Bad Kleinkirchheim

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Bad Kleinkirchheim
coat of arms Austria map
Bad Kleinkirchheim coat of arms
Bad Kleinkirchheim (Austria)
Bad Kleinkirchheim
Basic data
Country: Austria
State : Carinthia
Political District : Spittal an der Drau
License plate : SP
Surface: 74.01 km²
Coordinates : 46 ° 49 '  N , 13 ° 48'  E Coordinates: 46 ° 48 '49 "  N , 13 ° 47' 34"  E
Height : 1087  m above sea level A.
Residents : 1,711 (January 1, 2020)
Population density : 23 inhabitants per km²
Postal code : 9546
Area code : 04240
Community code : 2 06 01
Address of the
municipal administration:
Kirchheimer Weg 1
9546 Bad Kleinkirchheim
Website: www.bad-kleinkirchheim.gv.at
politics
Mayor : Matthias Krenn (BKK)
Municipal Council : (Election year: 2015 )
(15 members)
6th
4th
3
2
6th 4th 
A total of 15 seats
  • BKK : 6
  • ÖVP : 4
  • BLBKK : 3
  • SPÖ : 2
Location of Bad Kleinkirchheim in the Spittal an der Drau district
Bad Kleinkirchheim Baldramsdorf Berg im Drautal Dellach im Drautal Flattach Gmünd in Kärnten Greifenburg Großkirchheim Heiligenblut am Großglockner Irschen Kleblach-Lind Krems in Kärnten Lendorf Lurnfeld Mallnitz Malta Millstatt am See Mörtschach Mühldorf Oberdrauburg Obervellach Radenthein Rangersdorf Reißeck Rennweg am Katschberg Sachsenburg Seeboden am Millstätter See Spittal an der Drau Stall Steinfeld (Kärnten) Trebesing Weißensee Winklern KärntenLocation of the municipality of Bad Kleinkirchheim in the Spittal an der Drau district (clickable map)
About this picture
Template: Infobox municipality in Austria / maintenance / site plan image map
Municipal office of the spa community
Municipal office of the spa community
Source: Municipal data from Statistics Austria
The region around Bad Kleinkirchheim
Kleinkirchheim

Bad Kleinkirchheim is a municipality with 1711 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2020) in the Spittal an der Drau district in Carinthia . Known today as a spa and climatic health resort as well as a ski area in a valley in the Gurktal Alps, it was still predominantly rural in the middle of the 20th century. Although the legend says that the first spa guest already appreciated Bad Kleinkirchheim as a recreational area in the 11th century and the first bathers visited the place in the 17th century, it was only a few decades ago that there was a radical structural change away from the agricultural and towards the touristy Bad Kleinkirchheim a. Today the community is one of the twenty most visited tourist destinations in Austria in both the summer and winter seasons .

geography

Bad Kleinkirchheim is an average of 1087  m above sea level in an approximately five kilometer long valley furrow in the Gurktal Alps between Millstätter See and Upper Gurktal, running in a west-east direction . The populated area is between 980 and 1,380 meters above sea level, the highest point in the municipality is the summit of the Klomnock ( 2331  m ). To the north of the villages of Kleinkirchheim and St. Oswald , part of the municipality belongs to the Salzburg Lungau and Carinthian Nockberge biosphere reserve .

On the flanks to the north and south of the valley, the mountains rise comparatively steeply to an altitude of around 2,000 meters, so that Bad Kleinkirchheim's only transport connection to its neighboring communities is limited to Kleinkirchheimer Strasse (B 88), which connects the community with Radenthein in the west and Reichenau in the east. Bad Kleinkirchheim also borders Krems in the northwest and Feld am See in the southwest.

