Vienna in 1365 and the construction of the Gothic nave of St. Stephen. The latter was connected with the establishment of a Metropolitan Chapter , which was to be a symbolic replacement for the still non-existent bishop.

The time of inheritance disputes among the Habsburgs not only brought much turmoil, but also an economic decline. Associated with this were social unrest, there was a “patrician” and a “craftsmen's party”, the former supporting Ernst the Iron and the latter Leopold IV. In 1408, Mayor Konrad Vorlauf , an exponent of the “patrician party” , was executed .

In 1438, after Duke Albrecht V was elected King of Germany (Albrecht II) , Vienna became the seat of the Roman-German Empire. The expulsion and murder of the Viennese Jews in the Viennese Gesera in 1420/21 is also associated with the name of Albrechts .

In 1469 Vienna became the seat of a bishopric and thus St. Stephan became a cathedral . In the confused era of the weak emperor Friedrich III. Vienna was always on the side of its opponents (first (Arch) Duke Albrecht VI. , then Matthias Corvinus ' of Hungary), because he could not guarantee the peace in the country against wandering mercenary bands (often from the Hussite Wars ). In 1485 Matthias Corvinus succeeded in taking Vienna after a siege of several months. It remained under his rule until his death in 1490.

In 1522, with the execution of leading members of the Estates opposition in the blood court of Wiener Neustadt, Archduke Ferdinand smashed political structures . The city was now under direct imperial control.

After the Habsburg dynasty was divided into a Spanish and a German line in 1556 and Ferdinand was crowned Roman-German Emperor (Ferdinand I) in 1558, Vienna became the capital of the Holy Roman Empire in 1558 , a function that it did - with interruption - held until 1806 : Emperor Rudolf II moved his residence back to Prague in 1583, but as early as 1620 the imperial residence was moved back to Vienna under Ferdinand II .

Reformation and Counter Reformation

Coming from Germany, evangelical writings spread in Austria from 1520 onwards. In 1522 Paul Speratus was excommunicated for having preached evangelical in St. Stephen's Cathedral. In 1524 the Viennese cloth merchant Caspar Tauber was executed because he had professed his Protestant faith. In 1528 the Anabaptist leader Balthasar Hubmaier was burned after he was captured in Moravia in 1527 . A majority of the nobility and citizens had subsequently become Protestant; Which later led to the fact that Protestant services were banned in the city in 1577. The nobility with their estates in front of the city promoted the evangelical movement and employed their own evangelical pastors. Even the later Emperor Maximilian II (1527–1576) had appointed Johann Sebastian Pfauser , a Protestant court preacher, to the court church. Although he leaned toward Protestantism, he remained formally Catholic. Before 1600, 70 to 75% of Vienna's residents had become Protestant.

Especially under Archduke Ferdinand II (1578–1637) the Counter Reformation and the re-Catholicization of the city began. The Jesuits were brought in as early as 1551 , and they quickly gained great influence at court. The leading head of the Counter Reformation was Melchior Khlesl (1552–1630), the Bishop of Vienna from 1598 and cardinal after 1615. The evangelical nobles were disempowered and driven out (especially during the Thirty Years War ). Protestants could then only practice their faith in secret. The chapels of the evangelical embassies of Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands became centers of secret Protestantism. Only with the tolerance patent of 1781 were non-Catholic denominations permitted and public evangelical life was allowed to exist again.

First Turkish siege of Vienna

Pieter Snayers : The Siege of Vienna 1529.

Vienna was besieged for the first time by the Ottoman Empire in 1529 . The city, protected by medieval walls, was only able to withstand the attacks with difficulty until epidemics and a feared early onset of winter forced the Turks to retreat. The siege had made the need for modern fortifications clear. According to plans by Hermes Schallauzer , Vienna was expanded into a fortress in 1548 . The city was provided with eleven masonry bastions and surrounded by a moat. A glacis was created around Vienna , a wide, unobstructed area that gave the defenders a free field of fire. These fortifications, which made up the main part of building activity into the 17th century, were to pay off in 1683 during the second Turkish siege .

Vienna in the Thirty Years War

The siege of Vienna in 1619 by the Bohemian estate army. Painting by Pieter Snayers , around 1620.
The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation 1648

As the imperial capital and residence of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and seat of the emperor, Vienna was the target of sieges and threats in the course of the Thirty Years' War several times . Vienna was besieged by enemy troops as early as 1619, before the Battle of the White Mountain : after the lintel in Prague , which sealed the break with the Habsburg rule of Bohemia, the Bohemian estates recruited an army and elected Heinrich Matthias von Thurn as their commander. He intended to take advantage of the fact that the imperial army was not prepared for a war and that Emperor Ferdinand II did not yet have any powerful military allies. He also intended to ally himself with the Prince of Transylvania , Gábor Bethlen , and to pinch Vienna from two sides. Thurn penetrated Lower Austria and stood in front of Vienna on June 5, 1619, but had to withdraw again after a few days because there was no heavy siege equipment available, without which the capture of Vienna would be hopeless. In addition, the commander of the imperial troops Bucquoy succeeded in defeating the Bohemian ally Mansfeld near Sablat , so that Thurn had to be recalled to defend Bohemia.

On September 27 of the same year Vienna was again in great danger, because Gábor Bethlen had instigated an anti-Habsburg uprising since 1616, during which he was able to conquer almost all of today's Slovakia, including Pressburg, the main area of ​​what was then Royal Hungary. At Pressburg he united, as had been intended in June, with the troops of the Moravian and Bohemian estates led by Thurn and stood before Vienna at the end of September 1619. But the city was spared, because Drugeth von Homonna, an old enemy of Bethlen, had recruited Cossacks in Poland and broke into Hungary with them. This danger behind him forced Bethlen to withdraw from Vienna after only two days. Since Thurn was too weak alone with his Bohemian troops, he followed Bethlen's example.

In 1643 Vienna was threatened again: light cavalry on behalf of the Swedish general Torstensson under General Wrangel roamed the area of ​​the Danube bridges. Due to the outbreak of the Danish-Swedish war , in which Torstensson led the Swedish high command, the country around Vienna was initially freed from the enemy invasion.

