Line wall
The line wall was a light fortification between the suburbs and suburbs of Vienna .
Construction of the line wall
To protect against attacks by the Turks and Kurucs , Leopold I began in 1704 with the construction of the line wall. The line wall was part of the so-called Kuruzzenschanzen . This was supposed to protect the border with Hungary with a continuous defensive line along the Leitha , the March to the Danube and on to Lake Neusiedl .
On June 11, 1704, an attack by the Kuruzzen on Vienna was repulsed on the Linienwall , with 2600 residents of Vienna and 150 students involved.
The line wall was an earth wall reinforced with palisades with a ditch in front that ran between the arm of the Danube near Sankt Marx (today 3rd district) and the Lichtental (today 9th district) - for military reasons in a zigzag. He separated the suburbs incorporated in 1850 (today 3rd to 9th district) from the suburbs that were largely incorporated in 1892 (today 10th to 19th district).
All residents of Vienna and the suburbs between 18 and 60 years of age were assigned to work on the line wall or had to provide a representative. The enormous amount of human effort made it possible to complete the four-meter-high and four-meter-wide wall in just four months. A trench three meters deep was dug in front of it. The line wall had a total length of approx. 13.5 km. Gates with drawbridges and line offices were built on the main arterial roads ; these locations were soon simply called the line (e.g. the Belvedere line as an extension of what was then Heugasse, today's Prinz-Eugen-Strasse next to Belvedere Palace ). In 1738 the earth wall was additionally lined with bricks .
Line chapels
Between 1740 and 1760, 18 chapels were built at the gates, all of which were dedicated to St. Nepomuk . This also led to the fact that there are numerous statues of the saint in Vienna today. The vernacular called the chapels simply "Hansl am Weg". The purpose of the chapels was to give all travelers to and from Vienna as well as the toll officers at the tax border (1850–1891 city limits) the opportunity to worship and to hear mass. The Hundsturm Chapel (also Schönbrunner Chapel) in Margareten is the only line chapel that has been preserved in its original location (today: Schönbrunner Straße 124) and in its original state.
Another still existing chapel is the Johannes-Nepomuk-Kapelle am Tabor ; However, this was moved a few meters from the original location.
Near the Volksoper was in the course of construction of 1898 there opened Vienna rail of Otto Wagner , a still existing Johannes Nepomuk Chapel built to replace the broken away because of the light rail construction a few meters chapel. This chapel is located between the former tram viaduct and today's U6 viaduct and the inner lane of the Währinger belt in the 9th district.
Line wall as a tax border, line offices
However, the line wall never had to pass a serious test. The Kuruzzen, who appeared in front of Sankt Marx on March 13 and June 11, 1704, moved on when the Wall was occupied by the Viennese vigilantes in a very short time. Only in 1848 did it serve the rebellious Viennese for a short time as protection from the imperial troops. From 1829 the wall served primarily as a tax boundary . The so-called consumption tax ( excise ), a type of additional sales tax, was levied on the “lines” at the toll stations, the so-called line offices , for the import of food in the direction of Vienna . This meant that the suburbs that were incorporated much later, in 1850, within the line wall were on the same level as the City of Vienna for tax purposes. H. taxed higher, - the so-called suburbs outside the ramparts remained favorable in terms of sales tax. As a result, the catering trade flourished enormously in Neulerchenfeld (today the 16th district) ("the largest inn of the Holy Roman Empire"), as food and drinks could be sold much cheaper here than within the line wall. In addition, when crossing the "lines" a road toll , the so-called " line fee", had to be paid.
Grinding of the line wall
In 1846 Südbahnhof and Ostbahnhof were opened on the Belvedere line outside the line wall, in 1858 the west station on the Mariahilfer line. In 1856 the kk arsenal was also opened outside the wall. The line wall had long since become militarily obsolete.
From 1862 a street was planned and built directly on the outside of the wall, the Gürtelstraße , which opened in 1873 . In 1874 the parts of the 4th district, Wieden , and the 5th district, Margareten , which were incorporated in 1850 , were constituted outside the wall as the new 10th district, Favoriten . On December 18, 1890, the decision was made to include the suburbs as well. After its incorporation on January 1, 1892, the previous tax limit was obsolete and the last obstacle to the demolition of the fortifications no longer existed. The line wall was removed from March 1894, the belt was greatly expanded and in 1895 the construction of the belt line of the light rail, which opened in 1898, began. Their viaducts or incisions were placed exactly in the middle of the now very wide belt.
Today's relics
Apart from the Hundsturm Chapel, only sparse remains of the wall testify to the exact course of the line wall:
- in the 3rd district on the center side along the route of the main express train line between Rennweg and Quartier Belvedere, formerly Südbahnhof; ⊙
- in the area of the former cattle market in Sankt Marx (3rd district) at Anton-Kuh-Weg; ⊙
- in the 4th district in the courtyard of the house Weyringergasse 13. ⊙
Individual evidence
- ^ Walter Blasi, Franz Sauer: The Kuruzzenschanze between Petronell and Neusiedl am See. In: Bundesdenkmalamt (Hrsg.): Find reports from Austria - material booklets. Series A, special issue 19 (FÖMat A / special issue 19), Berger & Söhne, Vienna 2012. ISSN 1993-1271 (incorrect ISSN information, correct ISSN 1993-1255 ). P. 27.
- ^ Otto Antonia Graf: Otto Wagner. Volume 1: The Architect's Work 1860–1902. ( Writings of the Institute for Art History. Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. 2, 1). 2nd Edition. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 1994, ISBN 3-205-98224-X , p. 253.
- ↑ Vienna for 60 years . Dedicated to the youth of Vienna by the municipal council of their hometown in memory of the celebration of the 60th year of His Majesty's government. Gerlach & Wiedling, Vienna 1908, p. 27 .
literature
- Ingrid Mader: The Wiener Linienwall from a historical, topographical and archaeological point of view. In: Location Vienna. 14, 2011 (2011), pp. 144-163.
- Ingrid Mader, Ingeborg Gaisbauer, Werner Chmelar: The Wiener Linienwall. From protective structures to tax limits . (Vienna Archaeological 9). Urban Archeology Vienna, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-85161-064-2 .
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