Spielberg (Styria)

The municipality is located north of the Mur , in the eastern part of the Aichfeld , between the towns of Zeltweg and Knittelfeld , and part of Spielberg has grown together with the urban area of Knittelfeld. Both urban and rural characteristics can be found within the municipality.

Community structure

The name of the municipality Spielberg was changed from June 1, 1951 to "Spielberg bei Knittelfeld". From 1985 Spielberg was a market town . Since July 1, 2009 the community has been called "Spielberg" again.

Spielberg has been a municipality since October 1, 2009.

The municipality includes the following ten localities and eleven cadastral communities of the same name (residents as of January 1, 2020)

Locality and cadastral	Residents	Area in ha
Unicorns	112	132.22
Flat chess	177	741.92
Ingering I.	69	67.77
Laing	40	94.34
Lind	337	326.08
Measure way	no town	144.41
Break village	0	225.62
Sachendorf	245	153.66
Schoenberg	7th	516.41
Spielberg	4254	425.72
Weyern	112	141.24

Together with Lobmingtal, Kobenz, Seckau, Gaal, St. Marein-Feistritz and Zeltweg, the community forms the tourism association “Tourismus am Spielberg”. Its headquarters are at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.

Incorporations

As part of the structural reform of the Styrian community , the Spielberg community has merged with the Flatschach community since 2015.

Neighboring communities

Gaal	Seckau	Kobenz
Flat chess		Knittelfeld
Zeltweg	Lobmingtal	Apple mountain

history

The area of today's municipality of Spielberg consists of several historically grown areas, of which the current districts of Ingering and Lind occupy an outstanding position. They are first mentioned in a document between the years 860 and 890. This makes them one of the oldest settlement areas in Upper Styria.

Early history

As in many other areas, settlement forms in the Spielberg area can be proven long before the beginning of Roman rule. The story tells that Celts settled and settled here in the first millennium BC and thus belonged to the Kingdom of Noricum , whose main source of income was cattle breeding. The original inhabitants of the Murboden, in the center of which Spielberg is located, are likely to have reached the later Bavarian Eichfeld via Carinthia along the Lavant valley via Obdach . Another influx certainly came from the east via the Gaberl and Salzstiegl.

Finds from Roman times document the existence of provincial Roman art, as the example of a relief on the farm building of the Lind parish proves. The Mars Latobius depicted there is without a doubt to be seen in a direct connection with the world-famous youth from Magdalensberg (Carinthia).

In connection with the later Slavic and Bavarian colonization, the question of the original church of Upper Styria has remained largely unanswered to this day. The name ad Undrimas means the location of the church from which the further Christianization took place. In addition to Lind, Pöls and Fohnsdorf and the cemetery church in Knittelfeld also appear as possible locations.

middle Ages

Numerous reports have come down to us from both the Middle Ages and modern times. Spielberg appears both in the literary works of Ulrich von Liechtenstein ( Frauendienst ) and in the rhyming chronicle of Ottokar from the Gaal . The immediate vicinity of Seckau meant that, in addition to the strong influence of the monastery, there were also close historical connections between the two communities.

The copper engravings by Georg Matthäus Vischer in his Topographia Ducatus Stiriae , published in 1681, report on the structural diversity of the past centuries . Spielberg Castle , which previously gave its name to the surrounding rulers and later to today's community, is of paramount importance . The history of this building, erected in 1570, is also linked to the careers of a number of noble families, including the Teufenbacher, the Heinrichsperger and the Lachawitz.

Modern times

The castle has been owned by the Arbesser-Rastburg family since the beginning of the 19th century. The administrator correspondence discovered a few decades ago is one of the most informative sources about the rural conditions in Upper Styria before the middle of the 18th century. A few years after being awarded a municipal coat of arms, Spielberg was elevated to a market municipality in 1985 and a municipality on October 1, 2009.

Place name

The earliest written document is from 1141 and is "Spileberch". The Old High German morpheme * spil - is a borrowing from Latin 'speculum' ('specere' to look, to look at). The place name can therefore be translated as Wartberg . The name of the mountain was transferred to the settlement.

Population development

according to area status 2015

Culture and sights

Lind-Maßweg parish church

Parish church of Schönberg ob Knittelfeld

Catholic parish church Lind-Maßweg hl. Martin
Catholic parish church Schönberg ob Knittelfeld hl. Stephan

Economy and Infrastructure

Companies

Since 1995/96 there is a shopping, cultural and economic center in Spielberg. ATB, an international company, now employs over 1,500 people at its main location in Spielberg, many of them from neighboring communities. The idea of a planned business park has not yet been implemented.

In the municipality of Spielberg lies the Österreichring , on which the Austrian Grand Prix in the Formula 1 World Championship was held from 1970 to 1987 and from 1997 to 2003 . This event represented an important economic factor for the community and the region. After the ring had already been demolished, it was announced in April 2008 that the Austrian beverage manufacturer Red Bull would like to rebuild the route. The ring was modernized, whereby the route remained the same. The racetrack got the name Red Bull Ring . On May 15, 2011, the ring was officially opened with an open house. The first major event on the new ring took place on July 5, 2011 with a DTM race. In June 2014, Formula 1 returned to Spielberg.