  • Use: 35% of the approximately 7,400 ha municipal area is alpine grassland, 28% forest, around 9.6% meadows and arable land and 1.3% pastures; only 0.1% are taken up by the small streams and bog areas. Almost 26% are designated as “other small areas and paths”, which includes in particular settlement areas.
  • Mountains: South of the Bad Kleinkirchheimer valley are the Kaiserburg ( 2055  m ) and behind it the Wöllaner Nock ( 2145  m ), followed by the elongated Strohsack ( 1904  m ) and the Klomnock ( 1845  m ). On the opposite side, several peaks surround the side valley north of the village of Kleinkirchheim, from west to east are the Priedröf ( 1963  m ), Wiesernock ( 1969  m ), Scharte ( 1800  m ), Spitzegg ( 1919  m ), Brunnachhöhe ( 1976  m ) and the Mallnock ( 2215  m ), which forms the northern end of the mountain range above St. Oswald. The mountain range closes in the east over the Klomnock ( 2331  m ), Steinnock ( 2144  m ), Falkert ( 2308  m ), Moschelitzen ( 2305  m ) and finally the Totelitzen ( 1990  m ) protruding to the south .
  • Waters: The Twengbach rises on the southern slope of the Moschelitzen , flows through Rottenstein, then turns west, takes in the Zirkitzenbach and below the Kaiserburg the Ottingerbach and then crosses Kleinkirchheim and after the tributary of Kmölningbach and St. Ostwalder Bach in the direction of Radenthein Leaves the valley, where it joins the Kaninger Bach and feeds Lake Millstatt as the "Riegerbach".
Klomnock ( 2331  m )
  • Geology: The Kleinkirchheimer Tal is a typical trough valley , which got its present form from a glacier from the last ice age phase, the Würme ice age . It is part of the western Gurktal Alps, which are called Nockberge here. The lowest clod of rocks is made up of gray slates that were formed in the Paleozoic . There is also green slate that looks like chlorite slate and partly contains feldspar. The upper zones consist of phyllites of the Gurktal Nappe , a thin schistose, metamorphic and also paleozoic rock. This includes a strip of Triassic limestone that stretches from the Stangalpe (below the Turracher Höhe ) to Aigen near Kleinkirchheim. This limestone strip appears on the surface in places in the municipality, for example openly at the Kaiserburg and as a continuation in the form of white dolomitic limestone on the southern slope of the Wöllanernock. The lime was also mined and burned in earlier centuries.

Community structure

Bad Kleinkirchheim is divided into the three cadastral communities of Kleinkirchheim, Sankt Oswald and Zirkitzen, which comprise the following nine localities (population in brackets as of January 1, 2020):

KG Kleinkirchheim KG Sankt Oswald KG Zirkitzen
Aigen (37) St. Oswald (173) Rottenstein (78)
Bach (274) Storage roof (172) Zirkitzen (375)
Kleinkirchheim (347)    
Obertschern (118)    
Undercutting (137)    

history

The settlement of the Kirchheim valley

From the location of the St. Ulrich parish church (right) you can see that Kleinkirchheim was built above the valley floor.

There are no traces of settlement in the region around Kleinkirchheim from the pre-Roman times, and also for the Romans, who from 15 BC onwards. Chr. Carinthia ruled, the remote, densely wooded valley was probably too far from their traffic routes. With the end of the Great Migration , the Roman Empire collapsed and Slavs , coming from the east via the Drau Valley , invaded Carinthia and settled there. Gradually they also settled in the side valleys. The first Baier and Frankish settlers came to the country from the middle of the 8th century.

Deed from 1177

After the Frankish rule had finally established itself in the first half of the 9th century, the first Bavarian settlers probably also settled in the Kirchheim Valley. It is not known when exactly the first “Capella” was created in “Chirchem”. On July 5, 1166, a pastor named Pabo was mentioned in a document in which the Archbishop of Salzburg, Konrad II, confirmed the donation of the St. Ruprecht Chapel to the Millstatt Monastery - this document is considered the first documentary mention of Kirchheim. Another document from Pope Alexander III. from April 6, 1177 mentions a place of the same name; this document issued in Rialto in Venice is still preserved and is in the Vienna State Archives. It is assumed, however, that the first church was built much earlier, before the turn of the millennium, in honor of Saint Ulrich , the bishop of Augsburg. The place was only given its current name Kleinkirchheim in the 16th century, in order to be able to distinguish it more easily from the mining town of the same name in Mölltal, today's Großkirchheim .

Slavic settlers soon followed the first Baier immigrants: The place name of today's Zirkitzen indicates that they settled east of the first settlement, because in their language "Circica" means the same as Kirchheim. Double names like in this case, which occur several times in Carinthia, show that Bavarians and Slavs apparently settled peacefully next to each other in this region in the early Middle Ages.

Since 976, the Duchy of Carinthia was an area independent of Bavaria, but Baier landlords continued to have the upper hand over their possessions. The Aribones , who had had the hereditary dignity of the Palatine count towards the Dukes of Carinthia since 977 , also had large estates in Carinthia. They are the first verifiable masters of the Kleinkirchheim valley. Count Palatine Poto Graf von Pottenstein from this Bavarian family is said to have been the first to experience the healing properties of the spring in Bad Kleinkirchheim in the 11th century after being wounded in battle. According to legend, he bequeathed the healing spring to the Millstatt Abbey, which he founded around 1070, in gratitude . Irrespective of this, from the above-mentioned documentary confirmation in 1166 at the latest until the abolition of the monastery in 1773, Kleinkirchheim belonged to the Millstätter rule.

