Café Griensteidl

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Café Griensteidl before 1897

The Café Griensteidl in Vienna , also known as “Café Großeswahn”, was a famous artist's pub in the late 19th century . The coffee house was on Michaelerplatz in the Palais Dietrichstein , opposite the old Burgtheater and the Hofburg .

1847–1897 the old Café Griensteidl

Café Griensteidl 1896, painting by Reinhold Völkel (1873–1938)
A photo for the magazine "The noble world"
The billiard room

The Café Griensteidl, opened in 1847 by the former pharmacist Heinrich Griensteidl, quickly became a meeting place for Viennese writers. In 1848, when it was a meeting place for politicians, the Griensteidl was temporarily renamed the National Café . Later personalities from Franz Grillparzer to Schönerer frequented here. The café was also the headquarters of the labor movement and its leaders, among others. a. Victor Adler and Friedrich Austerlitz .

It became particularly famous as the meeting point for the authors of Jung-Wien , who from the mid-1880s turned the café into their hangout, as well as a meeting place for the rival, conservative artist group Iduna . The writers who frequented here included Hermann Bahr , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Arthur Schnitzler , the young Rudolf Steiner and the young Karl Kraus . Stefan Zweig described the café in his memoir Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday) as the "headquarters of young literature".

In the course of the redesign of Michaelerplatz, the demolition of the Palais Dietrichstein began in January 1897 , in which the café (always at Herrengasse  3 or 1-3) was located, and the owner of the coffee house, Susanna Griensteidl († October 20, 1899) , Age: 73; widow after the founder Heinrich Griensteidl, † 1888), closed the business at the end of January 20, 1897 - not without the announcement that it would reopen after the renovation was completed. Karl Kraus used the occasion to settle accounts with the cafeteria literati of Young Vienna in an essay entitled The demolished literature . On January 25, 1897, the illustrated Wiener Extrablatt read: “The loyal regulars celebrated the downfall of the local with a great funeral feast (...) After midnight, all supplies of food and drink were exhausted and only slaps were given. Otherwise the atmosphere was fantastic (...) ” . Felix Salten Kraus had missed the slap in the face for a passage in demolished literature , which Schnitzler noted in his diary with the words: "Yesterday evening Salten slapped little Kraus in the coffee house, which was greeted with joy by everyone (...)" .

After the end of the Griensteidl, many of the artists who had frequented there moved to the Café Central .

Artists who frequented the old Café Griensteidl

From 1898: Reopening of the Griensteidl

On November 8, 1898, Café Griensteidl was reopened in the newly built Palais Herberstein (architect: Carl König ) by the café animal Rudolf Glattauer, who had previously worked in Café Korb , among other things . The new owner was Susanne Schüßwald. The previous owner, Susanna Griensteidl, protested against using her name again for the new restaurant, but was unsuccessful. However, the Griensteidl was no longer a literary café. In 1903 Arpad Reil bought the restaurant and renamed it Café Reil . Increasing rents and missing guests finally drove Reil into bankruptcy, on October 29, 1909 the café had to be finally closed, interior walls were put in and the rooms were used as business premises. Raoul Auernheimer wrote in a feature section about the closure in the Neue Freie Presse :

“As Griensteidl, it is definitely dead. Because it loses its place, and its place is everything, especially in Vienna, the obvious city where all institutions are only valid as long as they are based on a familiar and popular background Bear name. Such a background was the Michaelerplatz, such a name Griensteidl. That it has not corresponded to reality for a number of years is of little consequence; that's usually the case with popular names. The main thing is that we associate a certain idea with it. (...) But now it is dying, it seems, forever. "

1990–2017: the new Café Griensteidl - and afterwards

The new Café Griensteidl

In 1990 a Café Griensteidl was reopened in Palais Herberstein. The address was Michaelerplatz 2. It was run by the catering company Do & Co and shut down in June 2017 because the house owner had prepared a different use for the rooms. The former Griensteidl was first reopened as Rien with a mixture of bar, gallery and design shop, later as Café Klimt as a classic coffee house including a souvenir shop. The café was closed at the end of March 2019.In December 2019, a bag shop opened instead and a branch of the supermarket chain Billa opened in August 2020 , which tried to integrate the historical into its market.

