Klagenfurt - History

History

Legend has it that Klagenfurt was founded after a couple of brave men had slain the abominable "Lindwurm", a winged dragon in the moors adjoining the lake, the staple diet of which is said to have been virgins, but which did not spurn the fat bull on a chain that the men had mounted on a strong tower. The feat is commemorated by a grandiose 9-ton Renaissance monument in the city centre.

Historically, the place was founded by the Spanheim Duke Herman as a stronghold sited across the commercial routes in the area. Its first mention dates from the late 12th century in a document in which Duke Ulric II. exempted St. Paul's Abbey from the toll charge "in foro Chlagenvurth". That settlement occupied an area that was subject to frequent flooding, so in 1246 Duke Herman's son, Duke Bernhard von Spanheim moved it to a safer position and is thus considered to be the actual founder of the market place, which in 1252 received a city charter.

In the following centuries Klagenfurt suffered fires, earthquakes, invasions of locusts and attacks from Turks, and was ravaged by the Peasants' Wars. In 1514 a fire almost completely destroyed the city, and in 1518 Emperor Maximilian I, unable to rebuild it, despite the loud protests of the burgers, ceded Klagenfurt to the Estates, the nobility of the Duchy. Never before had such a thing happened. The new owners, however, brought about an economic renaissance and the political and cultural ascendancy of Klagenfurt. A canal was dug to connect the city to the lake as a supply route for timber to rebuild the city and to feed the city's new moats; the noble families had their town houses built in the duchy's new capital, the city was enlarged along a geometrical chequer-board lay-out according to the Renaissance ideas of the Italian architect Domenico dell'Allio; a new city centre square, the Neuer Platz, was constructed; and the new fortifications that took half a century to build made Klagenfurt the strongest fortress north of the Alps.

In 1809, however, the French troops under Napoleon destroyed the city walls, leaving, against a large sum collected by the citizens, only one eastern gate (which was pulled down to make way for traffic some decades later), and the small stretch in the west which is now all that is left of the once grand fortifications. In 1863 the railway connection to St. Veit an der Glan boosted the city's economy and so did the building of the Vienna-Trieste railway that brought the city an imposing central station (destroyed in World War II) and made Klagenfurt the absolute centre of the region.

During the 19th century, the city developed into an important centre of Carinthian Slovene culture. Many important Slovene public figures lived, studied or worked in Klagenfurt, among them Anton Martin Slomšek, who later became the first bishop of Maribor and was beatified in 1999, the philologists Jurij Japelj and Anton Janežič, the politician Andrej Einspieler, and the activist Matija Majar. The Slovene national poet France Prešeren also spent a short part of his professional career there. On the initiative of bishop Slomšek, teacher Anton Janežič and vicar Andrej Einspieler on 27 July 1851 in Klagenfurt the Hermagoras Society publishing house was founded, which in 1919 moved to Prevalje and then in 1927 to Celje, but was re-established in Klagenfurt in 1947. Several Slovene language newspapers were also published in the city, among them the Slovenski glasnik. By the late 19th century, however, the Slovene cultural and political influence in Klagenfurt had declined sharply, and by the end of World War One, the city showed an overwhelmingly Austrian German character.

Nevertheless, in 1919, the city was occupied by the Army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and claimed for the newly-founded South-Slav kingdom. In 1920, the Yugoslav occupying forces withdrew from the town centre, but remained in its southern suburbs, such as Viktring and Ebenthal. They eventually withdrew after the Carinthian Plebiscite in October 1920, when the majority of voters in the Carinthian mixed-language Zone A decided to remain part of Austria.

In 1938 Klagenfurt's population suddenly grew by more than 50% through the incorporation of the town of St. Ruprecht and the municipalities of St. Peter, Annabichl, and St. Martin. But during WWII, the city was bombed 41 times, the bombs killing 612 people, completely destroying 443 buildings, and damaging 1,132 others. 110,000 cubic metres of rubble had to be removed before the citizens could set about rebuilding their city.

In order to avoid further destruction and a major bloodshed, on May 3, 1945 General Löhr of Army Group E (Heeresgruppe E) had agreed to declare Klagenfurt an "open city" "in case Anglo-American forces should attack the city", a declaration that was broadcast several times and two days later also published in the Kärntner Nachrichten.