Development of the St. Oswalder high valley

The St. Oswalder high valley

Main article: St. Oswald

The still densely forested and probably uninhabited high valley of St. Oswald did not belong to the Aribones at that time. It was not until 1197 that the “apud Chirchem” forest came into the possession of the Millstatt monastery through an exchange, which was confirmed in a papal deed from 1207. The Benedictine monks cleared the newly acquired valley and created meadows and fields so that farmers settled down here too. In the new settlement, the monks' convent had a church built, which was consecrated to St. Oswald and was first mentioned in a document on June 8, 1228.

Chaste with Obertschers

The clearing activity was continued to the east, the closed Millstätter property extended into the current municipal areas of Reichenau and Gnesau, only after 1500 no more new hubs were created. The oldest surviving Millstätter land register from 1470 also contains a list of 73 properties in the Kirchheim office. Of these, 26 Huben and 28 Schwaigen were in Kirchheim, and one Hube and 21 Schwaigen in St. Oswald. Due to the altitude, the St. Oswalder settlement was mainly kept cattle, which is why the farms at that time were mainly classified as Schwaigen, which had to pay a lower tithe . The land register from 1470 also shows a "Taferne" (inn) that stood at today's Unterwirt country house.

Kleinkirchheim in the late Middle Ages

Emperor Friedrich III. caused Pope Paul II to found an order of knights in honor of St. George in 1469. The seat of the St. George Order was Millstatt determined, the local Benedictine monastery was dissolved and transferred its possessions including Kleinkirchheim the new medal. Its task in the first years of existence was to protect Carinthia from the Turkish threat, because at the time the order was founded, a threat to its territory was getting closer and closer: The Turks , who had conquered Constantinople in 1453 , had then moved across the Balkans and had reached the Carniola region in 1469 .

The pin Millstatt was since 1070 the seat of the Benedictines, from 1469 the St. George Order and from 1598 the Jesuits. They controlled Kleinkirchheim until 1773.

Since Carinthia had already heard of this a few weeks earlier, they began to seal off the passes in the south of the country on the one hand and secure the castles, monasteries and churches on the other. A body tax was levied in the country to raise funds for defense. In Millstatt the Knights of St. George built a fortified order castle next to the old, "desolate due luggage" of the monastery.

At the end of September 1473 the Turks invaded Carinthia for the first time and marched through the valleys, robbing and pillaging; the Kleinkirchheimer Tal was spared this incursion and a second raid three years later. The people of the country had to watch impotently as their rulers fled from the Turks and withdrew behind the expanded walls, while entire valleys were reduced to rubble. As a consequence, some Kirchheim farmers also joined the farmers' union founded by Peter Wunderlich in Spittal in 1478, which was directed against the Turkish tax, but also prepared to fight the invaders.

In Kleinkirchheim the farmers tried to organize themselves against the threat because they did not want to rely on the St. George Knights. In Zirkitzen there is a large cave in a rock wall, the front of which the inhabitants walled up with rocks. This "Wihrwand" - the remains of which can still be seen today - was completed just in time, because on June 25, 1478, the Turks attacked the country, this time coming from Friuli . The farmers' union was only able to provide 600 men and was overwhelmed, the Millstatt knights entrenched themselves, as had been feared, in their castle. After the Turks set Radenthein on fire, they moved to the Kirchheimer Tal. When the first houses in Zirkitzen were set on fire, the farmers tried to defend themselves with arrows and stones. Although they were able to defend their position against the attackers, they were unable to prevent further farmsteads from being burned down. The valley was spared from further attacks by the Turks, but the Hungarians invaded Carinthia as early as 1480 and also came as far as Kleinkirchheim. In 1490, after the death of Matthias Corvinus , the Hungarian occupation ended.

Reformation and Counter Reformation

After the Knights of St. George had already failed in their task of defending their country against the Turks, their leadership in the decades that followed was characterized by disorder and arbitrariness. Despite the use of imperial administrators, the mismanagement in the Millstatt rule increased and with it the discipline of the subjects decreased. The order was about to be dissolved during the 16th century. The ideas of the Reformation found fertile soil among the population, who were also impoverished as a result of taxes, raids and occupation. In addition, the Carinthian nobility supported the renewal of faith in their endeavors for more independence from the provincial duke, who belonged to the strictly Catholic Habsburgs. Towards the end of the 16th century, most of the farmers in Kleinkirchheim were of the Lutheran faith after the duke had assured them freedom of religion.

