History of the Vienna Woods
The history of the Vienna Woods is part of the history of Lower Austria , namely that of the Vienna Woods region .
Geological times
From the late Jurassic to the Cretaceous to the Eocene - that is, the period from about 150 to 50 million years ago, after the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea , the Vienna Woods were part of the Tethys and its European fringes of the western Paratethys . At this time, the sandstone and flysch zone formed in the north , and the northern limestone Alps gradually rose from the sea in the south and west, due to the collision of the African and European plates . The mountains of the Vienna Woods such as thePeilstein or the Buchberg near Alland , formed the shallows of this primordial ocean until 50 million years ago , which is why marine fossils such as ammonites , mussels , shark teeth and snails can still be found in the rock.
Early and ancient times
In the Neolithic with its ceramic band culture , it was here as early as 5000 BC. BC (and thus up to 2000 years before the rest of Europe) the sedentary lifestyle prevailed. The Bernsteinstrasse brought products from northern and southern Europe to the area of the rivers Liesing , Schwechat and Triesting .
Around 200 BC Under the leadership of the Noriker and the influence of the Romans, thirteen tribes united to form the first and only Celtic state. The Vienna Woods were thus part of the Kingdom of Noricum . The capital of the Regnum Noricum was Noreia , whose exact location is believed to be in the area around Neumarkt in Styria or in Sankt Veit an der Glan in Carinthia . At 8 BC The Vienna Woods became part of the Balkan Province of Illyricum of the Roman Empire.
To 10 n. Chr. The area under was Augustus the newly created, independent province Pannonia slammed, wherein the west border Roman province Noricum along the watershed of the Vienna Woods over the Cetius Mons , the present Gerichtsberg proceeded. The seat of governor of the undivided Pannonia remains in the dark, but there are preferences for Poetovio . In the year 103 or 106, under Emperor Trajan , the area came to Upper Pannonia (Pannonia superior) in the course of the division of Pannonia with the center in Carnuntum , which received 120 municipal statute. Around 200 Septimius Severus founded Vindobona ( Vienna ), which became a municipality under Caracalla in 212 . Aquae , today's Baden , gained importance as a military health resort of the garrisons Vindobona and Carnuntum. Around 300, through Diocletian's administrative reform , there were finally four provincial parts: Pannonia prima, Pannonia secunda, Savia and Valeria.
In 330 Emperor Constantine settled Vandals in Pannonia. In 378 the Alans , Goths and probably also some Huns settled as federates - as a result of the defeat of the Romans at Adrianople - in today's Vienna Woods. The Huns ruled the country from 410 onwards. With the Danube Limes the Roman administration finally collapsed in the course of the 5th century. Pannonia prima had to be abandoned in 433. Aëtius , general of West Rome , officially left the area to the Hun prince Rua . As a result, Marcomanni settled the land around Alland under Hunnic rule . In 451 Attila , the king of the Huns, traveled through Pannonia with his army on the way to his defeat in the Catalaunian fields .
Around 454, the Ostrogoths received areas in the Vienna Woods from Emperor Marcianus after the battle of the Nedao (Leitha). About 472 the Ostrogoths withdrew to the west. The migration of peoples brought Skiren , Heruler , Rugier and Sueben to the Vienna Woods.
middle Ages
Around 493, however, parts of Pannonia were again under the rule of the Ostrogoths under King Theodoric , who were pushed onto the Apennine Peninsula by the Lombards under King Wacho , who in turn were defeated by the Franks and Avars in 568 .
The Bavarians were able to extend their sphere of influence into the Vienna Woods by 660 , but were constantly threatened by Avar invasions. The Vienna Woods were at times part of the Avar Empire, the traces of which can be found as far as Upper Austria.
According to tradition, Alland already had a wooden church in the 8th century, which was built in stone in the 11th century.
In 788 the Bavarians were finally incorporated into the empire of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne and in what is now Lower Austria the Avarmark (from 856 Marchia Orientalis ) was established as a border march against the Avars. The last Bavarian tribal duke Tassilo III. , who had received his fiefdom from Pippin the Younger in 757 , tried in vain to save independence through an alliance with the Lombards . Karlmann , the great-grandson of Charlemagne , founded a palace in Baden . In the Frankish empire there was no permanent capital, but the rulers moved through the country. Instead, there were Pfalzen, in which a steward collected supplies all year round, in order to be able to feed the ruler and his entourage for a few weeks. A document ensures that Karlmann held a court day in the Palatinate Padun in 869 . Padun is the Old High German form of today's place name for Baden.
After the Battle of Pressburg against Hungary in the summer of 907, the limit of from 920 then Regnum francorum orientalium mentioned Ostfrankenreiches up to the Enns withdrawn and the Vienna Woods once again part of an empire centered east, the Hungarian kingdom.
The East Franconian King Otto I banished the threat from the Hungarians forever in the battle on the Lechfeld near Augsburg in 955 , who then settled down. Place names such as Döbling , Liesing , Nöstach or Gablitz still indicate the early Slavic settlement of the Vienna Woods .
But this also made the regained margraviate marchia orientalis of the (Frankish-ruled) Duchy of Bavaria free for new settlement activities. In 976 Liutpold ( Leopold I ) from the Babenberg family was enfeoffed with this mark, which he extended by 1000 to include the Vienna Woods and a ten to 20 kilometer wide strip north of the Danube to the March . In 996 the eastern border mark of the Babenbergs was first documented as Ostarrichi .
On November 1, 1002, Henry II the Saint , King of the Regnum Teutonicorum and later Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire , gave large parts of today's Vienna Woods to the son of Luitpold's Margrave Heinrich I. This was a common means of strengthening the medieval sovereigns at the time.