On 8 May 1945, 9:30 a.m., British troops of the Eighth Army under General McCreery entered Klagenfurt and were met in front of Stauderhaus by the new democratic city and state authorities. All the strategic positions and important buildings were immediately seized, and Major General Horatius Murray was taken to General Noeldechen for the official surrender of the 438th German Division. Three hours later groups of partisans arrived on a train which they had seized in the Rosental valley the day before, and Yugoslav regular forces of the IVth army moved in at the same time, both claiming the city with its South Carinthian hinterland and immediately establishing a Komanda staba za Koroška, afterwards named the "Commandantura of the Carinthian Military Zone" under Major Egon Remec after they had made their way through the streets jammed with tens of thousands of Volksdeutsche refugees and masses of soldiers of all the nationalities that had been fighting under German command and were now fleeing the Russians. On Neuer Platz - renamed "Adolf Hitler Platz" in 1938 - British armoured vehicles are said to have faced allied Yugoslav ones in a hostile way, which would have been a curious spectacle for the liberated burghers, but this is probably one more of those modern legends.

From the beginning of 1945, when the end of the war was rather obvious, numerous talks among representatives of democratic pre-1934 organisations had taken place, which later extended to high-ranking officers of the Wehrmacht and officials of the administration. Even representatives of the partisans in the hills south of Klagenfurt were met who, in view of the strong SS-forces in Klagenfurt, agreed not to attempt to take the city by force, but upheld the official declaration that Carinthia was to be a Yugoslav possession.

On May 7, a committee convened in the historic Landhaus building of the Gau authorities in order to form a Provisional State government, and one of the numerous decisions taken was a proclamation to the "People of Carinthia" reporting the resignation of the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter Friedrich Rainer, the transfer of power to the new authorities, and an appeal to the people to decorate their homes with Austrian or Carinthian colours, which was printed in the Kärntner Zeitung of May 8. When on the following day Yugoslav military demanded of Klagenfurt's new mayor that he remove the Austrian flag from the city hall and fly the Yugoslav flag, the acting British Town Officer Cptn. Watson immediately prohibited this but also orderered that the Austrian flag be taken down. Accompanied by a guerilla carrying a machine pistol a Yugoslav emissary appeared on the same day in the Landesregierung building, demanding of the Acting State Governor Piesch repeal the order to take down the Yugoslav flag, which was ignored.

Several days passed before under British pressure with US diplomatic backing the Yugoslav troops withdrew from the city proper, not before establishing a parallel Carinthian-Slovene civil administration, a Carinthian National Council presided over by Franc Petek. However, protected by British soldiers, the members of the Provisional State Government went about their responsible business devising a comprehensive concept to cover the new political, sociological and economic situation in the land, which would serve the British military authorities. Rapid financial assistance and the restitution of property to the victims of the Nazi regime was necessary. This posed a problem because one of the very first actions of the British had been to confiscate all the property of the Nazi Party, to freeze all bank accounts and to block all financial transfers. It took months before basic communication and public transport, mail service and supply were working again, to some extent at least. During the years that followed these turbulent days a major part of the British Eighth Army, which in July 1945 was re-constituted as British Troops in Austria (BTA), had their headquarters in Klagenfurt, since Carinthia together with neighbouring Styria formed the British occupation zone in liberated Austria, a state of affairs which lasted until 26 Oct. 1955.

In 1961, Klagenfurt became the first city in Austria to adopt a pedestrian zone. The idea of a friendly twinning of cities in other countries that had started with the very first ever city partnership - Klagenfurt and Wiesbaden, Germany, as early as 1930 - was followed up by numerous city partnerships with the result that in 1968 Klagenfurt was honoured with the title of a "European City of the Year". Three times, a European record, Klagenfurt was also awarded the prestigious Europa Nostra Diploma of Merit for the exemplary restoration and redevelopment of its ancient centre.

In 1973 Klagenfurt absorbed four more adjacent municipalities - Viktring with its grand Cistercian monastery, Wölfnitz, Hörtendorf, and St. Peter am Bichl, increasing the population of Klagenfurt to about 90,000.