The religious conditions changed radically in 1595 after Ferdinand II came to power. In 1598 he handed over the properties of the Millstatt Order to the Jesuits , to which he himself belonged. They declared Millstatt a residence, which was run by a superior. Since they had the imperial mandate to financially support the newly founded University of Graz , and the finances were on the ground due to the mismanagement of the George Knights, they imposed high taxes on the farmers.

Despite the Counter-Reformation, the proportion of Protestants in Central and Upper Carinthia has remained relatively high to this day

At the same time, the Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church began, the population - around 1500 subjects between Liesertal and Turrach were summoned to a commission in Millstatt in 1600 - were given the choice of either becoming Catholic or emigrating within three months. Books labeled heretical were burned, preacher's houses and churches destroyed. In spite of these hardships, many of those who took the Catholic religious oath in order not to have to leave their homeland retained their faith. Protestant books were smuggled in and secret meetings were held. Despite all efforts by the authorities to prevent this, secret Protestantism was still widespread in the region between Spittal and Gnesau , which also includes Kleinkirchheim, even in the middle of the 18th century. A councilor, who traveled and studied the country on imperial orders, reported in 1751: "Almost all of Upper Carinthia is mixed with non-Catholic people." As a result, there were further expulsions of the "sectarians"; nevertheless, a comparatively high proportion of the population of Kleinkirchheim - as in other rural areas of Central and Upper Carinthia - has remained true to the Protestant creed.

Nocturnal sight of the Protestant church

In 1773 the Jesuit order was abolished by papal bull . Through the tolerance patent of Emperor Joseph II of 1781, Protestants and Jews in Austria received almost full equality with Catholics. Wherever 100 families or 400 people of their faith lived together, they were allowed to form a congregation, build houses of worship and schools and set up a cemetery. Since Kleinkirchheim did not meet this requirement - 228 Protestants lived in Kleinkirchheim in 1820 and 55 Protestants in St. Oswald - the community in Feld am See was initially affiliated with, and later Wiedweg became the parish responsible for Kleinkirchheim.

During this time, further reforms fell: serfdom was abolished, the land register patent was re-measured and taxed, the cadastral communities of Kleinkirchheim, Zirkitzen and St. Oswald were formed and the farmers were given free right of disposal over their property.

The French Wars

From the end of the 18th century, the consequences of the French Revolution were felt in Carinthia : Napoleon's coalition wars reached Carinthia for the first time in March 1797 and again in 1799 and 1805 after the Austrians had been defeated by the French. The wars had mainly economic consequences: inflation, war taxes and levies on the occupiers put a strain on the peasants. In the Peace of Schönbrunn , among other things, the western part of Carinthia fell to France in 1809, the border ran just a few kilometers east of Kleinkirchheim near Patergassen. A new kingdom under French rule, the Illyrian Provinces with the capital Laibach , was formed, which also included Kleinkirchheim. The place was assigned to the main community Feldkirchen , but received its own Mairie .

After the Wars of Liberation in 1813/14, Emperor Franz I put the Illyrian provinces back into the possession of the Austrian Empire with a patent dated July 23, 1814 . The old subservience as it existed before 1809 was not restored for Upper Carinthia. This meant that personal liberation from manorial rule, in particular the decree from all robot services that the French occupation had brought with it, continued to exist, even if this did not mean the end of material dependence on the landlords for the peasants.

March Revolution and Church Planting

The Viennese March Revolution of 1848 resulted in liberal and democratic changes, the peasants now also received complete personal and civic freedom through the abolition of all payments and taxes to their landlords. On March 4, 1849, Carinthia again became an independent crown land with its own state parliament and state government in Klagenfurt . On March 17th, the new Reichstag in Vienna passed a provisional municipal law, which resulted in the establishment of many municipalities in what is now Austria. In the course of this, the community of Kleinkirchheim was founded in 1850, and its dimensions have hardly changed to this day. Franz Ebner, who held this office for a total of 16 years, was elected first mayor.

With the reign of Franz Joseph I , who had ascended the imperial throne in December 1848, a lot changed for Kleinkirchheim as well: Religious freedom was confirmed as early as the beginning of 1849, and the formerly known "Old Catholics" could now call themselves followers of the "Evangelical Confession" . The gendarmerie was founded in June, but a local post did not exist until 1894. Kleinkirchheim was given its own post office in 1885, and until then Millstatt, 20 kilometers away, was the closest post office. In the same year a volunteer fire brigade was established in the village. On August 15, 1897, the savings and loan association was founded, from which the Raiffeisenkasse emerged in 1944.