After the last major battle of the Thirty Years War, the Battle of Jankau on March 6, 1645, a Swedish army under Torstensson moved to Vienna. In a hurry, Emperor Ferdinand III. a sufficient reinforcement of the crew of the strategically important for the defense of Vienna Wolfsschanze, which was in front of the northern end of the Wolfsbrücke. On April 9, 1645, Torstensson and his army personally stood in front of the hill. Subjected to the oppressive superiority of the enemy, the imperial troops had to retreat from the redoubt to the western Danube Islands, but not without first setting fire to the bridge behind them. As a result, a four-day battle raged over the river islands. The crushing of the Swedes' hopes for cooperation with the Transylvanian Prince George II. Rákóczi , who had reached an agreement with the emperor, led to an unexpectedly rapid retreat of the Swedish general to Brno . The Wolfsschanze was still held by a Swedish crew. It was not until October 1645 that the remaining imperial troops, under the orders of Leopold Wilhelm , succeeded in driving the Swedes out of Wolfsschanze and the area around Vienna. In gratitude for the salvation of Vienna, Ferdinand III. erect a Marian column on the Am Hof square .

Second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683

Relief of Vienna in 1683; Army History Museum Vienna .

After the Thirty Years War began under the emperors Ferdinand III. and Leopold I. a large-scale expansion of the fortification facilities in Vienna. During the reign of Ferdinand III alone. (until 1657) the impressive sum of over 80,000  florins was invested in the court chamber . By 1672, these works were finished - just in time, because 10 years later, in 1683, the Turks besieged Vienna again before the Battle of Vienna on 12 September 1683 by an imperial - Polish were defeated army. Before that, 20,000 men under the command of Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg defended the city for around two months against an overwhelming force of 120,000 Turks, who meanwhile completely devastated the surrounding area of ​​Vienna.

After the relief battle, the star and the crescent moon on St. Stephen's Cathedral, which had adorned the top there since 1519 (at that time, however, were not attached as an Ottoman symbol, but as symbols for emperor and pope), were removed and replaced with a cross.

18th century

View of Vienna in the baroque age. Painting by Canaletto .
Vienna in 1780

After the victory over the Turks outside Vienna in 1683, building activity began. In the course of these reconstructions and new buildings, Vienna was largely redesigned in Baroque style . This is mainly associated with the names of the architects Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt . There was a lot of construction going on, especially in the suburbs, the aristocracy began to cover the whole area with their garden palaces, especially since after the subsequent and lasting victories of Prince Eugene, one could be pretty sure that these new buildings would no longer pose a threat from the Turks would threaten. The best known are the Palais Liechtenstein , the Schönborn and the Palais Schwarzenberg , and above all the Belvedere Palace , the garden palace of Prince Eugene . In 1704 the suburbs got their own, generously laid out fortification system, the line wall .

After the last great plague epidemics in 1679 and 1713, the population grew steadily. It is estimated that there were 150,000 inhabitants in 1724, and by 1790 there were already 200,000. At that time, the first factories were established, the first in the Leopoldstadt , which developed at the site of the Jewish Ghetto established around 1620, from which the Jews but sold again in 1670 had been. The problem of hygiene was also slowly being perceived, so sewerage and street cleaning developed. The introduction of the first house numbers (the conscription numbers ) also fell during this time, as well as the beginnings of a state postal system.

Under Emperor Joseph II , the city administration was modernized in 1783: the city's own civil servants (the magistrate ) were introduced. At the same time, the inner-city cemeteries were also closed.

Napoleon in Vienna, Biedermeier and Revolution 1848

The Lion of Aspern is a memorial to the fallen Austrian soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars
The Congress of Vienna reorganized the balance of power in Europe and ensured peace

During the coalition wars , Vienna was taken twice by Napoleon's troops.

The first occupation on November 13, 1805 went without a fight: three French marshals came across the Tabor Bridge with a white flag , the only and strongly defended Danube bridge at the time , and convinced the Austrian commander that the war was actually over. In the meantime, the French army was able to move in unhindered and was greeted more curiously than negatively by the population. Napoleon, who moved into quarters in Schönbrunn Palace the next day , had 10,000 men of the Vienna National Guard armed and later gave them the undamaged arsenal when he left. Before that, the Peace of Pressburg had been concluded between France and Austria .

The second occupation of Vienna in May 1809, however, only succeeded after heavy bombardment of today's old town; To humiliate Emperor Franz II / I, Napoleon moved from Austria to Schönbrunn Palace. Shortly afterwards, Napoleon suffered his first major defeat in the Battle of Aspern , which was followed by victory at Wagram just six weeks later . French officers accompanied the coffin of the late Joseph Haydn . The Emperor of the French celebrated his 40th birthday in Vienna on August 15, 1809; all the church bells rang. Overall, Napoleon stayed in Vienna for around five months during his second stay and ruled from Schönbrunn.

In the meantime, several important German princes founded the Rhine Confederation in Paris , and Napoleon acted as its protector. As a result, Emperor Franz, as Roman Emperor II, had the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation announced on August 6, 1806 from the balcony of the church at the court . Under the impression of Napoleon's coronation as Emperor of the French, he had already founded the Austrian Empire in 1804 (existed as such until 1869), of which Vienna remained the capital until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918.

After Napoleon was finally defeated in the subsequent wars of liberation , the Vienna Congress took place in Vienna from September 18, 1814 to June 9, 1815 , which reorganized the political situation in Europe. The congress was accompanied by many social events, which led Charles Joseph, Prince of Ligne to the famous sentence: “The congress dances, but it does not go on” (“  Le congres danse beaucoup, mais il ne marche pas  ”). These events cost Austria a lot of money, as can be seen from the following ridicule about the most important participants:

Alexander : loves for everyone
Friedrich Wilhelm : thinks for everyone
Frederick of Denmark : speaks for everyone
Maximilian von Bayern : drinks for everyone
Friedrich von Württemberg : eats for everyone
Emperor Franz : pays for everyone
Vienna around 1830 (north below!): The free fortress apron to the suburbs, the glacis , on which the Ringstrasse was built in the early days, is clearly recognizable .

The relatively long peace period from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the Revolution of 1848 is known as Biedermeier in the federal states. The term is significant as a term for the epoch of cultural history , as it was particularly applicable to Vienna, where famous artists such as Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and Rudolf von Alt worked. During this time, there was also intensive industrialization around the city, which is still surrounded by walls. In 1830 there was an extraordinarily strong flood of the Danube , which inundated today's 2nd district and other settlements near the Danube and caused enormous damage. 1837 was on the first section Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway from the suburb Floridsdorf to German-Wagram the railway operation was added. Danube shipping was also an important means of transport .

