Wörgl is a town with 14,059 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2020)
in the Inn Valley in the Kufstein district in Tyrol, about 55
kilometers (as the crow flies) east of the provincial capital
Innsbruck. The community is located in the judicial district of
Kufstein. The greater Wörgl area is home to around 31,000 residents.
Wörgl was first mentioned in a document with the name “Uuergile”
1104/1116, but there was already a settlement in this area in Roman
times. In 1416 the municipality was divided into two regional
courts, in 1815 the municipalities of Wörgl-Kufstein and
Wörgl-Rattenberg became politically independent.
In 1911,
following the unification of the municipalities, it was elevated to
the status of a market municipality, and in 1951 Wörgl was elevated
to a municipal municipality.
During the Tyrolean freedom
struggle in 1809, a major battle was fought in Wörgl. In the 1930s,
Wörgl became known around the world for its wilderness experiment,
and the place suffered severe destruction during World War II.
Economically, Wörgl has an outstanding position in Tyrol in the
service sector.
Wörgl hugs the southern sides of the Inntal
and Brixental valleys in a gentle curve and is located at the
intersection of Brixental, Sölllandl, Inntal and the Wildschönau
high valley or at the confluence of the Brixentaler Ache and the
Inn. The city is located on the wide alluvial cone of the Wörgler
Bach, the Brixentaler Ache and some smaller mountain streams. In
terms of population, Wörgl is the fifth largest municipality in
Tyrol, but with an area of 19.74 square kilometers it only ranks
171st.
Wörgl before being named for the first time
According to
excavations, the area of Wörgl had been inhabited since the early
Iron Age (1000 BC); At that time there was already brisk trade. The
most extensive prehistoric excavation sites in North Tyrol are
located at Grattenbergl, Egerndorfer Feld and the Wimpissinger
gravel pit. A point of attraction were the existing possibilities
for ore mining of the Schwazer dolomite, which is striking here; The
traffic situation (route from the copper mines around Kitzbühel to
the Inntal) also provided incentives for settlements to emerge. At
that time, a Roman main road from Veldidena to Iuvavum led through
Wörgl, which later became known as "Landtstraße Ordinarii", "Wörgler
Gassen", "Kriegsstrassen" or "Salzburger Reichsstraße" - the same
route through the village as today's Tiroler Straße B 171 as
"Innsbrucker Straße" , "Andreas-Hofer-Platz" and "Salzburger
Straße".
At the excavation site in Egerndorfer Feld, around
500 urn graves around 2500 years old were uncovered and examined in
detail.
There is also evidence of a Roman settlement in
today's urban area. In 1842 the remains of a Roman country house
from the 2nd century AD came to light in the anger of the
Unterkrumbacherhof, where a terra sigillata bowl and painted parts
of the wall were found, which can be seen today in the showcases of
the New Middle School Wörgl 1. The walls, made of rubble, were about
70 cm thick. The furnishings of the villa were quite luxurious, the
floor consisted of solid screed, and wall paintings were found in
five rooms. One room had underfloor heating (hypocaust), the
required warm air was also brought up inside the walls for heating.
It is possible that the heater was also used for a warm water bath
(caldarium).
St. Laurentius, the parish patron, points to a
pre-Germanic Christianization and even in the land maps from the
years before the railway was built, the plots on the former
Reichsstraße show the square shape and size that are known from the
Roman arable land. Today the Dallnhof, the municipal building yard,
a bus garage and the new south cemetery are located on the southern
outskirts of the city within a Roman field measure (230 × 230 m)
that is recognizable in today's cadastre.
In the late 6th
century the Bavarians invaded the Wörgl area.
12th century to
the Tyrolean fight for freedom
The first mention of Wörgl as
Uuergile can be found in a document for the St. Peter monastery in
Salzburg from the years 1104–1116, which speaks of a Hartuuuich de
Uuergile (Hartwig von Wörgl).
In 1255 the fortified castle
was first mentioned as a castellum (Latin for "fortress") in the
Wilten document. Today there are only sparse remains of the wall. It
is located above the Haus district, around 5 km east of the town
center. From 1310 the castle was repeatedly mentioned as an
important base of the ducal Bavarian rule in the Lower Inn Valley.
In the course of the 14th century it appears again and again in
deeds and documents until 1363 the House of Austria provided the
Prince Counts of Tyrol. From now on, the focus was on Rattenberg
Castle and Kufstein Fortress. The ruins, which were still known as
“Burgstätten am Pfaffenberg” in 1892, were no longer occupied and
have been forgotten. Today the Wörgl city coat of arms still reminds
of the former regional importance of the fortified castle.
In
1416 the Wörgl area was administratively divided into two regional
courts. The boundary line of the Wörgler Bach is said to go back to
the two settlement centers - Wörgl-Kufstein has a Germanic (traffic
route-oriented), Wörgl-Rattenberg a Romanesque (water-oriented).