Development into a health resort and vacation spot

St. Kathrein Chapel . In the foreground you can see the small brook that rises from the spring in the crypt.
Outside area of ​​the thermal bath "Sankt Kathrein"

The warm spring of Kleinkirchheim was discovered and used at the time the place was built. Wooden troughs were set up along the drain to catch the water. To protect the spring, the Millstatt Monastery built a chapel above it in 1492 and consecrated it to Saint Catherine (ancient Greek for "The Cleansing"). In the 17th century, next to the chapel, which has been preserved to this day and is located above today's thermal baths of the same name, “Sankt Kathrein” , a second spring was taken and led via wooden pipes into a “bath house” below the Kathrein church, where the water is heated and was filled in bathtubs. The oldest written mention of such a bathing establishment comes from the year 1670. A bathing regulation from 1762, which describes the use of the baths for a three-week spa stay, is around a hundred years younger. Bad Kathrein near Kleinkirchheim is advertised in an advertisement in the Klagenfurter Zeitung in 1831 and overnight stays are offered in different price ranges. The “Zum Badwirth” inn, as it was called in 1884, was probably the only larger accommodation facility in the town at the turn of the century before last.

In 1909 Hans Ronacher took over the bathhouse and instead built a new building with an attached hotel that could accommodate 50 guests. During these years a railway line ( “Area Valley Railway ), which should also run through the Kleinkirchheim Valley and would have meant a connection to Millstatt, was discussed. However, initial planning was interrupted by the First World War and was no longer taken up due to the ensuing economic crisis. The thermal bath was reopened in 1922 and investments in tourism continued in Kleinkirchheim. A tourist association was founded, which advertised the resort with a year-round brochure. From 1928 a post bus line was also set up from Spittal an der Drau via Radenthein to Bad Kleinkirchheim, which initially served this route once a day, from 1939 a second bus was used. On July 22, 1934, the thermal open-air swimming pool was put into operation and in 1936 the small community of 1100 inhabitants was able to offer 400 beds for guests. Due to the political circumstances and the Second World War , tourism then came to an almost complete standstill.

Extension and renovation of the Römerbad in 2007

After the war, the resumption of tourism was out of the question, especially since a storm in 1946 caused great damage in the valley. The roads were badly damaged by floods and mudslides, and for months it was only possible to reach Kleinkirchheim by horse-drawn carts. The road to Radenthein was completely rebuilt and cars could not use it again until 1949. This was followed by a renewal of the section to Patergassen. In 1954, a supply system was set up and house connections made in the village, which had previously only been supplied with electricity by the smallest hydroelectric power stations, as part of the KELAG electrification program . In the same year, work began on a community-wide water supply, the full development of which was not completed until the early 1980s.

In 1956/1957, a ski lift was put into operation in Kleinkirchheim, which at the time was also the longest in Carinthia at 620 meters, to attract ski tourists to the place. In the meantime, a network of slopes with a total length of over 100 kilometers and 26 lifts has developed in Bad Kleinkirchheim, almost all available slopes can now be artificially snowed in when there is not enough snow. In the 1960s, a thermal indoor pool was built in addition to the complete new construction of the facilities. In 1977 Kleinkirchheim was finally given the official designation “thermal baths” by the state government, and the community has been called Bad Kleinkirchheim since then. With the "Römerbad" a second thermal bath was opened in 1979. In 2007, the Römerbad was completely expanded and renovated to accommodate even more bathers.

Population development

year Residents
1869 915
1880 968
1890 970
1900 968
1910 1,062
1923 944
1934 1,055
year Residents
1939 1,043
1951 1,268
1961 1,352
1971 1,731
1981 1,783
1991 1,889
2001 1,863
Population development 1869–2001

The municipality is relatively sparsely populated with a population density of 24 inhabitants per km² (for comparison: Carinthia has 59, Austria 98 inhabitants per km²). While in the many small villages of the Nock region there has been a tendency towards emigration to the surrounding market towns and cities in the last hundred years, Bad Kleinkirchheim recorded steady population growth in the 20th century, so that the number of inhabitants almost doubled during this period. The period between 1910 and 1923 was an exception: During the First World War, 59 soldiers from Kleinkirchheim died, and after the war the magnesite mining on the Millstätter Alpe and the magnesite works in neighboring Radenthein induced some workers with their families to emigrate because it was at that time There was still no bus traffic that would have made commuting possible. When a regular line service started later, the workers stayed in their place of residence and the population continued to increase.

