Erlauf (municipality)

market community Erlauf
coat of arms	Austria map
Basic data
Country:	Austria
State :	Lower Austria
Political District :	Melk
License plate :	ME
Surface:	9.66 km²
Coordinates :	48 ° 11 '  N , 15 ° 11'  E Coordinates: 48 ° 11 '2 "  N , 15 ° 11' 3"  E
Height :	225  m above sea level A.
Residents :	1,081 (January 1, 2020)
Population density :	112 inhabitants per km²
Postal code :	3253
Area code :	02757
Community code :	3 15 08
Address of the municipal administration:	Melker Strasse 1 3253 Erlauf
Website:	www.erlauf.at/
politics
Mayor :	Franz Engelmaier ( ÖVP )
Municipal Council : ( 2015 ) (19 members)	12 3 2 2 12 3 2 2  A total of 19 seats ÖVP : 12 SPÖ : 3 EA : 2 FPÖ : 2
Location of Erlauf in the Melk district
Harlanden basement
Source: Municipal data from Statistics Austria

Erlauf is a market town with 1081 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2020) in the Melk district in Lower Austria .

geography

Erlauf is located in the Mostviertel in Lower Austria on the river Erlauf of the same name , around 5 km southwest of Pöchlarn . The area of ​​the market town covers 9.67 square kilometers. 19.77 percent of the area is forested.

Community structure

The municipal area comprises the following eight localities (population in brackets as of January 1, 2020):

• Erlauf (699)
• Harlanden (47)
• Knocking (37)
• Maierhofen (18)
• Niederndorf (152)
• Ofling (22)
• Stone wall (54)
• Tungsten ring (52)

The community consists of the cadastral communities Erlauf, Harlanden, Knocking and Steinwand.

Neighboring communities

Curved nut tree	Golling
		Pöchlarn
Mountain country

history

The lower reaches of the river Erlauf in the area where it flows into the Danube is a settlement area that is thousands of years old. The oldest known finds date from the Middle Bronze Age and are almost 3500 years old. These are fragments of vessels that were found in a cave on the hill above Ofling.

In ancient times, the area was part of the Noricum province .

The area around Erlauf was definitely settled in Roman times. The Arelape square enclosed the actual military camp from Brunn via the town of Pöchlarn to the Roman pottery of Ornding. The military camp was located on an island bordered by the Danube River in the north and by an arm of the Danube in the south, which ran from Krummnussbaum via Brunn to Ornding and later flowed back into the Danube . The river Erlauf also flowed into this arm. A Roman stone found near Schröckenbühel for mooring the ships is evidence of this branch of the Danube .

Erlauf is mentioned in 823 in the document Confirmatio Ludovici Pii , in which King Ludwig the Pious hands over the place to the diocese of Passau .

In a representation of the Archduchy of Austria under the Enns , Erlauf is described as follows in 1838: A village 41 houses, of which Melk is the next post station. 143 male, 159 female and 32 schoolchildren live in 50 families. The livestock has 41 horses, 18 oxen, 73 cows, 89 sheep and 120 pigs. The local inhabitants are well-endowed farmers, among whom, in addition to a surgeon, baker, innkeeper, butcher, there are also various craftsmen. Wheat, grain, barley and oats are usually grown on good grounds, as well as legumes, and there is good cattle breeding and fruit growing, some of which the fruit is used for making must.

The local community Erlauf was formed in 1850. It was made up of the cadastral communities Erlauf, Harlanden, Knocking and Steinwand. At that time Erlauf had 50 houses with 353 inhabitants. In 1923 there were 78 houses with 691 inhabitants in Erlauf. The municipalities initially had very few tasks and powers, as well as their financial resources. Until 1870 there was an Israelite private school in Erlauf.

Although private tuition was given by auxiliary teachers before 1800, there was only one single-class school for around 160 children until 1887. In that year a second class was inaugurated, and a third class was added in 1894. The old schoolhouse is now the museum building next to the parish church. The current primary school building was opened in 1959.

The place Erlauf is on the Poststrasse from Vienna to Linz, so there used to be a post office for changing horses. The road crossed here with the so-called Eisenstraße from the Erlauftal (Eisenwurzen), on which iron goods were brought to the Danube for shipping.

Bundesstrasse 1 became an important east-west connection from 1950 onwards. At Easter 1959, 1600 vehicles per hour were counted, at that time a great burden because of the narrow town through, on the autobahn in the summer of 2000, over 50,000 vehicles were expected in 24 hours.

In December 1959, the first section of the western motorway was opened. It ranges from St. Christophen to Erlauf. At that time, the motorway merged with the B1 at Schröckenbühel. The Erlauf section to Kottingpurgstall (Amstetten Ost) went into operation in December 1961. At that time there were three petrol stations in Erlauf.

Around 1975 the current town passage was created following the construction of the water pipe and sewer system. A house in the center of the village had to be demolished.

Museum Erlauf Remembers

Peace Museum Erlauf

Erlauf peace monument

In Erlauf on May 8, 1945 the troops of the USA from the west and the Soviet Union from the east met each other. On the night of May 8th to 9th, 1945, the Soviet General Dmitri Dritschkin and the American General Stanley Reinhart met in Erlauf and celebrated the armistice that came into force at 00:01 a.m., which marked the Second World War in Europe ended. Here it was decided in the house of the Nazi mayor that the future demarcation line would be relocated to the Enns, with which the Americans had to move back a few kilometers. This building was later bought by the municipality and now houses the municipal office.

