Mexico Square
.JPG)
The Mexikoplatz is a place in the 2nd Viennese district , Leopoldstadt . It is located on the right bank of the Danube , along the Handelskai , and is divided into two halves by the ramp leading to the 22nd district, Donaustadt , Reichsbrücke . In the years 1884–1919 and 1934–1956 it was called Erzherzog-Karl- Platz, in between in “Red Vienna” Volkswehrplatz . The current place name, decided on June 20, 1956 by the Municipal Council Committee for Culture, is intended to remind us that in 1938 Mexico was the only country that protested against the "annexation" of Austria to the German Reich before the League of Nations .
history
Originally the area in the floodplains of the unregulated Danube was called swimming school maize. ( According to the Austrian dictionary, maize or Maiß is a term for logging or young forest.) When the Danube was regulated from 1868–1875, today's straightened river bed was created, which was lined with land on the right bank , the Danube bank railway and the Handelskai as a feeder road. In 1876, the Kronprinz-Rudolf-Brücke, previously known as the Reichsbrücke since 1919, was opened as a connection from the city center to the Kagraner Reichsstraße in the direction of Deutsch-Wagram , to northeast Lower Austria and Brno in Moravia . The Handelskai crossed under the bridge; As a connection between the two traffic routes, driveways from the Handelskai to the bridgehead were built on both sides of the bridge, the area around the driveways was generously kept free and later landscaped. This is how the square was created.
The southeastern part of the square ( Mexikopark or Kirchenpark ) is determined by the Franz von Assisi Church in the Rhenish-Romanesque style. It was built next to the Reichsbrücke in a size that can be seen from afar and was consecrated in 1898 to celebrate the golden jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph I. Since his wife Elisabeth was murdered in the same year , the Elisabeth chapel was built in the left aisle of the church. The so-called Rose Park is located on the northwestern part of Mexikoplatz . Up until 1910, factories, warehouses, ship stations and other functional buildings were built around the square, mixed with simple residential buildings ( interest barracks , after 1918 also community buildings ), and a little further inland, large barracks. (The district was then temporarily called Donaustadt ; a name that did not catch on here and was later used for today's 22nd district.)
1945–1955 was a brick-red monument to the Red Army , which had captured the bridge in April 1945 , to the northwest next to the bridgehead (corner of Lassallestrasse ) . It consisted of a pyramidal obelisk and other elements. Until 1976, when the second Reichsbrücke collapsed, a track loop of the tram ran around the north-western part of the square , on which the sets of lines B and Bk, which were boarded with the destination Reichsbrücke, reversed over the Ring , Franz-Josefs-Kai , Praterstern and Lassallestrasse. In the course of Engerthstrasse, tram line 11 ran through Mexikoplatz until January 6, 1974, and was then replaced by buses.
In 1980 today's third Reichsbrücke was opened. Its ramp is much longer than that of the second Reichsbrücke, so that since 1980 it has no longer been possible to cross Mexikoplatz on Engerthstrasse, which runs parallel to the Danube. As a result, Mexikoplatz is more clearly divided into two non-contiguous halves than before. At the new end of the bridge ramp, corner Lassallestraße / Vorgartenstraße that was 1982 Vorgartenstraße the extended time after Kagran underground line U1 opened. This station can be used to reach Mexikoplatz and the DDSG shipping center .
Since 1985 there has been a memorial stone on the square with the following inscription:
- In March 1938, Mexico was the only country that lodged an official protest in front of the League of Nations against the forcible annexation of Austria to the National Socialist German Reich. To commemorate this act, the City of Vienna named this square Mexico Square.
present
Since there have long been shipping moorings at Mexikoplatz, the area around Mexikoplatz has always been known for black market shops . Today Mexikoplatz is the proverbial meeting point and trading center for immigrants and sailors and is dominated by the six-lane driveway to the Reichsbrücke . The increasing frequency of cruise ships on the Danube has made Mexikoplatz the gateway to Vienna for many ship passengers in recent years.
Some Viennese believe that the name Mexikoplatz goes back to the fact that the brother of Emperor Franz Joseph, Ferdinand Maximilian , was once Emperor of Mexico .
From April 10, 2008 to April 14, 2009, the memorial against the myth of the first victim, created by Marko Lulić, was on display on Mexikoplatz . The 3.2 meter high iron steel sculpture represented the number 99.73 and was intended to respond to the contradiction between the comment in the Moscow Declaration of 1943 that Austria, as a state, had been Hitler's first victim, and the subsequent manipulated vote on April 10, 1938 obtained consent from the population (99.73% voted yes; Jewish citizens were prohibited from participating).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Protest note from Mexico to the League of Nations ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ wien.at - "Memorial against the myth of the first victim" on Mexikoplatz
- ↑ Marko Lulić: Memorial against the myth of the first victim. KÖR Art in Public Space Vienna, accessed on March 5, 2017 (2008/2009).
Coordinates: 48 ° 13 ′ 26 ″ N , 16 ° 24 ′ 15 ″ E