The French February Revolution of 1848 also had an impact in Vienna. On March 13th the March Revolution broke out, which finally forced Metternich to resign, and on October 6th the Vienna October Revolution . The urge of the citizens for political participation was bloodily suppressed by the imperial military, in Vienna alone around 2000 revolutionaries were killed during the fighting in autumn 1848.

Expansion in the early days

Under the rule of Emperor Franz Joseph I, Vienna experienced an unprecedented heyday of art, culture and architecture

In 1848/1849 the feudal manorial power in Austria was dissolved; In 1849, a provisional municipal law for all countries of the monarchy , with the exception of the Hungarian, was enacted with the Imperial Patent of March 17, 1849 , stating that suburbs always have to form a single local municipality with the actual city. Therefore, in 1849, through a proclamation by the Imperial and Royal Governor, 34 suburban communities that had previously been subject to protection were placed under the Vienna City Council and formally incorporated into Vienna in 1850 .

District division of Vienna in 1865

The first major city expansion required the subdivision of the urban area into districts: The previous city with most of the glacis became the 1st district, the suburbs became districts 2 (on Danube islands) and 3 to 8 (mostly within the line wall) Division of the 4th district in 1861 (Margareten as the new 5th district) 2 to 9. The area of ​​the 4th district outside of the line wall (divided between 4th and 5th district in 1874) also belonged to the incorporated area was raised.

From 1858 the city wall and the upstream ravelins were razed on the basis of the order of Emperor Franz Joseph I of December 20, 1857; In its place, the Ringstrasse was built as a boulevard of the monarchy until 1865 , lined with monumental buildings, some of which were only completed decades later. Architecturally, Vienna is decisively shaped by this Ringstrasse style with its historicist buildings.

In 1861 the Liberals won the first elections after the end of neo-absolutism . In 1867, the Austro-Hungarian settlement in Austria led to a stable constitution, but not to a stable government, as the enormous conflicting interests between the eight nationalities of Cisleithania could not be balanced. The right to vote, initially limited to a few possessing men, was expanded in 1882 with the granting of voting rights to the so-called “ five guilder men ”, and in 1907 with universal suffrage for men. (This state-wide extension of the electoral law was not adopted for the municipal elections in Vienna until 1918, as the Christian Socials feared for their supremacy.) Women's suffrage was only introduced in the republic in 1918 after the end of the war.

This time culminated in the 1873 World's Fair in the Prater . After the economy had overheated, the fear of commercial failure of the world exhibition as the trigger on May 9, 1873, nine days after its opening, led to panicky share sales, which went down in history as a founder crash . Many banks, companies and investors were ruined, the so-called early days and the heyday of liberalism came to an abrupt end.

Franz Josephs-Kai, around 1875

After the great flood of 1830, there had been repeated considerations to regulate the Danube : after the recent devastating flood of 1862, it was implemented in the years 1870 to 1875. The many branching branches of the Danube (such as the haystack water in the Prater or the waters of the Lobau ) were dammed or filled in; a dead straight main stream, 284.5 m wide, with a 474.5 m wide floodplain on the left bank (meadow delimited by Hubertusdamm that absorbed flood) was created. The steam excavators used came from the construction of the Suez Canal . The previous main stream, named Alte Donau, was retained as a standing body of water. The arm that led to the inner city was left in a narrowed and straightened form, it was given the (misleading) name Danube Canal . The costs were shared by the city, the state of Austria under the Enns ( Lower Austria ), whose capital was Vienna, and the state.

Fruit market, around 1875

In 1873/1874, parts of the city south of the Linienwall, until then parts of the 3rd, 4th and 5th district, were merged and constituted with further areas as the 10th district, Favoriten . (Today this district is the most populous in the city.)

In 1890 the second major city expansion took place: The suburbs, until then their own self-confident communities (such as the former town hall, today's district office, von Währing shows), were organized as districts 11 to 19 by Lower Austrian provincial law with effect from January 1, 1892. Between the former suburbs and the suburbs, the Gürtelstrasse had been expanded outside the line wall since the 1960s , on which, according to the imperial permit, space was to be kept free for a train. Now the line wall was removed from 1894 and 1895–1901 parallel to the belt extension and in the Wiental and along the Danube Canal the Viennese steam light rail was built, which was finally replaced in 1925 by the Viennese electric light rail . The Vienna River was regulated in the entire city area, completely vaulted in the area of ​​today's Naschmarkt and the Karlsplatz in the city center, so named in 1899 .

In 1900 the new 20th district ( Brigittenau ) was spun off from Leopoldstadt (2nd district) . In 1904/1905, the last major city expansion until 1938 extended Vienna to the left bank of the Danube by Lower Austrian provincial law. The large community of Floridsdorf , which emerged shortly before, was proposed by Provincial Governor Erich Kielmansegg as the capital of the Crown Land of Austria under the Enns ( Lower Austria ), and was incorporated into the 21st district under Karl Lueger . On this occasion, some of the district boundaries, which still existed on the former course of the line wall, were moved westward to the Gürtel. As a result, the Vienna Volksoper moved from the 18th to the 9th district.

Vienna around 1888

In the second half of the 19th century, the population of Vienna increased sharply due to incorporation and immigration. A large part of the immigrants came from the Slavic areas of the monarchy, especially from Bohemia and Moravia , on the one hand as craftsmen (tailors, locksmiths etc.) or as unskilled laborers, especially in the construction industry and brick production (the so-called brick Bohemia ). Their dreary social situation was revealed in a series of articles by Victor Adler . The “Bohemian cook” was proverbial among the female staff. The Viennese cuisine is doubtful, especially in view of the pastries , significant Czech influence. It is estimated that around 1900 over 250,000 Czechs and Slovaks lived in Vienna (despite massive migration back to the newly created Czechoslovakia after 1918 , according to the 1923 census the number of Viennese with Czech or Slovak mother tongue was 81,345 out of 1,865,780 inhabitants). The immigration of Jews from the eastern areas of the monarchy was also strong. While there was hardly any Jewish life in Vienna around 1800 , in 1890 Jews made up about 12 percent of the population of Vienna. These strong migratory movements also led to clear tensions between population groups and to the success of nationalist and anti-Semitic demagogues.

The population censuses carried out regularly since 1869 showed around 2,031,000 inhabitants for Vienna in 1910. Vienna was the fourth city in the world, after New York City , London and Paris, to formally exceed the limit of 2 million inhabitants.