A tradition at the turn of the century was that in disputed cases of doubt of knowledge, the waiter was asked for the corresponding edition of Brockhaus , which he then brought to the table. This tradition was alive again in 1990–2017, in a bookcase opposite the entrance there was an edition from around 1900 and a more recent one.

literature

  • Michael Horvath, Fritz Panzer (ed.): Extended living room. Life in a Viennese coffee house . Buchkultur Verlags-Gesellschaft, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-9010-5203-8 , ( Edition Buchkultur ).
  • Harold Segel (Ed.): The Vienna Coffeehouse Wits, 1890-1938 . Purdue University Press, West Lafayette IN 1993, ISBN 1-55753-033-5 .
  • Felix Czeike (Ed.): Historisches Lexikon Wien . Volume 1, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-218-00543-4 , p. 535.
  • Béatrice Gonzalés-Vangell: "Kaddish et Renaissance". : a Shoah dans les romans viennois (1991 - 2001) de Robert Schindel, Robert Menasse et Doron Rabinovici. Cultures, identités et territoires des pays de langue allemande contemporaine . Septentrion, Villeneuve-d'Ascq 2005, ISBN 2-85939-900-3 , (Also: Paris, Univ. Paris 12, Diss., 2002: Cultures, identités et territoires des pays de langue allemande contemporaine ).
  • Michael Rössner (ed.): Literary coffee houses. Coffeehouse literary figures. Böhlau, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-205-98630-X .

Web links

Commons : Café Griensteidl  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Zweig: The world of yesterday. Memories of a European (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1986), 64.
  2. ↑ Local report. An old Viennese coffee house. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 11641/1897, January 19, 1897, p. 7, column 1. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp;
    Sweep. The last hours of the Café Griensteidl. In:  Neues Wiener Journal , No. 1166/1897, January 21, 1897, p. 6, column 2. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nwj.
  3. ^ Susanna Griensteidl:  To my esteemed guests !. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 11639/1897, January 17, 1897, p. 15, column 3. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  4. ↑ opening advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung on November 8, 1898
  5. ^ Opening report in the Monday newspaper of November 14, 1898
  6. ^ Note about the protest by Susanna Griensteidl in the Neue Wiener Tagblatt of November 11, 1898
  7. ^ Report in the extra post of November 14, 1898
  8. ↑ "Griensteidl-Poesie" , feature section in the Prager Tagblatt of December 13, 1898
  9. ↑ Report on the Neuübernahme photos in Austria Illustrierte Zeitung from August 9, 1903
  10. ^ Report on the closure in the Neue Wiener Tagblatt from October 29, 1909
  11. ^ Bankruptcy proceedings against Reil in the Neue Wiener Journal of October 29, 1909
  12. ^ Takeover of the business , note in the Salzburger Volksblatt of October 27, 1909
  13. ^ Features by Raoul Auernheimer in the Neue Freie Presse on October 31, 1909
  14. ↑ derStandard.at: Café Griensteidl closes its doors: 33 employees affected . Article dated June 26, 2017, accessed June 27, 2017.
  15. ↑ derStandard.at: Former Viennese Griensteidl reopened as Café Klimt . Article dated February 26, 2018, accessed February 27, 2018.
  16. ↑ orf.at: Cafe Griensteidl becomes a Billa branch . Article dated February 21, 2019, accessed February 21, 2019.
  17. ↑ Cafe Griensteidl is now a department store on ORF from August 21, 2020 accessed on August 21, 2020

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 29.7 ″  N , 16 ° 21 ′ 58 ″  E