History of Leoben
Early history
Individual finds from the Neolithic Age show that the area around Leoben was already populated at that time. Among other things, two stone hammers were found in Leoben-Mühltal. A Hallstatt burial ground ( stone boxes ) from the first millennium BC was also discovered in the Hinterberg district. Settlements on the Häuselberg and on the Kulm near Trofaiach from the Urnfield period give evidence of human settlement.
The reason for this is likely the ore mining in the Grauwackenzone , especially the copper mining in the Eisenerzer Alps in the first millennium BC. BC and before, as well as its processing. Tool finds of a blacksmith from the Bronze Age were made near Leoben-Nennersdorf. In the third century BC, Celtic tribes immigrated to the Eastern Alps. They founded around 200 BC Under the leadership of the Noriker the Kingdom of Noricum with the capital Noreia .
Roman times and the Great Migration
15 BC Noricum became part of the Roman Empire, initially as a tributary principality , and in 40 AD as a Roman province. The area of Leoben became part of the administrative district of Flavia Solva . The ore mountain was used by the Romans to extract iron, as is shown by finds from Roman times near iron ore . There was probably a Roman road through the Vordernbergertal to the area of Bruck an der Mur and from there on to Flavia Solva. In 1926 part of this road was found near Friedauwerk near Vordernberg . This traffic route connected Flavia Solva with the Noric main road from Ovilava (Wels) to Aquileia (near Grado).
A Roman provincial settlement may have existed in the Leoben area. In 1858 a Roman grave temple was found in Leoben-Donawitz in the creek bed of the Vordernbergerbach. Today it is in the Joanneum in the Eggenberger Schlosspark in Graz . Furthermore, a Roman stonemason named VERVICIUS was the first “Leobner” to be immortalized in a crevice on the lowland near Donawitz, which suggests the presence of the Romans in the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD.
In the course of the Great Migration , the Romans were forced to leave Noricum in 488 AD. In the 5th century Germanic tribes crossed the country, including the Lombards .
When the Lombards withdrew to Italy in 568 , the onslaught of the Avars from Pannonia led to an escape movement of the Slavic Slovenes (Carantans) in the 6th century , which the German Bavarians called Wenden or Winden (from Winidi = the grazing because these were a shepherd people) were designated.
There was a relatively thin Slavic settlement in the Alpine areas. The Slavic principality of Carantania was formed. Since the threat from the Avars remained, the Carantans asked the Bavarians for help. In 772, Carantania was incorporated into the Duchy of Bavaria . In the course of the destruction of the Avar Empire and the incorporation of Bavaria and the Alpine regions into the Frankish Empire , more and more Bavarian settlers came to the region south of the Alps, and Christian missionaries from Salzburg came with them ; these settlers gradually mingled with the carantans in the eastern Alps . There was probably a mixed population until the 11th century, before the Slavic population was absorbed into the majority of the Bavarians.
Traces of the Slavic population have been preserved in place names and names of locations in the Leoben area. Among others, Donawitz von Tuna (puddle), Jassing von jasenica (ash), Göss von gostnica (hostel), the Windischberg near Leoben and Windischbühel in the municipality of Gai .
Origin of name and market Liuben
The first mention of the name "Liupina" can be found in a deed of donation from King Ludwig the Child to Count Aribo II. , Count of Göss-Schladnitz, in the year 904. In this deed, Count Aribo was given an area of 20 royal caves (corresponds to approx 800–1000 hectares) at the village of Zlatina (Schladnitz) or at Costenica (Göss), with an estate that was located at the mouth of the Schladnitzbach in the Mur .
The carantanic name Liupina did not refer to a place, but as Liupinatal ("lovely valley") to the Vordernbergertal from the Mur up to the area of Vordernberg or the valley of the Vordernbergerbach, which was called "Lewben". This later became the name "Liuben", "Leuben", and finally Leoben, which is still used today in the name of the valley between Hafning and Friedauwerk near Vordernberg, "In der Loiben". The name is derived from the Slavic Lijub, which means as much as dear, lovely. Another documentary mention from 982 refers to a Salzburg manor in Trofaiach as "Liupina".
It is not known when exactly Liupina came into being or when it became the seat of the county. In 1004 the Count Palatine Aribo I and his wife Adula founded the Göss Monastery . On May 1, 1020, the foundation of the monastery was confirmed by Emperor Heinrich II . The Göss Benedictine Abbey was the oldest monastery in Styria until it was abolished by Emperor Joseph II in 1782 .