Fin de siècle: Vienna around 1900

Ringstrasse with Parliament (1900)
Ball in Vienna City Hall with Mayor Karl Lueger (1904)
Orthodox Jews on Karmeliterplatz in Leopoldstadt (1915)

At the turn of the century, Vienna, with its rich cultural and social life, its artists, writers and scientists, was considered a cosmopolitan city. Vienna also became a center of Art Nouveau , primarily associated with Otto Wagner , Gustav Klimt , Egon Schiele and the Secession artists' association (after which the characteristic building on Karlsplatz was named). The later well-known residents of Vienna in those years included Sigmund Freud , Gustav Mahler and Adolf Loos , but also Adolf Hitler , Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky .

From 1890 to 1910 Karl Lueger was the leading head of Vienna's urban politics. He communalized trams, electricity works, gas works and funerals (all privately run businesses up to then) and made z. E.g. for the II. Viennese high spring water pipeline and the creation of the forest and meadow belt around the city. On the other hand, in order to be able to stay in power, he and his Christian Social Party prevented the municipal suffrage for the Viennese workers, although the general, equal, secret and direct suffrage for all men had been in effect for Reichsrat elections since 1907, and he afforded himself - not out of conviction but to maximize voices - a rabid and rhetorically very skilfully presented anti-Semitism . This was also the reason why Emperor Franz Joseph I , without whose confirmation a Viennese mayoral election was not valid, only confirmed Lueger's fourth election in the municipal council, since the emperor fundamentally rejected anti-Semitism. Lueger's inauguration was delayed by two years.

The Christian Social electorate at that time consisted primarily of craftsmen and tradespeople, homeowners, civil servants and other state employees. These sections of the population feared two social groups above all: the workers and the big capitalists. The workers demanded their share of wealth and politics. Jewish industrialists and bankers played an important role in the economy of the Danube Monarchy (but also as patrons of their culture - for example the Wittgenstein , Lederer or Bloch-Bauer families ), and industry was seen by many traders as overwhelming competition. The strategy of the Christian Socials therefore consisted in keeping the workers away from the right to vote in local elections for as long as possible: they had nothing to say about it. The Jewish big capitalists, on the other hand, were fought with demagoguery, branded as “elements alien to the people” and attacked with hate propaganda. Adolf Hitler , who loathed the mixture of peoples in Vienna, had therefore admired Lueger very much. However, he knew exactly how to differentiate between demagoguery for the people and actual politics: Lueger is ascribed the saying “Who is Jew, I decide” . If a person was important to him, their Judaism was no obstacle to cooperation. In addition, Lueger did not pursue a general anti-immigration policy; compared to the Slavic element, he was comfortable ("Leave it to me, my Bohm 'in peace!").

Shortly before 1900, Vienna had more than a million inhabitants for the first time, and by 1916 Vienna had grown to 2.2 million inhabitants , not least because of the influx of refugees from Galicia during the First World War . Accordingly, Vienna was given a lot of attention in the most elaborate urban research project of this time in German-speaking countries, the 51-part book series “ Großstadt-Documents ”, which appeared between 1904 and 1908. In particular, the relationship between Berlin and Vienna as well as the fundamental differences between the two imperial capitals were examined intensively. At that time progressive Berlin stood for civilization, technology, artificiality and sobriety, while tradition-conscious Vienna stood for culture, spirituality, sensuality and warmth of the heart. Every self-respecting newspaper had correspondents in Vienna and Berlin.

First World War and First Republic

The Karl-Marx-Hof is a prime example of social housing in the “Red Vienna” of the 1920s

The First World War (1914–1918) did not pose an immediate threat to Vienna, but it did lead to a devastating supply crisis due to the economic blockade of the Entente powers , which in particular led to a shortage of food and clothing .

The end of the world war was also the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy . At the end of October 1918, Hungary made itself completely independent from Austria; the non-German areas of old Austria left the previous state informally. The remaining state of German Austria declared itself a republic on November 12, 1918, but had to change its name to the Republic of Austria in 1919 at the request of the victorious powers . Due to the now much smaller national territory (still without Burgenland !) Vienna was felt to be too big in relation to it. The population was concentrated in the capital, the state bureaucracy and the headquarters of the companies were oriented towards a large state. The currency consolidation resulted in staff cuts in many institutions, which hit Vienna and its central offices particularly hard. The emerging metropolis of the Danube Monarchy became the “water head” of the republic that had become smaller.

Another problem was that the former Archduchy of Austria under the Enns comprised almost half of all inhabitants of the now small Austria due to the large population. The other six federal states felt they were being marginalized. The Christian Socialists and Social Democrats soon agreed to separate Vienna from Lower Austria.

In the Federal Constitution , which largely valid today Constitution of Austria, Vienna, with effect from 10 November 1920 as a state defined. Vienna also adopted its own city constitution on this day. The social democracy that had dominated Vienna since the end of the First World War - since then it has been called “ Red Vienna ” - now provided both the city and the state administration; the city ​​senate with mayor Reumann was also one of the nine provincial governments of Austria from 1921, the municipal council also the state parliament .

At the same time, however, until the end of 1921, Vienna still had a de jure share in Lower Austria in its old extent, since the ownership of the land first had to be divided between the two new federal states. There was also a joint state parliament at this time. However, since all essential tasks had already been transferred to the Lower Austria Land Curia of the Landtag and the Vienna City Council, the Landtag had nothing more to decide on apart from formalities. There was no longer a joint state government; an administrative commission of five had to prepare the definitive division of the property. On December 29, 1921, land, buildings, insurance shares, lunatic asylums, etc. were resolved in the “ Separation Act ”, which the provincial parliaments of Vienna and Lower Austria, separately from one another, resolved to allocate to Vienna or Lower Austria. In the last constitutional law of the joint state parliament, the joint constitution, which only required one year, was repealed on December 31, 1921 (whereby the joint state parliament abolished itself). With effect from January 1, 1922, Vienna became completely politically independent from Lower Austria.

From around 1923 until the onset of the global economic crisis , Red Vienna made a name for itself primarily through its community buildings and other social facilities, which were financed from the housing tax - private housing, on the other hand, practically came to a standstill as a result of the tenant protection introduced by the imperial government in 1917 and the peace interest rate regulation.