A memorial plaque was unveiled in 1965. Since the American and Soviet troops met here for the first time after the Second World War, the community is known as the Peace Community .

20 years after the historic meeting of the generals, the Jewish emigrants Ernst Brod and Frank Schanzer brought memories of the events back to Erlauf with a brochure from the US division. The memorial plaque officially unveiled at the parish hall by the member of the Lower Austrian state parliament Franz Stangler and the community politicians was the initial spark for a culture of remembrance in Erlauf that is still alive today. No other place of comparable size in German-speaking countries has dealt with the issues of peace, memory and art so consciously and over a similarly long period of time.

From 1965 onwards, the community organized an annual commemoration ceremony, which later became the days of peace. And finally there was an intensive artistic examination of history in public space: In 1995 the peace monuments were erected by Jenny Holzer and Oleg Komov and subsequently a series of temporary art projects in public space such as “Erlauf remembers” (2000, 2002), “ 17 Moments Before Spring ”, Memory of the Russians in Lower Austria (2004) or the participatory music project AMF — Allied Musical Forces (2006) by the composer Konrad Rennert. At the same time, exhibitions in a small peace memorial and several documentary films were devoted to historical aspects.

With the ERLAUF ERINNERT Museum of the Peace Community Erlauf, a lively place for the overarching discussion of contemporary history, the culture of remembrance and contemporary art was created.

Since May 2015, in a 250 m² permanent exhibition - 70 years after the end of the war and based on the historical event in 1945 - the events in the place and region, the history of totalitarianism and displacement as well as the breaks and continuities of the Austrian culture of remembrance of the Second Republic have been linked shown with artistic work. All art and film projects realized in Erlauf can be accessed in the archive of art and in the film room. A special exhibition area is dedicated to temporary exhibitions, lectures, readings, film screenings and educational projects. The artistic exploration of the topic will be continued in a temporarily playable part of the exhibition.

Population development

According to the results of the 2001 census , there were 1140 inhabitants. In 1991 the market town had 1085 inhabitants, in 1981 1061 and in 1971 1118 inhabitants.

politics

The municipal council has 19 members.

• With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 1990, the municipal council had the following distribution: 12 ÖVP and 7 SPÖ.
• With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 1995, the municipal council had the following distribution: 12 ÖVP and 7 SPÖ.
• With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 2000, the municipal council had the following distribution: 11 ÖVP, 5 SPÖ and 3 FPÖ.
• With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 2005 , the municipal council had the following distribution: 12 ÖVP, 4 SPÖ and 3 FPÖ.
• With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 2010 , the municipal council had the following distribution: 12 ÖVP, 4 SPÖ and 3 FPÖ.
• With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria 2015 , the municipal council has the following distribution: 12 ÖVP, 3 SPÖ, 2 citizens list Erlauf aktiv and 2 FPÖ.

mayor

• until 2009 Franz Kuttner (ÖVP)
• since 2009 Franz Engelmaier (ÖVP)

Culture and sights

Parish church Erlauf

See also : List of listed objects in Erlauf (municipality)  and list of cellar lanes in Erlauf (municipality)

• Catholic parish church Erlauf hl. Johannes Nepomuk with the war memorial
• Late Gothic beamed ceiling in Marktplatz 1
• Peace memorial in the House of Surrender on May 8, 1945
• Peace Museum "Erlauf Remembers" (opened May 9, 2015)

economy

In 2001 there were 33 non-agricultural workplaces, and according to the 1999 survey there were 34 in agriculture and forestry. According to the 2001 census, the number of people in employment at home was 530. In 2001, the employment rate was 47.89 percent.

Personalities

• Franz Stangler (1910–1983), teacher and politician

Web links

Commons : Erlauf (municipality)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage of the market town of Erlauf
• Entry on Erlauf in the database of the state memory of the history of Lower Austria ( Museum Niederösterreich )
• 31508 - Erlauf (municipality). Community data, Statistics Austria .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Statistics Austria: Population on January 1st, 2020 by locality (area status on January 1st, 2020) , ( CSV )
2. ^ Peace Memorial , accessed December 28, 2009.
3. ^ Election result of the municipal council election 1995 in Erlauf. Office of the Lower Austrian State Government, March 30, 2000, accessed on October 29, 2019 . 
4. ^ Election result of the municipal council election 2000 in Erlauf. Office of the Lower Austrian State Government, February 4, 2005, accessed on October 29, 2019 . 
5. ^ Election result of the municipal council election 2005 in Erlauf. Office of the Lower Austrian State Government, March 4, 2005, accessed on October 29, 2019 . 
6. ^ Election result of the municipal council election 2010 in Erlauf. Office of the Lower Austrian State Government, October 8, 2010, accessed on October 29, 2019 . 
7. ^ Election results for the municipal council election 2015 in Erlauf. Office of the Lower Austrian State Government, December 1, 2015, accessed on October 29, 2019 .