In 1149 and 1170, "Sancta Maria Liuben", Maria am Waasen, later the Waas Church, was mentioned for the first time. Also in 1149 the first time in the form of a witness signature of a Herrant de Tunuize Donawitz was mentioned as "Tunuize". The Jakobskirche is mentioned for the first time in 1188, but the church is likely to have existed earlier.
A settlement under the name "Forum Liuben" was first mentioned in 1173, this was an unpaved place around the Jakobskirche at the foot of the Maßenberg. At that time, this place was already known as a storage area for the “Leubener Eisen”.
In 1218 a judge was mentioned for the first time as "Judex de Leuben". In 1227 Ulrich von Liechtenstein stayed in the market settlement of Leoben, where he disguised as Queen Venus took part in several tournaments, as he proclaimed in his work " Frauendienst ":
Ze Leuben I ride al zehan,
because I wol zweinzic knight vant
In min hostel I ride duo
da what I biz of the morning fruo, of
the morning, do diu sunne uf gie,
in the gazzen there and here
I hear holerfloyten don,
I do the knights have already moved to
daz velt zimirt:
ir wapenkleit was lent gevar.
Zehant I wapen began
in wapenkleit wiz as a swan.
City foundation and city fortification
From 1261, under King Ottokar II, the place was moved northwards for political and military reasons to its current location in the “Murschleife”, near the confluence of the Vordernbergerbach, the “Leuben”, into the Mur. The town charter was also granted during this period . The city was built in a rectangular shape around a 32 m wide and 180 m long north-south rectangular marketplace with four double-row blocks of houses.
Due to its location, the city had a natural protection. It was protected on three sides by the Mur . In addition, the city received a fortification wall with defensive towers, which were secured at the four corners with larger defensive structures. Their protection was given to the noble families of Timmersdorfer, Krottendorfer and Saurau as well as to the Dominican order .
The Dominican monastery was built from 1262 to 1280 on the so-called "Grünberg", later Stadtbühel, in the northeast corner of the city, the Dominikanereck, which existed until 1811. To the south of it was the Winkelelfeldtor as access to the Winkelelfeld on the other side of the Mur, also in a loop of the Mur.
In the south-east corner, the Sauraueck, the first older princely castle was built. It was handed over to the Saurau family around 1400 as an inheritance and named after them as the "Saurauhaus". Adjacent to the west, the Jakobsturm was built as a gate tower with the so-called "Bruckertor", from where the road from Bruck an der Mur to Leoben led. The Saurauhaus was demolished in 1870, the Jakobsturm in 1841.
In the south-west corner, the Krottendorfereck, the later so-called Freimannsturm was built, which has been preserved to this day with its ancillary buildings, the “Krottendorferhaus”. In 1293 the tower and its buildings were handed over to the Krottendorf family as an inheritance before it served as a prison and residence of the executioner in the 16th century. To the south of it was the moat. Further south, the Maßenburg was built as additional protection on the Maßenberg, at the foot of which is the Jakobskirche.
North of the Krottendorfereck, protected by a kennel, the Rechentor or Johannestor was built, from where the road from Göss leads into the city. To the north of this, the toll tower was built around 1280 towards the center of the city, later known as the "Schwammerlturm", where the road from the west leads over the Waasenvorstadt and the Waasenbrücke into the city. The tower was renovated in 1512, rebuilt in 1615 by Peter Carlone and given a pointed roof, which collapsed in the earthquake of 1794, whereupon the tower was given a mushroom-shaped roof.
To the north was the northwest corner of the city, the so-called Timmersdorfereck. The fortifications built there were handed over to the Timmersdorfer family. In 1418 the building was sold to the sovereign. It was then rebuilt into the new princely city castle. In 1613 it became the College of the Jesuits , in 1811 a high school, and in 1972 it was demolished; only the east wing remained. Today it houses the museum . Another moat was built north of it. To the east of it the Josephsturm was built. The Josephsfeld was to the north.
Late Middle Ages
1314 is the first mention as iron trading place ("Raueisenverlagsort"). In that year Duke Friedrich der Schöne Leoben transferred the sole publishing and commercial rights for the pig iron produced in Vordernberg .
In 1370, a donation from the citizens Heinrich and Dietrich Pierer began with the construction of the first hospital in Leoben, which was completed in 1372, the citizen's hospital with the chapel of St. Elisabeth, which was used until the 19th century. It was located near the bridgehead of the Waasen Bridge. In 1574 a coat of arms painting was attached to the northern facade of the building, which was renovated in 1983; this part of the building is still preserved today as a tenement house.