In view of the difficult economic situation in the small state of Austria, the continual opposition between the conservatively administered “Bund” and the “ Red Vienna ” since 1920, and the rise of fascism in Italy, political radicalization and polarization between the political camps grew. On the social democratic side, the republican protection association, a well-organized paramilitary organization , was formed in 1923/24 from the folder formations of the SDAP . On the other side stood the Heimwehr , which had been formed from local armed forces and similar combat units, especially in rural areas, immediately after the end of the First World War and, as a counterpart to the workforce, was supported by large industrialists and later also by Benito Mussolini . They split up into a monarchist and a German national wing.

Corporate State and Austrofascism 1934–1938

The Justice Palace fire (photo shortly after the Justice Palace was built in 1881) heralded the end of the First Republic

The Justice Palace fire on July 15, 1927 after a misjudgment in connection with physical demonstrations in Schattendorf , the 1931 collapse of Creditanstalt , the largest bank in the country, and finally the self-elimination of parliament , which the government claimed on March 4, 1933 after a vote slump the way to an authoritarian regime, which was formally based on a - factually inapplicable - war economy authorization law . In a three-day civil war around February 12, 1934, parts of the already banned social-democratic defense organization Republikanischer Schutzbund rose up against the dictatorial course of the Christian Social Chancellor . After Engelbert Dollfuss , Federal Chancellor and Foreign Minister since 1932, banned the NSDAP , the Communist Party and the Schutzbund in 1933, this ban also hit the Social Democratic Party after the February fights in 1934 .

Mayor Karl Seitz - not involved in the civil war - was thrown out of the town hall by force in February 1934, and the social democratic city senate (also the state government) was dissolved. The “ corporate state ” eliminated the role of Vienna as one of the nine federal states and declared Vienna a “federal city”. The Christian Socialist Richard Schmitz was appointed as mayor by the dictatorship government without elections , and three vice mayors were appointed to his side: Josef Kresse, the Christian-social-minded Josef Kresse, the German national Fritz Lahr and the legitimist Ernst Karl Winter .

Dollfuss and after him Kurt Schuschnigg created the Fatherland Front , which in the time of Austrofascism almost played the role of a unity party. The authoritarian corporate state initially ruled with emergency ordinances and decreed the constitution of the "Federal State of Austria" on May 1, 1934. In 1935, the construction of the Höhenstraße on the Kahlenberg , Vienna's panoramic mountain , began in Vienna to provide employment . Social Democrats, Communists and National Socialists organized themselves underground. The attempted Nazi putsch of July 1934 (July Putsch ), in which Dollfuss was murdered in the Federal Chancellery on Vienna's Ballhausplatz , was unsuccessful. The attempt made by Chancellor Schuschnigg in March 1938 - much too late - to mobilize the social democratic workers in Vienna against the National Socialists was equally unsuccessful. In the Floridsdorf workers' home there was still a "shop steward's conference" at which the government's support against Hitler was decided. But it was already too late to stop the National Socialists.

“Third Reich” and World War II

Immediately after the “Anschluss” the Viennese Jews were forced to clean the sidewalks with the participation of the population
Memorial for the Austrian Jewish victims of the Shoah on Judenplatz
The memorial against war and fascism by Alfred Hrdlicka

On 12./13. March 1938 the "Anschluss" to the German Reich took place : through the takeover of power by the Austrian National Socialists, who chased out the functionaries of the unpopular "corporate state", and through the German armed forces' invasion, ordered by Adolf Hitler .

On March 15, 1938, in front of hundreds of thousands of listeners - partly enthusiastically jubilant, partly curious - Hitler made (as he put it) the “greatest enforcement report of his life” on the Heldenplatz in Vienna : “... I am now reporting the entry of my homeland into this before history German Reich! ” (The term“ Austria ”was wisely not used).

As far as the mood of the non-Jewish Viennese was concerned, the Nazi regime had to take into account that Vienna had been the capital for centuries until 1938, but now - in the sense of the “ de-provincialization of the province ” - should be one Reichsgau among many. A counterweight had to be created against this “degradation”, as it was felt by the Viennese, in order to keep the population happy. Berlin was the most populous city in "Greater Germany". It was therefore announced that Vienna would be expanded into the largest German city in terms of area.

In the course of the major city expansion in autumn 1938, 91 surrounding communities were integrated into the city, districts XIV and XXI enlarged and districts XXII (Groß-Enzersdorf), XXIII (Schwechat), XXIV (Mödling), XXV (Liesing; not with the current one 23rd district identical) and XXVI (Klosterneuburg) newly created. This made the Reichsgau Greater Vienna with 1224 km² the largest city in the German Empire in terms of area. The Viennese city administration was reorganized according to the National Socialist model. For Gauleiter was Odilo Globocnik appointed, followed by Josef Bürckel and Baldur von Schirach .

In 1941 the Nazi city administration celebrated a Mozart year on the 150th anniversary of the death of the German composer . The Vienna Philharmonic was in the Nazi era, the top German orchestra, which should feign abroad in war cultural normality. (Even in 1943 by Joseph Goebbels proclaimed total war did not change this.) The last public concert of the Philharmonic in the Nazi era was 1945. when the Red Army was already in the approach of.

Persecution of the Jews and the Shoah

Hitler's policy aimed at the extermination of the Jews fell on fertile ground with anti-Semitism, which was centuries old in Vienna and has been increasing since the beginning of the 20th century . Immediately after the National Socialists came to power, the so-called “wild Aryanization ” began: Those who wanted and could rob their Jewish neighbors, threw them out of their shops or apartments, or otherwise let them feel their contempt. This outbreak of hostility towards Jews, which the Nazi bureaucracy did not expect so much, was soon directed into orderly channels; discrimination, disenfranchisement, robbery, etc. were transformed into bureaucratic processes that were supposed to have the appearance of law and order.

During the November pogroms , beginning on November 9, 1938, 92 synagogues in Vienna were destroyed. Only one was spared, the city ​​temple in the 1st district . There, Jewish Viennese selected by the Nazi regime had to help organize the emigration or deportation of their co-religionists. In Palais Rothschild (4th, Prinz-Eugen-Straße, today the new Chamber of Labor ) was Adolf Eichmann's central office for Jewish emigration ( during the war, emigration mostly meant robbery, deportation and murder). Around 120,000 people, around two thirds of the Jewish population in Vienna, made it abroad (the best-known refugee was Sigmund Freud ), around 60,000 people were no longer able to leave. Most of them were held in four assembly camps in Vienna. The transports to the ghettos , concentration and extermination camps with around 1,000 Jews each were put together in the assembly camps . From February 1941 to October 1942 a total of 45 deportation trains went there from the Aspang station . Most of the deportees were murdered in the extermination camps.