The strong increase in tourism from the mid-1950s is also reflected in the particularly high population growth in Bad Kleinkirchheim between the 1951 and 1971 censuses: Until the middle of the 20th century, the community was predominantly rural, but it continued in the following decades the steadily increasing tourism a radical structural change takes place. In 1951, 519 people were still working in agriculture and forestry; in 1991 there were only 44. In the hotel and catering trade, which consisted of only a few inns after the Second World War, the number of local employees rose to 300 in the same period. Today, the number of employees who work in the tourism industry in Bad Kleinkirchheim roughly corresponds to the number of residents.

Nationalities

93.4% of the residents of Bad Kleinkirchheim have Austrian citizenship. The largest proportion of the foreign population comes from Southeastern Europe (Yugoslavia 1.7%, Croatia 1.0%, Bosnia-Herzegovina 0.5%) and Germany (1.4%). 95.2% of the population name German, 1.8% Serbian and 1.0% Croatian as the colloquial language.

Religions

At the time of the 2001 census, 62.3% of the population professed the Roman Catholic , 30.8% the Protestant and 2.0% the Orthodox Church , 0.8% were of the Islamic faith and 3.5% had no religious beliefs. Thus a comparatively high proportion of people of Protestant faith lived in Bad Kleinkirchheim; For comparison: in Carinthia in 2001 10.3% and throughout Austria 4.7% of the population belonged to the Protestant Church.

coat of arms

Bad Kleinkirchheim CoA.svg

From 1960 onwards , the community had a picture of St. Catherine's Chapel in its seal , which, however, did not comply with the heraldic rules. Today's coat of arms was created by the Carinthian State Archives , and the coat of arms and flag of Kleinkirchheim was awarded on January 20, 1971 by the Carinthian State Government. The heraldic description of the coat of arms is as follows:

"In the split shield in front in green a golden late-Gothic church with a roof turret (Church of St. Catherine in the Bath) from the choir side, behind in blue a silver fountain bowl from which a silver fountain with two retrograde rays rises, the front of a golden ray sun and behind is covered by a silver snow crystal. In the black base of the shield, a winding, silver strand of healing water leads from the church to the fountain bowl. "

The Katharinenkapelle and the fountain bowl with the rising fountain symbolize the use of the thermal baths and bathing in Kleinkirchheim, sun and snowflakes represent year-round tourism.

The flag is black-yellow-green with an incorporated coat of arms.

politics

The municipal council has 15 members.

mayor

Culture and sights

Bodner House, 17th century, Maria Saal open-air museum
Stockmühle on the Oswaldibach
  • Catholic parish church Bad Kleinkirchheim hl. Ulrich: Presumably built around the turn of the millennium, it was first mentioned in a document in 1166. The originally Romanesque building, which was later renovated in the Gothic style, burned down in 1710 after a lightning strike; The present-day long building was built in its place by the Jesuits in the Baroque style. The subsidiary church of St. Katharina im Bade , usually referred to as St. Kathrein for short, is a late Gothic pilgrimage church, built around 1492 above the healing spring, the spring of which is located in the lower church. The third Catholic church building is the parish church of St. Oswald , built in its present form around 1510 in the late Gothic style. Five frescoes from 1514 are still preserved in it. The evangelical parish of the place belongs to the parish Wiedweg (parish Reichenau ). In 1938 the people of Kleinkirchheim built their own Evangelical Church , a simple wooden building based on a sketch by Switbert Lobisser .
  • Jakobskapelle: The Jakobskapelle, which serves as a funeral hall next to the parish church, was created in 2003 by the artists Armin Guerino and Tomas Hoke . The chapel, which was recognized by the state building award in 2004 and is a listed building, is divided into three parts, which is also visible in the materials: The ship-like assembly room made of oak is entered through a stainless steel gate. A glass cube, which symbolizes the heavenly Jerusalem, is attached to it, floating above the slope.
  • Evangelical Church Bad Kleinkirchheim
  • Farms: There are still numerous old farms in the community, for example the Egarter Hof in St. Oswald with a traditional grain box is worth seeing. These storage depots, called “Troadkåstn” in the Carinthian dialect , were always a bit away from the house and yard so as not to lose the food supplies in the event of a fire. Most of the storehouses still in existence date from the 17th or 18th century. The last ring farm in St. Oswald, the Bodnerhaus , built around 1620 , was demolished and rebuilt in the Maria Saal open-air museum .
  • Mills: In the past, every farm also had a small water mill (mostly stick mills ) on the neighboring stream. Some of these now mostly dilapidated or demolished mills have been rebuilt and are z. B. along the St. Oswalder Bach (Trattnig mill, Gatterer mill) to visit.