The citizen's hospital served as a forerunner of a retirement or nursing home, mainly for the reception of wealthy citizens. Destitute citizens were housed in a poor or infirmary attached to the citizens' hospital, which was converted into the first public hospital in Leoben in 1805. It held this function from 1806–1867, after which it became a tenement house. In 1958 the building of the former poor house was demolished.
In 1396 a Jewish community and a Jewish judge, who mediated in disputes between the citizens of the city and the Jewish community, were first mentioned in Leoben; until the expulsion of the Jews from Leoben in 1496, the community existed on the Winkelfeld (Judendorf) east of the city.
In the second half of the 15th century the defective fortifications of the city wall were repaired or strengthened. This proved its worth in 1480 when the invading Turks tried to storm Leoben, but this failed.
An attack on the Göss monastery by the Turks also failed, especially through the flood of the Mur, which was considered a miracle at the time. The monastery was then provided with the weir system, which largely still exists today.
Also in 1480 the “Waasenvorstadt” in the west was set on fire during the Turkish storm, and the local church “Maria am Waasen” also fell victim to the fire. In 1485 the old town hall was built on the main square, the five-sided corner tower was built in 1568; In 1607 it was expanded. It served as the seat of the city administration until 1973 .
Reformation and Counter Reformation
The teaching of Martin Luther and the German peasant uprising of 1525 also had an impact on Styria .
During the turmoil of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation , the city (in 1525, Leoben became the headquarters of the sovereign troops under Count Niklas Salm ) served as an important base for suppressing the miners' uprising in the Ennstal and around Schladming .
Due to the rising iron trade, the Roman-German King and later Emperor Ferdinand I granted the City Council of Leoben the privilege of electing a mayor on January 24, 1541 . On March 3, 1541, Wolfgang Donnersperger was elected the first mayor of Leoben by the city council.
Nevertheless, after 1540, Martin Luther's teaching became widespread. The town's citizenship became almost exclusively Protestant. In 1572, at the Bruck parliamentary committee, the Augsburg Confession was officially recognized , but this only lasted until 1600. In that year the re-Catholicization began.
In 1613 the Jesuits came to Leoben, Ferdinand II gave them the prince's castle and the Johannes Church as a grammar school. In 1637 they founded a chapel in the north of the Josephsfeld, the "Josepheum" (eponymous for the later district of Josefee), and a boarding school, the Josephshof. The Jesuit order founded a branch in Leoben and built the church of St. Xavier in 1660–1665 .
In 1689 the order of the Capuchins came to Leoben. Through a donation from Maria von Thesalon, they built a monastery with the order church of St. Anthony of Padua near the Annaberges at the former Schallauzerhof, which existed until the monastery was abolished in 1809; today the LKH Leoben is located there.
From the 18th century to the French Wars
The last time the plague struck Leoben in 1716 . Starting from the Etschmeyerhof near Nennersdorf, where eight people were killed by the disease within a few weeks, the epidemic spread almost over the entire city. The Waasenvorstadt was an exception. The citizens of the suburb of Waasen donated a votive picture, which is in the Waasenkirche.
The death register of St. Jakob recorded 81 deaths that were caused by the epidemic. In 1718 the Trinity Column was erected on the main square by Johann Jacob Schoy as a plague column as a gratitude for the citizens of the city for the extinction of the epidemic.
In 1773 Pope Clement XIV abolished the Jesuit order. In that year, the Leoben Jesuit College was also closed.
In 1782 the Göss Monastery was abolished by Joseph II.
In 1794, Leoben was hit by an earthquake . Several buildings were damaged. The pointed roof of the toll tower, newly built in 1615, also had to be removed; it was now given a mushroom-shaped roof.
In 1797 French and Austrian embassies met in Leoben. There, joined Napoleon and the representative of Austria in the garden house near the St. Jacob's Church of Baron Joseph Thaddeus Eggen forest the preliminary peace of Leoben . In 1805 the city was occupied by the French passing through .
The Leoben General Hospital was also founded in 1805. Until then, wealthy citizens were admitted to the citizens 'hospital founded at the end of the 14th century, while the poor citizens were housed in the infirmary or poor house in the back of the citizens' hospital.
The infirmary of the citizen's hospital was outsourced and a hospital was set up, which was also open to non-wealthy citizens and non-locals. Commissioning took place in 1806.
From approx. 1782 to 1859 the city was the center of the diocese of Leoben and thus the bishopric. In 1859 it was merged with the Graz-Seckau diocese .