After the end of the war, the Jewish population of Vienna numbered only 5,243, mostly people protected by mixed marriages with Aryans . Apartments vacated by the persecution of the Jews were handed over to Aryans ; Furniture and household effects of the Jewish Viennese (if not directly stolen) could be acquired cheaply at auctions.

The Jewish community in Vienna, originally comprising around 200,000 people, only numbered 5,243 people at the end of the war.

Air strikes

For a long time during the war, Vienna was part of the Reichs Luftschutzkeller , an area inaccessible by Allied bombers. Nevertheless, as a precautionary measure, six anti- aircraft towers (anti-aircraft gun) were built. Schirach had a command post set up on the Gallitzinberg in the west of Vienna .

On March 17, 1944, US bombers launched their first air raid on Vienna. Around a fifth of the city was destroyed.
In the Battle of Vienna (April 6 to around 13, 1945) troops of the Red Army advancing from Hungary drove Wehrmacht troops out of Vienna and occupied Vienna.

The flak tower in Augarten was built from July 1944 to January 1945

The bombing war only reached Vienna in March 1944, after the Allied capture of Italy. In particular, the fuel refineries in Floridsdorf and the transport infrastructure in general were an important bomb target. Area bombing like in Hamburg or Dresden did not take place. However, around a third of the city center was destroyed, and culturally important buildings such as the State Opera or the Albertina also fell victim to the bombing. The fire in St. Stephen's Cathedral had nothing to do with it: the fire in a neighboring building spread to the roof structure. As one of the most tragic events of the bombing, the spillage is true of about 200 people in bomb shelters under the Philipphof at the Albertina on March 12, 1945. At this point, is today Memorial against War and Fascism by Alfred Hrdlicka . Overall, the bombing caused around 8,800 deaths.

The storm on Vienna

After Soviet troops had reached today's Burgenland on March 29, 1945 , the capture of Vienna was foreseeable. The 3rd Ukrainian Front and parts of the 2nd Ukrainian Front were involved . All attempts to declare Vienna an “open city” based on the example of Rome were prevented by Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach . The Soviet army command planned to take Vienna from three sides: infantry attacked from the east, airborne troops from the south and tank troops from the west - this maneuver is known as the "western enclosure". The actual operation began on April 5th. The German units were defeated in a ratio of 1:10 and withdrew to Transdanubia soon after the Danube and Danube Canal bridges were blown up . There was significant house-to-house fighting in Simmering and especially along the Danube Canal . The Red Army managed to cross the Danube Canal on the night of April 11th and 12th. The capture of Leopoldstadt and Brigittenau was completed in a short time. The fighting north of the Danube continued until April 18th. At the end of the fight, 19,000 fallen and 47,000 captured Wehrmacht soldiers and 18,000 dead on the part of the Red Army were recorded, whereby post-war mayor Körner assumed far lower numbers of victims based on the found bodies.

War damage

Compared to other cities, Vienna survived the Second World War relatively “lightly”.

According to surveys by the city building authority, a total of 46,862 buildings were damaged by acts of war, that is 41% of the total. Of these, 6,214 buildings were completely destroyed, or so badly that their restoration amounted to a new building. With 86,875 apartments (36,851 completely destroyed, 50,024 badly damaged) around one eighth of the total stock was lost. Numerous industrial companies, all Danube bridges, almost all bridges over the Danube Canal and all major train stations were also destroyed. The other destruction in the area of ​​the infrastructure, but also the historical or other culturally important buildings, was similarly severe. An estimate from 1945 put the structural war damage in Vienna at 2.5 billion Schillings (value and prices 1945).

Second republic

Four sector city

Occupied Vienna was divided into four allied zones

After the Second World War , Vienna, initially only occupied by the Red Army , became a four-sector city under Allied administration in September 1945 .

A provisional city government and city administration was set up just a few days after the fighting ended. The communist Rudolf Prikryl was briefly appointed mayor of the Soviet Union on April 13th. Just three days later he was replaced by the Social Democrat Theodor Körner . The political parties also formed again. On April 29, the parliament building was handed over by the occupying power to the new government formed on April 27, 1945 and Karl Renner announced the restoration of the democratic republic of Austria.

On June 3, 1945, with Stalin's consent, the Vienna Mission of the three Western Allies arrived in Vienna in order to investigate the destruction, food supply and diseases of the Viennese before taking over the occupation sectors. Your report to the three powers showed a very unpleasant picture and the numerous everyday problems of the badly damaged city. The mission's report, however, hardly went into the mass rapes in Vienna and the fate of the Jewish Viennese. On September 1, 1945, the three Western Allies took over the sectors of the city agreed with the Soviet Union. The first municipal council election was held in November 1945 . Of the 100 mandates of the Vienna City Council, the Socialist Party ( SPÖ ) received 58, the People's Party ( ÖVP ) 36 and the Communist Party ( KPÖ ) 6. In 1946 the Territorial Change Act was passed, which largely reversed the 1938 urban expansion. A veto by the Soviet Union prevented the law from being promulgated and enforced until the veto was lifted in 1954 (see here ).

Two districts that had not belonged to Vienna before 1938 now finally became part of Vienna: the new 22nd district, Donaustadt , north of the Danube (part of the Großenzersdorf district created in 1938) and the new 23rd district, Liesing , in the south. Further district parts that were now democratically incorporated were Oberlaa and Rothneusiedl (now in the 10th district), Albern in the 11th district, the Lainzer Tiergarten (since 1956 13th district), Hadersdorf-Weidlingau in the 14th district and Stammersdorf in the 21st district.

The Austrian police already existed again, but ultimately they were subordinate to the Allied administration and their units. The post-war years were particularly dangerous for the poorly equipped police officers. Half of the 50 deaths during police service to date occurred in the ten years under Allied administration, most of them - 20 in number - as early as 1945 and 1946. There were several incidents, especially in the first few years after the end of the war between Austrian police officers and occupation soldiers. However, fatal incidents occurred exclusively with Soviet soldiers. In the first two years, five Viennese police officers died while on duty simply because they were shot by Soviet soldiers, some of whom were drunk, according to records from the Vienna State Police Directorate. When reporting on Soviet attacks, the Arbeiter-Zeitung , the central organ of the SPÖ, and the Kurier , an American foundation, made a name for themselves .

