Birago barracks

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Entrance, Prinzlstrasse

The Birago-Kaserne is a barracks of the Austrian Armed Forces in Melk in Lower Austria. The barracks is named after the military technician Karl von Birago and houses the Pioneer Battalion 3 of the Austrian Armed Forces. Parts of the barracks are under monument protection .

history

The first plans for the barracks were made in 1909. The barracks were built in the last years before the First World War in 1912 and 1913 according to the plans of the architects Siegfried Theiss and Hans Jaksch . Both the provision of the land and the construction itself were carried out by the city of Melk, whose property the barracks remained until 1962.

During the Second World War , the third largest subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp , the Melk concentration camp , was located on the site. Between April 1944 and April 1945 , around 4,800 people were killed in the warehouse that was built for the underground production of the Steyr-Daimler-Puch works. A memorial outside the barracks commemorates this.

On October 12, 1956, the pioneers of the Federal Army of the Second Republic moved into the barracks.

In 1962 the barracks were sold to the Republic of Austria for 11 million schillings . At the same time Melk also became a garrison town .

In the course of the army reform, the Melk barracks was also threatened with closure, as there were no expansion options. However, this could be averted because Melk Abbey sold 7.5 hectares of land between the barracks and the West Autobahn to the armed forces. This made it possible to build additional halls and other necessary structures. The increase in the team was also announced at the time. This should be increased to three times the value, to 530 professional soldiers .

In 2008 Melk was expanded into a center for international pioneer missions by the armed forces. This is how the EUFOR operations in Chad took place from here .

architecture

The kk barracks on an old postcard

The building complex planned by the architects Theiss and Jaksch is V-shaped in the pavilion system and was built on the Kronbichl as an urban counterpoint to the Melk Abbey . The focus is on the officers' living quarters under a hipped roof, on top of which is a turret with a clock tower and platform. To the side of it stand the two elongated barracks that form the V with protruding, slightly elevated cross-bar risalites under hip roofs. A spacious barracks courtyard is enclosed with additional outbuildings.

See also

literature

  • Dehio manual. The art monuments of Austria: Lower Austria south of the Danube. Part 2. M - Z. Melk. Monumental buildings. Birago barracks. Bundesdenkmalamt (Ed.), Berger Verlag, Horn / Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85028-365-8 , pages 1418f.
  • 50 years of pioneers in Melk , commemorative publication by the Melk Pioneers Association in cooperation with the Kuratorium für Bezirkskunde

Web links

Commons : Birago-Kaserne  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Quartz Roggendorf: Quartz B9 Roggendorf. Retrieved November 8, 2017 .
  2. ↑ The Melk Memorial at Remember.at, accessed on May 12, 2015
  3. ^ Information from the municipality of Melk (PDF; 1.7 MB) from March 2008, accessed on March 27, 2009
  4. ^ Abbey rescues Melk barracks from June 7, 2006, accessed on March 27, 2009
  5. ↑ Expansion of the barracks in Melk and Güssing from January 17, 2009, accessed on March 27, 2009

Coordinates: 48 ° 13 ′ 19.9 ″  N , 15 ° 19 ′ 36.8 ″  E