Ernsthofen

The municipality of Ernsthofen is located in the far west of Lower Austria's Mostviertel , directly on the Enns , which forms the border with Upper Austria.

Community structure

The place is divided into two cadastral communities

Rubring (7.36 km²)
Aigen flow (10.45 km²).

The districts of Aigenfließen, Altenrath, Edt, Gaißing, Holzner, Kanning, Loderleiten, Mühlrading, Noppenberg, Rathmayr, Trienting, Wasen, Weindlau, Weinzierl and a single location also belong to the single village of Ernsthofen.

Neighboring communities

	St. Valentine
Kronstorf ( district Linz-Land Upper Austria )
	Haidershofen	Hague

history

Ernsthofen is one of the oldest settlements on the Enns. During the Bronze Age the Illyrians lived here , around 400 BC. Large groups of Celts came to the Danube and Enns and settled here. In the year 15 BC The Romans invaded the area and Ernsthofen became a Roman settlement. According to legend, the old town of Lorch is said to have stretched on this side of the Enns bank to Ernsthofen.

During gravel excavations in the garden behind the farm building of Johann Prix (today's Hotel Vösenhuber), Italian prisoners of war discovered 24 Roman graves with additions in 1917 - dating around 200 AD - and kept them in the museum in Steyr.

The very steep road over the Stark, which is no longer passable today, was probably built and used by the Romans who controlled the watchtower at the castle.

The first Bavarian settlement of the Enns took place in the 7th century. The place names Rubring-Ruedwaring and Weindlau-Ebrafing come from this time. Between 700 and 800 the area was badly affected by constant Avar invasions. It was only Charlemagne who found relief in 791 and ousted them. In the 9th century the Magyars invaded this country, which Otto the Great then finally drove out by founding the Avarmark .

The Hungarians returned to the area around 1480 . After the city of Vienna surrendered to the Hungarians on June 1, 1485 , they pushed forward to the Enns in November of this year under the leadership of Wilhelm Tettauer and camped near Ernsthofen, built a bridge over the Enns and both of them Banks of the Tettauer Schanzen . On October 10, 1490, an Upper Austrian contingent led by Governor Gotthard von Starhemberg succeeded in taking the entrenchments, whereupon the bridges and towers were torn down.

On September 9, 1532, a Turkish Streif Corps crossed the Enns near Ernsthofen in thick fog and shallow water.

In the first years of the 17th century the Enns began to change its course. From year to year the floods caused greater damage to the houses and especially to the church, which was only just above the bank. This emerges from the parish chronicles of St. Valentin (the church of Ernsthofen was under the parish of St. Valentin until 1938). As a result of the increasing repair costs, the parish decided in 1665 to move the church and cemetery to higher ground. Since many residents gave up the old houses in order to build flood-proof buildings for the new church, the districts of Ober- and Unterernsthofen were created. The old (Gothic) church was demolished and the new one was rebuilt with the old stones on almost the same floor plan about half a kilometer above at the foot of the steep slope. If you look at the church from the east, you can see a carved stone from the old church between the choir and sacristy (it is probably the end stone of the Gothic vault). The church and rectory are built in the baroque style. The furnishings of the church from the same period were replaced by neo-Romanesque inventory at the beginning of the 20th century. But the baroque furnishings have largely been preserved. The high altar has since stood in the Kanning branch church as the left side altar, the miraculous image of the Madonna has remained in the church and the images of the side altars are in the rectory.

During the Swedish invasion (1645) two main entrenchments were built by the imperial family near Ernsthofen . However, the Swedes did not come to this area. In the War of the Austrian Succession, Field Marshal Khevenhüller crossed the Enns near Ernsthofen. The residents fled into the woods. Above the Hemmelmayrhaus was an escape cave, from which a narrow escape route led underground to the Gaißberger farmhouse. In 1755 the Counts of Thürheim received local authority. In 1760, Count Thürheim sold the "Ernsthofener Office" to his wife Maria Dominica Countess of Thürheim.

During the construction of the Kronprinz-Rudolf-Bahn (1866), ancient weapons were unearthed, but these were taken away by the workers before experts could determine their exact age.

On May 6, 1945, the German troops and the Americans fought one of the last skirmishes of the Second World War on the Enns in Ernsthofen. In the village and on the slopes behind Ernsthofen, German troops had holed up and formed a bridgehead. When an American troop crossed the provisional Enns Bridge, it received a direct hit. There were numerous deaths. At noon, however, the American troops entered the place. After a few days, they were replaced by Soviet troops . The bridge over the Enns at the dam remained occupied by the Soviets for eight years and formed the demarcation line.

Ernsthofen should take its name from a certain Ernst who once owned a farm here. Another view is that Ernsthofen was originally called Ennshofen.

coat of arms

Population development

Population development
year	Pop.	year	Pop.
1869	1,075	1951	1,316
1880	1,100	1961	1,504
1890	1,120	1971	1,745
1900	1,202	1981	1,825
1910	1,177	1991	2,004
1923	1,238	2001	2,105
1934	1,262	2011	2,186
1939	1,279	2017	2,193

In 1880 Ernsthofen had 1,100 inhabitants (553 male, 547 female) and consisted of 187 houses in the cadastral communities Rubring (95) and Aigenfließen (92). At that time the town itself consisted of two groups of houses, one of which was between the railway line and the Loderleiten and the other to the south, directly on the Enns (a total of 43 houses). At the end of 2005 there were 2,177 residents and 651 buildings.

politics

Image wanted

The municipal council has 21 members.

With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 1990, the municipal council had the following distribution: 14 ÖVP and 7 SPÖ.
With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 1995, the municipal council had the following distribution: 12 ÖVP and 9 SPÖ.
With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 2000, the municipal council had the following distribution: 14 ÖVP and 7 SPÖ.
With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 2005 , the municipal council had the following distribution: 12 ÖVP and 9 SPÖ.
With the municipal elections in Lower Austria in 2010 , the municipal council had the following distribution: 13 ÖVP, 7 SPÖ and 1 FPÖ.
With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria in 2015 , the municipal council had the following distribution: 12 ÖVP and 9 SPÖ.
With the municipal council elections in Lower Austria 2020 , the municipal council has the following distribution: 11 ÖVP and 10 SPÖ.