This donation laid the foundation stone for the extensive possessions of the Austrian margraves and dukes up to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy , which in turn resulted in today's public forests of the federal government and municipalities.
In the course of the colonization of the area assigned to the Diocese of Passau , strategically important locations on its eastern border, such as the entrance to Helenental, Rauheneck Castle , or Greifenstein Castle on the Danube , were built in the 12th century . The lords of the castle financed their task of securing the border against the threat from Hungary and Bohemia through the tithe , compulsory labor of the population and tolls . The boundary to robbery knighthood was often fluid.
Margrave Leopold III, the saint , renounced the Germanic church law over twelve parishes and recognized the canon law and the tithing of the bishop. In 1133 he founded the Cistercian monastery Heiligenkreuz Abbey in the Sattelbach Valley .
In 1249 Gertrud , the last titular duchess of the Babenberg family in Alland , gave birth to Friedrich I of Baden "in the mountains" .
Around 1348 the plague first reached the Nöstach- Alland- Pressbaum -Greifenstein line and halved the local population. A 10–20 km wide strip west of this line was still uninhabited until at least 1400.
Modern times
The Vienna Woods in early capitalism was the prince's hunting ground, from the 16th century the timber industry also became important, and woodcutter families from the Alpine regions of the Habsburg lands were settled in parts of the Vienna Woods that had previously been uninhabited, which were largely exterminated again in 1529 during the first Turkish siege of Vienna were. Vienna had around 20,000 inhabitants at that time.
Around 1600, in the course of the turmoil of the Reformation , Lutheran enclaves such as Schwarzensee and Neuhaus were formed in the Vienna Woods, which were otherwise once again Catholic .
From 1684 to 1694, after another massacre in the course of the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, mainly by roaming Tatars and irregular "Akindsi", there was a second wave of colonization by charcoal burners , woodcutters and farmers from Styria , the Salzkammergut , Upper Austria , Tyrol and Bavaria and Swabia, for example in Sankt Corona , Klausen-Leopoldsdorf , Hochstraß and Pressbaum .
The Enlightenment period in the Vienna Woods in the reign of Maria Theresa (1740–1780) and especially that of her son Joseph II (1780–1790) in the introduction of compulsory schooling (four-class elementary schools were usually founded) and many monasteries closed (like Klein-Mariazell ) made noticeable.
After the shock of the French Revolution , however, these approaches were quickly frozen: Joseph's nephew Franz II pursued an almost stubborn reaction policy, which is also primarily associated with the name of State Chancellor Metternich . This political and social stagnation of the Biedermeier lasted until the March Revolution in 1848.
As in 1805, Napoleonic soldiers marched through the Vienna Woods in 1809, this time to the battles near Aspern and Wagram .
An important source of income for the smallholders was pitching , in which the pitch was tapped from the numerous pines to produce paint. From 1840 onwards, due to the sharp rise in Vienna's demand for wood, lime, sand and food, the settlement of the Vienna Woods also accelerated. The hydropower along the rivers made it possible for mills, forges, factories and later industries to settle here . Lime and gypsum distilleries were built, which were mined in the surrounding area. For example, gypsum was broken down in the sea grotto as a fertilizer.
As a result of the revolution of 1848, the manorial rule was abolished and the rule of the imperial forest office with its seat in Purkersdorf Castle ended . The individual communities became independent from 1850, for forestry matters the seat was still in Purkersdorf in the form of the kuk Forstar, the forerunner of the Austrian Federal Forests .
Around 1870, at the height of the founding period (1837–1914) in Vienna, not least because of the excessive indebtedness of the Habsburg finances, there were plans to clear most of the forest. Corresponding contracts had already been signed. This led to public opposition. Josef Schöffel made a special contribution to saving the Vienna Woods through his journalistic fight against deforestation.
In the fin de siècle there was an industrial and social boom , especially in the Triestingtal and along the thermal baths . The Viennese society went to the Vienna Woods for a summer vacation , danced to waltzes like stories from the Vienna Woods by Johann Strauss or had Arthur Schnitzler hold up a mirror in the dance .
At the end of the 19th century there were numerous projects in the Vienna Woods, which the railroad could only develop over a large area, to build a more closely-knit network of railways. For example, it was planned to build a railway from Rekawinkel in the north to Hainfeld in the south. The project was operated as early as 1887 by the United Railway Construction and Operating Company, a captain Rudolf Bohm and the neighboring communities. The ÖTK was also interested, as the shelter was opened on Schöpfl in 1906 and more guests were expected. The project was also classified as important from a military point of view and the idea was to extend the railway to Tulln . The project was pursued for twenty years, but in 1907 the project was finally terminated by various revoked permits and concessions.
But other projects were also carried out. The Wiener Lokalbahnen wanted a train through the Helenental to Alland . Only the Mödling – Hinterbrühl local railway and the Kaltenleutgender railway , which were actually built, are left of these projects .
Transport connections in the Vienna Woods are available through post buses .
Contemporary history
In the spring of 1945 the Vienna Woods became a battle zone between the remnants of Army Group South and the 3rd Ukrainian Front of the Soviet Union in the final phase of World War II .
In the late 1950s, the largest construction site in Austria was near Hochstraß as part of the construction of the motorway . There were up to 3,000 construction workers on the construction site of the A1 western motorway at the same time .
In 1987 the governors of Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland signed the so-called Vienna Woods Declaration for the protection of the Vienna Woods. In addition, the Vienna Woods were declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in June 2005 .
See also
- History of Austria
- History of Lower Austria
- History of Vienna
- History of Alland
- Vienna operation 1945
- Battle for Alland
Individual evidence
- ↑ A railway through the Vienna Woods on Purkersdorf -online (accessed on September 14, 2008)
- ↑ West Autobahn was Austria's largest construction site. ORF.at from January 7, 2017, accessed on January 7, 2017.