Sports

  • Skiing: With 2,000 members, by far the largest club is the Kleinkirchheim Ski Club, founded in 1947 . He trains racing skiers and has organized national and international competitions since the 1960s. Since 1978 races of the FIS Ski World Cup have been held in Bad Kleinkirchheim. The first winner in the downhill runs on March 11 and 12, 1978 was Annemarie Moser-Pröll . The last time the World Cup was in Bad Kleinkirchheim was in December 2007 with two men’s competitions and in January 2018 with two women’s competitions. From 2020, women's technology competitions will take place every 3 years in Bad Kleinkirchheim. To kick off, slalom and giant slalom will take place in winter 2020.

A 3,200 meter long, former World Cup piste (difference in altitude of 842 meters) with a gradient of up to 80% was known for a long time as " FIS K 70". The name indicates the original year of creation 1970. Until shortly after the turn of the millennium, this descent was nicknamed Franz Klammer , who was already a member of the local ski club when he was active. In 1971 the Austrian ski legend won his first European Cup downhill run on this Kirchheimer run, the beginning of a successful sports career for him. Today there is a new “Franz Klammer World Cup run” in Bad Kleinkirchheim, which replaces the old “FIS K 70” men's race track and the old “Strohsack” women's race track.

  • FC Raiffeisen Bad Kleinkirchheim, who played in 1st Class B of the Carinthian Football Association in the 2005/06 season.
  • Ice rifle round
  • Chess community
  • GolfClub Bad Kleinkirchheim Reichenau: The 60 hectare golf course is partly located in the municipality.
  • Tennis: Several hotels have places available for tennis players for their guests, and there is also a facility with a tennis hall in town, which is operated by the mountain railway company.
  • Downhill cycling: Since construction began in spring 2019 with funding from the federal government, the state and the EU, the mountain railways built 3 of 4 sections as of August 2019 and thus 11.4 km of "Europe's longest" Flow Country Trail. The 4 sections will overcome an altitude of 968 meters between the mountain and valley stations of the Kaiserburgbahn and a total of 15.9 km is planned, including a "Parcours" circuit.

Regular events

" When the music is playing " is a series of open air folk music events . The event, which has been taking place annually in Bad Kleinkirchheim since 1995, is one of the largest of its kind in German-speaking countries and regularly achieves high ratings with broadcasts on both Austrian and German television. Since 2003, an open air has been held at the valley station of the Kaiserburgbahn in winter too.

From 1910 to 1973 the “International Austrian Alpine Tour” was a run for the World Rally Championship. Following on from this tradition, the "Alpenfahrt Classic-Rallye" has taken place annually since 2002, starting and finishing in Bad Kleinkirchheim. Vehicles built between 1910 and 1973 are permitted for this purpose.

traffic

The only connecting road is the Kleinkirchheimer Straße (B 88) from Radenthein via Bad Kleinkirchheim to Patergassen . There are no direct traffic routes to the neighboring communities in the north and south. A 10 km long road leads north through the side valley and the villages of Staudach and St. Oswald, which ends just behind the Brunnachbahn.

On the B 88, the Postbus route 5140 of the ÖBB runs several times a day from Spittal via Radenthein to Patergassen. The closest train station is Spittal-Millstättersee, around 30 km away, and Klagenfurt Airport is around 50 km from Bad Kleinkirchheim.

Agriculture and Forestry

Alpine huts like these near the Brunnachbahn mountain station are now used for tourism

Due to the climate and the lime- and phosphorus-poor soil, only a small proportion of the municipal area is used for agriculture, with the proportion of cultivated areas, in particular fields and meadows, having been falling sharply for decades due to the decline in agriculture in favor of building land. The farmers mainly practice a so-called garden economy and use their fields alternately as grassland and arable land for three years. As a rule, oats are grown, then barley or potatoes, and in the third year winter rye. Since crop yields are low, most farmers have switched to cattle breeding. Above all, the Pinzgau cattle are bred, pigs and poultry are also kept. The alpine farming follows the trend of land cultivation and is steadily declining.

On the other hand, the forest, which is entirely privately owned, is being expanded. A mixed forest of spruce and larch grows in Bad Kleinkirchheim, with the latter predominating as the vegetation height increases. The tree line is at the Kaiserburg at around 1900  m above sea level. The farmers mostly cut themselves, for their own use or for sale, in the form of plenter felling, i.e. by removing individual ripe or overripe trees, as is common in so-called plenter forests .