After the war, the focus was initially on reconstruction . The traditional landmarks of the city, which had been badly damaged in the last days of the war, namely St. Stephen's Cathedral , the opera and the Burgtheater , became symbols of the structural spirit here. The newly cast Pummerin , the big bell of St. Stephen , was also particularly celebrated .

From around 1950, as everywhere in Western Europe, there was an unprecedented economic upswing, not least with the help of the Marshall Plan . The population of Vienna stagnated for a long time, not least due to the fact that until 1989 the Iron Curtain blocked the connection between the city and the old catchment areas in the east and north.

On May 15, 1955, the country regained its full freedom as part of a festive ceremony in Vienna's Belvedere Palace with the Austrian State Treaty : the four occupying powers undertook to keep their troops within the framework of the ratification of the treaty, which was concluded on July 27, 1955 90 days to be deducted. This happened gradually until October 1955.

1955 to 1970

The town hall was a symbol of the reconstruction after the war
Vienna as a “neutral” place during the Cold War: Khrushchev and Kennedy met at the Vienna Summit in 1961
The UN City and other high-rise buildings on the Danube

Mass motorization began in Vienna around the mid-1950s . The increase in individual traffic led to growing problems in the mostly relatively narrow thoroughfares used by trams . As a solution, the Viennese city administration initially relied on the one hand on city ​​motorways , on the other hand on the Alwegbahn or underpaved railways as high-performance means of mass transport on the second level. At the end of the 1960s, however, the decision was made in favor of expanding the Vienna subway , the first new line of which was opened in 1978 and whose network is constantly being expanded. The first underground car park was opened for stationary traffic in 1960 in the city center, in front of the Votive Church .

In 1961, on the initiative of Bruno Kreisky, the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit took place in Vienna. For decades, the city administration asserted the special suitability of Vienna as an international meeting place and as a location for worldwide conferences.

In terms of architecture from the 1950s and 1960s, alongside the Ringturm , Roland Rainer's town hall should be mentioned in particular ; it was designed with a view to the - ultimately unsuccessful - application for the 1964 Summer Olympics .

1970 to 2000

In the 1970s, the third official seat of the UN was established with the UNO-City and thus the first step towards the creation of a second center on the Danube was taken. On the other hand, a number of urban protection zones were created for particularly atmospheric and artistically valuable old town quarters.

One of the major urbanistic achievements of the 1970s and 1980s was the construction of the Danube Island and the New Danube relief channel to replace the old floodplain . This project resulted in a combination of flood protection, the Danube embankment motorway in the lower elevation and a recreation area. At the end of the 20th century a skyline with the " skyscrapers " Andromeda Tower (21st district) and Millennium Tower (20th district) was created in Vienna .

As such, a Vienna World Exhibition was planned for 1995 as a stimulus for the development of the waterfront on the Danube; the 1991 rejection of the project in a referendum did not change any of the other ambitious plans of the city administration. Further skyscrapers were built in the south of the city on Wienerberg (10th district) around the Vienna Twin Towers .

Also at Wien Mitte station , a high-rise complex was planned in the last decade of the 20th century, but possibly the status of the first district as a UNESCO - World Heritage Site would have endangered. Only the Justice Center Wien-Mitte was realized . The main project, however, was dropped in 2003 and replaced by a more modest building.

In the last decades of the 20th century, the Vienna underground became the most important means of public transport in the city. The first newly built underground line, the U1 , began operating on its first section in 1978. Because of the collapse of the Reichsbrücke in 1976 , the line was extended to well into the 22nd district earlier than originally planned. Further underground construction work involved the new construction of the U3 and the conversion of the light rail to the U6 .

After 2000

Since the planned high-rise project at the Haymarket with 66 meter building height, the maximum height of World Heritage Criteria exceeds that was Historic Center of Vienna of the 2017 UNESCO on the Red List of World Heritage in Danger set.

In the local council elections in 2001, the Social Democrats achieved an absolute majority, which they defended in 2005, but lost again in 2010. Since then, there has been a coalition with the Vienna Greens for the first time . Since 2015, five parties have again been represented in the municipal council. Michael Häupl , who has been in office since 1994 , resigned on May 24, 2018; Michael Ludwig was elected as his successor .

After the fall of the Iron Curtain , the close economic, cultural and political ties to the north and east that had existed for centuries were reactivated. In 2003 Vienna founded the European Region Centrope together with Burgenland , Lower Austria and regional associations in the Czech Republic , Slovakia and Hungary . It currently includes around 6 million inhabitants in the Central European Central Area. The core of the region are the twin cities of Vienna and Bratislava , which are only around 60 km apart and whose city governments cooperate in many ways and strive for coordinated development.

and display information about the image
Panorama of Vienna seen from the "sky" (2005)

See also

literature

  • Jean-Paul Bled: Vienna. Residence - metropolis - capital. Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau 2002, ISBN 3-205-99077-3 .
  • Wolfgang Börner, Sigrid Strohschneider-Laue : Archeology goes to school - archeology goes to school, Roman times. Materials on history didactics. Conference for History Didactics Austria 2/98, pp. 18–37.
  • Peter Csendes , Ferdinand Opll (Ed.): Vienna. History of a city . 3 volumes, Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 2001 ff. (Digital copies on the pages of the OAPEN Library: Volume 2 , Volume 3 )
  • Felix Czeike (ed.): Historisches Lexikon Wien , Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2004, p. 234, ISBN 978-3-218-00740-5 (volumes 1–6).
  • Anna Ehrlich: A Brief History of Vienna . Pustet, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7917-2330-3 .
  • Location Vienna. Reports on Archeology Volume 1, ISBN 3-9500492-2-3 , pp. 98 ff.
  • Alexander Glück: Vienna Underworlds . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle a. S. 2012, ISBN 978-3-89812-856-8 .
  • Ernst Kurz: The urban development of the city of Vienna in relation to traffic , Vienna City Administration, Urban Planning Business Group, Vienna 1981
  • Martina Pippal : A brief history of art in Vienna . CH Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-45858-0
  • Christine Ranseder ea: Michaelerplatz. The archaeological excavations. Vienna Archaeological 1, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-901232-72-9 .
  • Johannes Sachslehner : Vienna. A history of the city . Pichler Verlag, Vienna 2006, ISBN 978-3-85431-399-1
  • Sigrid Strohschneider-Laue: Stone Age Vienna. Lorbeer 2/1996, pp. 2-3.
  • Sigrid Strohschneider-Laue: Prehistory. In: Felix Czeike (Ed.): Historical Lexicon of the City of Vienna. Volume 5, Vienna 1997, pp. 518-519.
  • Sigrid Strohschneider-Laue: Stone Age. In: Felix Czeike (Ed.): Historical Lexicon of the City of Vienna. Volume 5, Vienna 1997, p. 331.
  • Sigrid Strohschneider-Laue: Iron Age. In: Felix Czeike (Ed.): Historical Lexicon of the City of Vienna. Volume 5, Vienna 1997, pp. 740-741.
  • Otto H. Urban: The Leopoldsberg. Archaeological research on Vienna's local mountain (with several contributions). Vienna Archaeological Studies 2, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-9500492-5-8 .

