Franzensfeste fortress

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Franzensfeste fortress

The Franzensfeste near the town of the same name in today's South Tyrol ( Italy ) was built between 1833 and 1838 under Emperor Ferdinand I and named after Emperor Franz I of Austria , the monarch in the planning phase. It should secure the important transalpine traffic connection through the Wipptal over the Brenner to the north.

history

Fortress, detail

In 1832, Major General Franz Scholl was commissioned with the design. The construction management was given to Lieutenant Colonel Karl von Martony and the captains Magdlich von Magddenau and Lazarus Manula. Depending on the season, between 3,500 and 4,600 men were working on the construction. The height area with caverns built in the rock was used to store ammunition and to coat the traffic routes with guns. The barracks were housed in the valley area. A covered "eternal staircase" built into the rock led with 433 steps from the valley works to the heights.

However, the building with its enclosed military stop ( train station ) remained unfinished and was never involved in warlike events. It was originally supposed to be armed with 90 guns and could accommodate a garrison of 1,000 men in the event of war . In peace, 70 soldiers were enough for the operation.

Bavarian troops occupied the fortress on November 7, 1918. However, they withdrew again on November 11, 1918.

After 1930, the Italian army built new, modern, small bunkers around the fortress to reinforce the barrier. In 1939 construction began on the Franzensfester reservoir , which was directly approaching the fortress . From 1940 a new underground fortress was built at nearby Ochsenbühel, which was supposed to replace the Franzensfeste. However, from 1942 onwards, the fortress construction was completely abandoned due to political developments. The German SS is said to have used the fortresses as a depot for looted property. There are rumors surrounding the fortress that gold was actually transported by the Italian National Bank during World War II .

As of July 19, 2008, the fortress was one of several venues for the European Biennale for Contemporary Art Manifesta7 .

From May 9th to October 30th, 2009 the state exhibition 2009 with the title Labyrinth :: Freedom took place in the fortress .

In 2013, the Italian state handed the fortress over to the property of the Province of South Tyrol, which had already secured the buildings and made them accessible to the public in 2007–2008. In 2017 the Franzensfeste was incorporated into the South Tyrolean provincial museums and in 2019 a concept for a new "historical-political course" was presented.

See also

literature

  • Christoph Hackelsberger : The kk Franzensfeste: a monumental work of fortification art of the 19th century. Berlin, Deutscher Kunstverlag 1986, ISBN 978-3-422-00795-6 .
  • Flavio Schimenti, Laura Facchinelli: Fortezza-Franzensfeste: The fortress, the railway, the village - La fortificazione, la ferrovia, il paese. Franzensfeste parish, Vahrn 1998.
  • Dario Massimo: The Franzensfeste. Verlag A. Weger, Brixen 2007, ISBN 978-88-88910-45-1 (with English translation; in German and Italian).
  • Josef Rohrer: The Franzensfeste: For an enemy who never came - the story of an imposing building. Office for Architectural and Art Monuments, Bolzano 2008. ( online )

Web links

Commons : Fortress Franzensfeste  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lexicon 1st World War ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Chronicle of the First World War. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lexikon-erster-weltkrieg.de
  2. ↑ Further information on the Manifesta7 website. Retrieved August 11, 2008 .
  3. ↑ Press release on Labyrinth :: Freedom. Retrieved August 21, 2009 .
  4. ^ Franzensfeste: Land is now the owner of the fortress. Press service of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol, December 18, 2013, accessed on May 17, 2014 .
  5. ^ Green light for Franzensfeste as the 10th State Museum. Südtirol Online , December 6, 2016, archived from the original on December 8, 2016 ; Retrieved July 7, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Make history a museum? New Südtiroler Tageszeitung , June 20, 2019, accessed on July 27, 2019 .

Coordinates: 46 ° 46 ′ 39.1 ″  N , 11 ° 37 ′ 48.3 ″  E