With the return of Formula 1 and the numerous major events such as MotoGP , tourism in the region has also gained in importance. There are numerous makeshift campsites around the racetrack on race weekends, but also numerous homeowners have started to expand and add rooms to meet the increasing demand.

The tourism association "Tourismus am Spielberg" comprises the communities of Spielberg, Zeltweg , Lobmingtal , Seckau , Gaal , Kobenz , St. Marein-Feistritz and St. Margarethen bei Knittelfeld and in 2019 was able to record an overnight stay record of 225,000 overnight stays.

traffic

The train stop is at the southern end of the village of Pausendorf on the Rudolfsbahn .

politics

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The municipal council has 25 members.

With the municipal council elections in Styria in 2015 , the municipal council had the following distribution: 15 SPÖ, 4 ÖVP, 4 FPÖ and 2 KPÖ.
With the municipal council elections in Styria 2020 , the municipal council has the following distribution: 16 SPÖ, 6 ÖVP, 2 KPÖ and 1 FPÖ.

The dominant position of the SPÖ in the community has only existed since the 1960s, when many workers moved from the former rural community through the development of new industrial companies , above all Austria Antriebstechnik AG (ATB) .

In the municipal council elections in 2010, however, the SPÖ suffered losses (−7.65%) while the ÖVP, under its new second deputy mayor, Mag. Bernd Liebminger, was able to gain 7.15% and thus doubled its mandates from three to six. The FPÖ was also able to double its mandate from one to two. For the first time after the 2010 election, the KPÖ is represented with a mandate (Erich Wilding) in the local council, while the Greens left the local council.

mayor

until 2013 Kurt Binderbauer (SPÖ)
since 2013 Manfred Lenger (SPÖ)

badges and flags

The municipal coat of arms was awarded with effect from August 1, 1978.
Blazon (coat of arms description):

"In the golden shield there is a blue three-mountain rising from the base of the shield at the front to the rear edge of the shield, above it of gold and blue in four rows with ten (4: 3: 2: 1) spaces."

The ten complete chessboard fields stand for the ten cadastral parishes of the parish as well as for the game part of the parish name. The three mountain stands for the partial mountain . The coat of arms symbolizes the place name.

Due to the amalgamation of the municipalities, the coat of arms lost its official validity on January 1st, 2015. The re-award took place on September 1, 2015.

The city flag has two stripes in blue and yellow with the coat of arms.

Personalities

Steven Spielberg (born 1946), director and producer. His family name refers to Spielberg Castle . From Hungary originating family lived in the mid-19th century in a "in Styria nearby territory of the Count of Spielberg" before they emigrated to the United States.

Individual evidence

^ Styrian municipal structural reform

↑ Announcement of the Styrian state government of June 29, 2009 on the change of the name of the market town "Spielberg bei Knittelfeld" to "Spielberg", on ris.bka.gv.at, accessed on December 28, 2014.

↑ Murtaler Woche Online: “On October 23rd we will celebrate” ( page no longer available , search in web archives ), October 1st, 2009.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.woche.at

↑ Statistics Austria: Population on January 1st, 2020 by locality (area status on January 1st, 2020) , ( CSV )

↑ cadastral communities Styria. 2015 (Excel file, 128 kB); Retrieved July 29, 2015

^ Grazer Zeitung , Official Gazette for Styria. December 30, 2014, 210th year, 52nd piece. No. 325. ZDB -ID 1291268-2 p. 631.

^ The State of Styria: The new municipal structure of Styria. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 15, 2013 ; Retrieved November 10, 2013 .

↑ Otto Michael Schinko: From Achner to Zugal: mountain, water, house, reed and settlement names in the upper Murtal . disserta Verlag, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-95425-969-4 , p. 137 .

^ Election results for the 2015 municipal council elections in Spielberg. State of Styria, March 22, 2015, accessed on July 2, 2020 .

↑ Results of the municipal council election 2020 in Spielberg. State of Styria, June 28, 2020, accessed on July 2, 2020 .

^ Announcements from the Styrian State Archives 29, 1979, p. 33

↑ 62. Announcement of the Styrian state government of August 6, 2015 on the granting of the right to use a municipal coat of arms to the municipality of Spielberg (political district of Murtal) , accessed on August 12, 2015

^ Entry on Spielberg on the Kommunalflaggen.eu page

Web links

Commons : Spielberg - Collection of images, videos and audio files

62047 - Spielberg. Community data, Statistics Austria .
Website of the municipality of Spielberg
Tourist board website

[1] Styrian municipal structural reform

[2] Announcement of the Styrian state government of June 29, 2009 on the change of the name of the market town "Spielberg bei Knittelfeld" to "Spielberg", on ris.bka.gv.at, accessed on December 28, 2014.