In 1811 the parish was transferred from the St. Jacob's Church to the St. Xaver Church. In the same year the Dominican monastery was abolished. The former Dominican monastery was used as an apartment for clergymen and parsonage for the St. Xaver Church until 1854 and as the town's secondary school, then as an army depot, salt depot and grain store, until the building was rebuilt in 1856 and 1870 and was the seat of the district court , Public Prosecutor's Office as well as Prison was. It held this function until the opening of the new Justice Center in Leoben in 2005. Since October 2007, after extensive expansion and renovation, it has served as the LCS ( Leoben City Shopping ) shopping center .
Economic development and urban expansion in the 19th century
During the 19th century there was a slow but steady development. The following events, among others, testify to this:
In 1837 Franz Mayr built the first steel and puddling plant in Styria in Leoben-Donawitz , the so-called "Franzenshütte". The work was expanded by his sons.
In 1843 the building of the old academy was erected, in which the Montanistische Staatslehranstalt was housed. It was founded at the instigation of Archduke Johann in Vordernberg in 1840, and moved from Vordernberg to Leoben in 1849. Peter von Tunner became the first director .
In 1846 the foundation stone was laid and construction of the Redemptorist Church began by the Redemptorists , whose hospice in Leoben had existed since 1834. In 1848 the order was canceled, which resulted in an interruption of construction and the expulsion of the Redemptorists from Leoben. The construction of the monastery church and the Redemptorist college could only be continued after the return of the order in 1853 and completed in 1854.
In 1847 the southern city walls were torn down. The moat was leveled and planted with chestnuts. The city park, today's Glacis, was created.
In 1849 the mining school was relocated from Vordernberg to Leoben. This educational institution was the predecessor of the Montan University . In 1850 the Chamber of Commerce and Industry was founded.
In the course of the administrative reform of 1850, the cadastral parishes were combined into four local parishes:
- Mühltal and Nennersdorf to the municipality of Waltenbach,
- Gössgraben, Prettach and Schladnitz to the municipality of Göss,
- Judendorf and Leitendorf to the municipality of Donawitz.
- The city center with the Waasenvorstadt to the municipality of Leoben.
The four newly founded municipalities each received their own mayor. Moritz Freiherr von Schönowitz (1850–1856) became mayor of Leoben. During his tenure, the city was expanded; so the northern city wall and the Josephsturm were torn down.
In 1860, the Galician master brewer Max Kober acquired parts of the former Göss monastery and founded the Göss brewery there .
In 1861 the Montanistische Lehranstalt was elevated to a mining academy.
Since the capacities of the general hospital at the Bürgerspital were getting smaller and smaller, the hospital was relocated to the twice as spacious Josephshof in 1867. In 1872 the hospital was placed under the supervision of the State of Styria and declared a state hospital.
The Josephshof was founded in 1637 as a boarding school for the Jesuits. After the order was dissolved, it became a military education camp, later a military hospital, from 1867 to 1889 as the Josefee Spital Hospital in Leoben. From 1889 onwards it was used as a tenement house before it was demolished in 1973. In its place is the Erich Schmidt Institute.
In 1868 Leoben was connected to the railway network. A train station was built as well as a wooden bridge over the Mur and a road through Josephsfeld, which connects the train station in the Donawitz community with the city. Towards the end of the 19th century, the agricultural Josephsfeld was provided with new buildings as planned. The Josefee district emerged as the so-called “Neustadt”.
From 1881 there was a further economic boom through the industrial extraction of bright coal in the Seegraben mining industry . The first coal discoveries on the Munzenberg were already in 1606. More extensive mining on the Munzenberg took place in 1726 by the Councilor Caspar von Lierwald. The mining of the shiny coal in the northern part of the Seegraben, in the Guardian Angel Building, began in 1811 under Franz von Eggenwald. The development of the southern Drasche or Warting mine did not take place until 1836. From 1881 mining was taken over by the Austrian Alpine Mining Society (Schutzengelbau 1881, Münzenberg 1882 and Draschebau 1900).
Also in 1881, the Oesterreichische Alpine Montangesellschaft was founded through the merger of the iron and steel works in Leoben-Donawitz and the Styrian and Carinthian steelworks.
The construction of the gas works and gas lighting in large parts of Leoben took place in 1884.
Since the city was repeatedly hit by epidemics, B. in 1885 due to a leaf epidemic, which was difficult to combat due to the lack of an isolation house, as well as due to the overcrowding of the Josefeespital caused by the increase in population, a new building for the State Hospital Leoben was necessary.
In 1887, Crown Princess Stephanie laid the foundation stone on the site of the former Capuchin monastery and factorier building for the Stephanie Hospital named after her, which was completed by 1889 and from which the LKH Leoben developed after 1945.
Also in 1887, after the church yards of the Waasenkirche and St. Jacob's Church had been dissolved, the central cemetery was built in the area of what is now the Lerchenfeld district.
