Pötschenpass

Pötschenpass
Monument from road expansion
Compass direction	west	east
Pass height	993  m above sea level A.
state	Upper Austria	Styria
Watershed	Zlambach ( Hallstätter See / Traun main path)	Lupitschbach ( Altausseer Traun )
Valley locations	Bad Goisern	Bad Aussee
expansion	Salzkammergut Street B145
particularities	Old road from Roman times on the other side of the saddle
profile
Ø pitch	5.1% (491 m / 9.6 km)	3.9% (334 m / 8.6 km)
map
Coordinates	47 ° 37 '19 "  N , 13 ° 41' 42"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 37 '19 "  N , 13 ° 41' 42"  E

The Pötschenpass , usually just called Pötschen for short , is 993  m above sea level. A. high pass in the Salzkammergut on the Upper Austrian - Styrian border.

Location and landscape

The pass is the saddle between the limestone of the Hohe Sarstein  ( 1975  m ) in the south and the gentler Sandling  ( 1717  m ) in the north.

The pass road connects Bad Goisern in Upper Austria and Bad Aussee in Styria in the course of the Salzkammergut Straße  (B 145) .

The [Great] Zlambach goes westwards to Lake Hallstatt , eastwards the Lupitschbach goes to the Altausseer Traun , which then flows into the Badausseer (Vereinigte) Traun in the Traun main path. The actual Pötschenhöhe is a more remote shoulder position on the northern Sarstein flank, the actual orographic connecting saddles of the two streams are around Oberlupitsch (Scheibenstrasse and Klamm, both  920  m ).

height

On the official Austrian map, the pass height is 993  m above sea level. A. , on the sign on site, however, is only 982  m above sea level. A. registered.

Name and story

The name presumably derives from the Slavic pečina and denotes an overhanging rock or cave. It probably refers to the rock face north of today's pass summit, the Pötschenwand , in the gorge cut of the Zlambach. The word can also be found here in the room at Pötschenstein northeast on Sandling near Altaussee.

It has been proven that the pass has been trodden since Roman times, and traces of settlement like a route have been found on the Michlhallberg on the northern slope. An older, about latènezeitlicher , related to the Hallstatt Salt Mines ( Hallstatt culture ) has not been established, but probably. In the Ennstal, however, Bronze Age routes through the Koppen - Kainischtal and over the Landfriedalm on the Dachstein plateau have also been documented.

Pflindsberg Castle , view northeast from the Pötschen with Sandlig and Loser (Vischer: Topographia Ducatus Stiriae , 1681)

Until the Middle Ages, the transition was probably just a mule track . The ascent from the Roman times on the Aussee side probably took place via Lupitsch and Reitern , as finds of hipposandals suggest, in the High Middle Ages also via Altaussee and Pflindsberg Castle , which was built by the Salzburg bishops in the 13th century when the Ausseer Salzberg was also formed. The older salt mining on Michlhallberg could have existed as early as the end of the migration period (around 600). The course on the Goisian side is quite unclear, on the Sandling – Feuerkogel flank several major landslides have been reported.

The difficult transport to the north, either here over the pass or in the Koppenschlucht, was a big problem until the middle of the 19th century, for the trade in Erzberg iron, the wine trade, and long-distance trade in Italy as well as for the Aussee salt works , for which there was competition with the Ischler Salzberg in the Obderennsian Salzkammergut. The pass was the border of Lower Austria and Inner Austria , but this was in the context of the Habsburg state administration, the Kammergut, from Emperor Friedrich III. (Purchase of private salt production in Aussee around 1450) superimposed.

The road through the Ausseerland was only laid out as a toll road in early modern times, and the Pötschen toll is documented from 1656. Therefore, there are many mule tracks in the area as alternative routes for private salt distributors as well as for smuggling. The local ox trade also played a more important role from the late 17th century. In 1751 the toll was transferred to the state saltworks administration ( Salzärar ) and transferred to the Ausseer Hallamt. At this time, however, the transport volume - determined from the books - remained quite low at 550 tons.

The Pötschenstraße was only expanded as a country road in the later 18th century. In the later 19th century (1875–77) the Salzkammergut Railway was built, which meant that the pass lost much of its importance for trade. For private transport, however, it always preferred the route down in the valley of Lake Hallstatt and Traun.

The B 145 on the Styrian side was rebuilt from 1955 to 1959. The inscription on the back of the monument on the border reads:

"EXPANSION OF THE PÖTSCHENPASS IN THE WAY OF THE SALZKAMMERGUTBUNDESSTRASSE IN THE YEARS 1955 - 1959 UNDER THE FEDERAL MINISTER FOR TRADE AND RECONSTRUCTION, DR. FRITZ BOCK AND THE STATE MANAGER OF STYRIA ECONOMIST JOSEF KRAINER ESTABLISHED IN
1960"

Formerly the federal highway, it has been under state administration since 2002.

In the 1970s, the pass was an alternative route to the guest worker route . Since the introduction of the motorway toll in  1997, the pass has again been increasingly burdened by toll evacuation .

literature

• Ferdinand Tremel: The traffic over the Pötschenpass from the middle of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century. In: Oberösterreichische Heimatblätter , Volume 12 (1958) Issue 3/4, pp. 113–123. online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at

Web links

Commons : Pötschenpass  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pötschenpass and the surrounding area on ÖK 50 , www.austrianmap.at , Federal Office for Metrology and Surveying Austria, Austrian map.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Lit. Tremel, 1958, p. 113 (pdf p. 1).
3. ↑ cf. F. tremel: Upper Austria and Styria in their economic relations. In: Journal of the Historisches Verein für Steiermark XLIV (44), 1953, p. 160 ff.
4. ↑ F. Höllwöger: Ausseer iron and iron toll defeat. In: New Chronicle of the History and Folklore of the Inner Austrian Alpine Countries No. 47, Graz 1957, 8.2.
5. ↑ Lit. Tremel, 1958, p. 119 f (pdf p. 9 f).
6. ↑ The Josephinische Landesaufnahme (1763–1787) gives the Oesterreichische Landstrasse only in sections, and east of the pass there is still an old road for the original route.