Established businesses

year beds Overnight stays Cover *
1954 400 16,000 45
1961 600 70,000 150
1968 1,829 326,000  
1971 2,973 597,000 502
1981 6,565 929,000 1,033
1991 7,582 1,057,000 1,400
1997 7,808 928,000  
* Employees in the tourism sector
Development of tourism since 1954

Due to the tradition as a spa and climatic health resort and especially after the expansion of the infrastructure for alpine winter sports from the 1960s, the community is today largely geared towards tourism. According to the workplace census of May 15, 2001, 143 of the 263 resident companies and 694 of 1,156 local employees (60%) in Bad Kleinkirchheim were active in the hotel and restaurant sector, and another 38 companies or 106 employees in the commercial sector. In contrast, for example, there are only eight manufacturing companies with a total of 56 employees.

In addition to the St. Kathrein and Römerbad thermal baths, numerous hotels and pensions as well as a total of 26 lifts dominate the townscape of Bad Kleinkirchheim. There are two ski areas: The Kaiserburg / Maibrunn area, which belongs directly to Kleinkirchheim, with two valley stations in the village, and St. Oswald / Nockalm. The largest employer is the mountain railway company, which, in addition to the cable cars and lifts, also operates the two thermal baths and some leisure facilities.

The following gondola lifts have been built since 1977:

The first two mountain railways mentioned are in operation all year round, while the Nockalmbahn has only been in operation during the winter season for several years.

Bad Kleinkirchheim has around 900,000 overnight stays annually and in this regard was ranked 19th in Austria in winter and 18th in summer in 2000. This makes it one of the most popular holiday destinations and also one of the municipalities with the highest tax revenues per inhabitant .

education

The St. Oswald Kirchgasse - with three old school buildings at a glance.

In Kleinkirchheim there is a primary school with a total of six school classes today. Its beginnings go back to the 18th century, the current school building was built between 1966 and 1968. Before that, the students were taught in the former official building, which is more than 500 years old and now houses a hotel ( Kirchenwirt ), making it one of the oldest school buildings in Austria for a long time. In St. Oswald there was a single-class school from 1888, which was closed in 1972.

There are no secondary schools in Bad Kleinkirchheim, there is a secondary school in the neighboring municipality of Radenthein, grammar schools as well as vocational schools and universities in Spittal an der Drau.

Personalities

literature

  • Matthias Maierbrugger , Sepp Ortner: Bad Kleinkirchheim . Verlag Johannes Heyn, Klagenfurt 1998, ISBN 3-85366-891-7 .
  • Armin Pertl, Markus Pertl: Cultural hiking trail from Bad Kleinkirchheim to St. Oswald. Verlag Johannes Heyn, Klagenfurt 1990. ISBN 3-85366-654-X . [Culture guide, 96 pages with 64 z. Partly historical photos, with source directory]. Summary (4 DIN A4 pages): Bad Kleinkirchheim monument preservation: cultural hiking trail from St. Kathrein to St. Oswald. [available u. a. at the tourist office]

Web links

Commons : Bad Kleinkirchheim  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Bad Kleinkirchheim  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Maierbrugger 1998, p. 15
  2. Statistics Austria: Population on January 1st, 2020 by locality (area status on January 1st, 2020) , ( CSV )
  3. The section “History” essentially follows Maierbrugger 1998.
  4. a b c d Statistical information according to municipal data , as of 2001 census by Statistics Austria
  5. Carinthian state archive , StändA Urk. 603
  6. ^ Quoted from Wilhelm Deuer: Die Kärntner Gemeindewappen , p. 54. Verlag des Kärntner Landesarchiv, Klagenfurt 2006, ISBN 3-900531-64-1
  7. cf. Report in Die Brücke, No. 53, 2004/05, p. 43
  8. tomas hoke picture archive. Retrieved January 21, 2019 .
  9. Bad Kleinkirchheim ski club. Retrieved on January 21, 2019 (German).
  10. Sofia Goggia wins the women's downhill in Bad Kleinkirchheim. January 14, 2018, accessed January 21, 2019 .
  11. World Cup race for Bad Kleinkirchheim on ORF-Kärnten from November 9, 2018, accessed on November 10, 2018
  12. Europe's longest Flow Country Trail badkleinkirchheim.com, accessed August 13, 2019.
  13. Maierbrugger 1998, p. 177
  14. Bad Kleinkirchheimer Bergbahnen, Sport- u. Kuranlagen GmbH & Co. KG
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on July 2, 2006 in this version .