In 1889, after a strike by miners, the eight-hour day was first introduced in Austria in the Seegraben mining industry.
In 1893, the pig iron ore process in the Siemens-Martin furnace was introduced in the Donawitz smelter as the first smelter in Europe .
In 1895 the wooden Waasenbrücke was dismantled and replaced with a new one; at that time it also received the steel structure that still exists today.
From the 20th century to the present
In 1902 the largest blast furnace in Europe was built in Donawitz with a daily capacity of 300 tons. In 1905 the city school was built. Also in 1905 the Krempl power station went into operation, which was built in place of the Jesuit mill at the foot of the Stadtbühel. The first electric street lighting was put into operation as early as 1906.
In 1904 the Bergakademie was converted into a Montanistische Hochschule with the right to award academic titles.
In 1908 the Evangelical Gustav Adolf Church was built.
From 1908–1910 the building of the Montan University Leoben was built.
In the first half of the 20th century, too, numerous companies were able to establish themselves in Leoben.
In 1911, a pulp mill was founded in Leoben Hinterberg, which was in operation until the second half of the 20th century.
From 1923–1927, the Pestalozzi secondary school was built under the Donawitz mayor Josef Heissl. In 1928 the bridge that still exists today was opened in place of the wooden station bridge.
1930 saw the completion of the Zahlbrucknerschacht as the main shaft in the Munzenberg district of the Seegraben mining industry. The Seegraben mining industry covered a third of Austria's coal requirements around 1930.
On February 19, 1934, the death sentence against the socialist labor leader Koloman Wallisch was carried out in the prison in Leoben . Also in 1934, Leoben became one of the bloodiest theaters of civil war in Austria during the fighting in the July coup .
In 1937 the community of Göss was surveyed and in the same year the community of Donawitz was surveyed.
In 1939, the two previously independent communities of Göss and Donawitz were incorporated, which almost doubled the area of the urban area.
Leoben was largely spared from the destruction of the Second World War. There was only one air raid in 1944 on the isolation building of the factory hospital in Donawitz, which killed 20 people.
In 1951, Mayr-Melnhof Holz Leoben GmbH was founded by Franz Mayr-Melnhof in Göss as a sawmill and wood wholesaler.
In 1953, the LD process , invented in 1952, was introduced in the Donawitz ironworks .
Economic difficulties arose in the 1960s (the Seegraben coal mine was closed in 1964. It was the oldest bright coal mine in Austria from 1606 to March 28, 1964). During the second half of the 20th century, the Montanist University was expanded to the north. Among other things, the Erich Schmidt Institute was built between 1973 and 1976 in place of the Josephshof.
In 1972 the former old grammar school was torn down except for the east wing, where the city's museum is located. The new town hall was built in its place. It has been the seat of the city administration since 1973. In 1975 the Montanistic University was renamed the Montanuniversität Leoben. In 1978 the current LKH Leoben was rebuilt in place of the Stephanie Hospital
In the 1980s there was another economic crisis due to restrictions in the iron and steel industry in the Donawitz smelter. This economic crisis and the emigration it caused (in 1961 the population was still 36,251, so by 2001 there was a decrease to 25,804 inhabitants, roughly the number of 1900 inhabitants) led to a reorientation in new economic directions.
Since 1982, Leoben-Hinterberg has been the headquarters and main factory of the AT&S circuit board factory . The company now has plants in China , India and Korea . It is the market leader in Europe and India and one of the leading printed circuit board manufacturers worldwide.
In 1997 the city's main square was redesigned and a congress center was set up. In the same year, on the occasion of the Styrian state exhibition, an exhibition center was set up with annually changing exhibitions on ethnological topics.
The new Leoben municipal power station was opened in summer 2006. The new building had become necessary because the Krempl power plant from 1905 could no longer meet the energy capacities required by the growing city.
In March 2005 the new Justice Center Leoben was opened. The location of the old justice center, the former Dominican monastery, as well as the adjacent buildings and the area of the former bus station were converted into the Leoben City Shopping LCS as of May 15, 2006 ; which opened in October 2007.
In May 2008, the Asia Spa thermal and leisure pool was opened on a former sports ground .
These and other measures are intended to set new economic impulses for the city of Leoben in order to increase the economic value of the location and to counteract migration.
literature
- Rudolf List: The Bergstadt Leoben (ca.1948)
- Günther Jontes: Leoben, Die Alte Bergstadt ISBN 3-900662-20-7
- Herwig Ebner: Castles and palaces in Styria, Mürz Valley and Leoben ISBN 3-85030-039-0