Web links

Commons : History of Vienna  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Csendes: Becoming Vienna - the settlement history basis . In: P. Csendes, F. Oppl (Hrsg.): Vienna - history of a city from its beginnings to the first Turkish siege. Vienna, Böhlau, 2001
  2. ↑ Martina Pippal: Kleine Kunstgeschichte Wiens , Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-45858-0 , p. 17 f.
  3. ↑ data sheet on wien.gv.at
  4. ↑ Reconstruction of the ancient site in downtown Vienna
  5. ^ Wiener Zeitung Online: The Vienna city law is 1000 years older than expected. Retrieved March 3, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Jan A. van Houtte (Ed.): European economic and social history in the Middle Ages. (= Handbook of European Economic and Social History. Volume 2) Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-904740-9 , p. 617ff.
  7. ↑ Walter Pohl : The Avars. Beck, Munich 2015, pp. 112, 121 and 291.
  8. ^ Peter Csendes (Ed.): The City of Vienna. (= Austrian City Book , Volume 7) Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-7001-2737-5 , p. 15.
  9. ^ WH Fritze: Studies on the early Slavonic and early Franconian history up to the 7th century. In European university publications . Row 3. History and its auxiliary sciences. Volume 581, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-631-46669-2 , p.
  10. ↑ Herwig Wolfram : The area of ​​the Güssinger rule in the Carolingian era. In: The Güssinger. Results of the symposia as part of the “Schlaininger Talks” 1986/1987. Burgenland State Museum Eisenstadt, Eisenstadt 1989, p.
  11. ^ Felix Czeike : Historical Lexicon Vienna . Volume 5, Verlag Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-218-00547-7 , p. 306f.
  12. ↑ Kleindel, Austria ISBN 3-902397-49-7
  13. ^ Uprising of the Viennese patricians in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  14. ↑ Ferdinand Opll (ed.): … That you should be right in bad luck… Codicological, art-historical, palaeographic and restoration analyzes on the Wiener Eisenbuch (14th – 19th centuries) . With contributions by Zita Breu, Andreas Fingernagel, Karl Fischer, Alois Haidinger, Franz Kirchweger, Max Krauss and Ferdinand Opll. Research and contributions to the history of the city of Vienna Volume 53. Publications of the Vienna City and State Archives, Series C: Special publications, Volume 15. Vienna 2010. Association for the History of the City of Vienna. ISBN 978-3-7065-4953-0 .
  15. ^ Richard Perger: The Hungarian rule over Vienna 1485-1490 and their prehistory. In: Wiener Geschichtsblätter , 45, 1990, pp. 53–87, here p. 55 f.
  16. ^ Reformation City Vienna - A metropolis as a Reformation city. reformation-cities.org
  17. ^ Nicole Scheyerer: Reformation: When the Viennese became Protestants . religion.orf.at, February 16, 2017
  18. ^ Gerhard Schormann : The Thirty Years War . 3. Edition. Small Vandenhoeck series, Göttingen 2004, 27.
  19. ^ Hans Sturmberger: Uprising in Bohemia. The beginning of the Thirty Years War, Munich 1959, 44 f.
  20. ^ Walter F. Kalina: The Brigittakapelle in Vienna 20 (1650/51). "In capella a nobis nuper in sylva Thaber inter pontes Danuby extructa ...". In: Bundesdenkmalamt (Hrsg.): Austrian magazine for art and monument preservation . LIX, Horn / Vienna 2005, volume 3/4, p. 246.
  21. ^ Walter F. Kalina: The Viennese fortress construction at the time of Emperor Ferdinand III. and Leopold I. (1637–1672), in: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege, Vol .: 60, No. 3/4, Vienna 2006, pp. 380–384, ISSN  0029-9626
  22. ↑ Anton Faber . In: The Cathedral. Bulletin of the Vienna Cathedral Conservation Association , 2/2006, p. 11, dombauwien.at (PDF)
  23. ↑ Section 1, § 2, RGBl. No. 170/1849 (= p. 203 ff.)
  24. ↑ LGBl. For Lower Austria. No. 33/1849 (= p. 48)
  25. ↑ LGBl. For Lower Austria. No. 21/1850 (= p. 94 f.)
  26. ↑ Part of the series of publications by the research group "Metropolis Research", Social Science Research Center Berlin (PDF; 1.2 MB)
  27. ↑ Alexander Maurer: 100 Years of the Republic: Suddenly "Water Head"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . wienerzeitung.at. 7th November 2018@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wienerzeitung.at  
  28. ↑ Florian Gasser: Vienna: A city like a foreign body . zeit.de. October 13, 2017
  29. ↑ LGBl. No. 1/1920
  30. ↑ LGBl. No. 153/1921 (= p. 253)
  31. ^ Ordinance of the Mayor of the City of Vienna on the division of the area of ​​the City of Vienna into districts of October 15, 1938
  32. ↑ Dieter Hecht, Michaela Raggam-Blesch, Heidemarie Uhl (ed.): Last places. The Vienna assembly camps and the deportations in 1941/42 . Mandelbaum Verlag, Vienna 2019, ISBN 978-3-85476-592-9 .
  33. ↑ HEADQUARTERS 454th BOMBARDMENT GROUP (H) (pdf)
  34. ↑ www.wien.gv.at: Calendar "Vienna 1945": April 1945
  35. ↑ War damage ( memento of the original from June 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on wien.gv.at/kultur/kulturgut; Retrieved May 9, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wien.gv.at
  36. ↑ Herwig Czech: Western secret services in Soviet Vienna , on the website of the state broadcaster ORF , June 3, 2015
  37. ↑ Bianca Blei: When underground car parks were still full of luxury , derstandard.at, October 15, 2010
  38. ↑ World cultural heritage: Unesco puts Vienna on the red list . In: The press . ( diepresse.com [accessed July 12, 2017]).