It was not until 1504 that the land below the mouth of the
Ziller finally fell to the Princes of Tyrol when the Kufstein
Fortress was conquered by the German King and later Emperor
Maximilian I.
Despite the division of the place in two, older
similarities remained alive. There were probably two "village
masters" (elected village chiefs, corresponds to today's mayors) and
two "Trüchl" (community coffers), but one name, a common church and
a unified economic community that shared the fields and forests and
carried the burdens together, such as the village letter from 1609
proves, which is an informative legal document about the living
conditions of this time. Right at the beginning, the Wörgler village
letter explains the community rules and the position of the two
village masters:
“First of all, before all the while the peat has been harvested
and is subject to two kinds of jurisdiction, so a whole community
and village of Alda zu Wörgl should also be outside and under
itself, just as it has been from time immemorial, two village
masters be set. "
- The wording of the Wörgl village letter from
1609 (excerpt)
The election of the village master took place
every year around St. Martin's Day (November 11th), the community
meetings were held alternately in the three restaurants Kögltafern
(today Hotel Alte Post), Gratltafern (formerly Neue Post) - both in
Wörgl-Kufstein - and Lamplhof ( today Gasthof Weißes Lamm) was held
in Wörgl-Rattenberg.
In 1786 the first post office in Wörgl
was set up in Kögltafern, and the first postmaster was the host of
the inn. Until then, the post always had to be delivered or picked
up in Kundl. 60 years later, the post office owned eight horses and
two carriages with postilions, which supplied the area from
Kirchbichl to Westendorf. The “Post im Kögl” (Alte Post) was in
operation until 1891, when the station moved across the church
square to Gradltafern (Neue Post).
In 1815 the two localities
of Wörgl-Kufstein and Wörgl-Rattenberg were declared two separate
political communities.
During this time, several well-known
personalities chose the inns of Wörgl as a place to stay during a
transit. For example, Emperor Ferdinand II and his wife Eleonora
stayed in the village on February 4 and 10, 1622 on their return
journey from Innsbruck. Leopold Mozart and his son Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart also stayed in a Wörgler courtyard on their journey from
Salzburg to Italy on December 17, 1769. It was from here that the
young Wolfgang wrote his first letter to his sister Nannerl. Leopold
and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart also visited Wörgl in 1771, 1772 and
1773.
Furthermore, traveled along the main road through the
village:
Emperor Maximilian I (1514 and 1515 twice and in 1518
“terminally ill”).
Emperor Leopold I (1665),
Duke Charles of
Lorraine-Commercy (several times 1681–1690),
Prince Eugene of
Savoy (1701 and 1717),
Empress Maria Theresia (1739 and 1765) and
Emperor Josef II (1765 and 1777) and others
Wörgl in the
Tyrolean fight for freedom
On May 13, 1809, the "Battle of Wörgl"
took place in the Tyrolean struggle for freedom under Andreas Hofer.
At four o'clock in the morning General Field Marshal Carl Philipp
von Wrede set out from Ellmau with his troops of over 10,000 men
sent by Napoleon, which consisted mainly of Bavarian and Saxon
soldiers, to recapture Tyrol in the direction of Wörgl. The Tyrolean
troops, led by General Chasteler, were soon surrounded and could
only be freed through the rapid intervention of an allied company;
the Napoleonic troops of Wredes were already in the mood for
victory. At around ten o'clock the Austrian and Bavarian troops
crossed the Brixentaler Ache, and fierce defensive battles began on
the Grattenbergl, in Egerndorf and on the Grattenbrücke, the only
road bridge over the Ache near Wörgl. After the Austrians had
managed to cross the barricaded bridge, another battle began against
the Bavarians in the eastern fields near Wörgl. However, von Wredes
Reiter managed to overrun the Austrian troops and the Bavarian
artillery began to bombard the place. After von Wrede had bypassed
the village to the north (between Söcking and the church) and
bombarded the Austrian line from the west, the Austrians were forced
to evacuate the burning place around noon. The retreat degenerated
into a hunt around Wörgl, which resulted in high losses. Local
riflemen were posted on the southern edge of the mountain to stop
troops trying to circumvent the town to the south. They could no
longer rush to the aid of the weak troops. The encounter cost the
Austrians 38 officers, around 1,000 men were wounded, 655 of whom
died. The amount of casualties at the Napoleonic camp is not known,
but around 1,000 soldiers are believed to have died. The village
suffered several fires and looting. The Bavarians, Saxons and French
then marched through the Lower Inn Valley towards Innsbruck,
pillaging and murdering, where the Second Bergisel Battle took place
a few days later. The “Wörgler Reara” monument in front of the
parish church, designed by Christian Plattner and inaugurated for
the 100th anniversary in 1909, commemorates this day.
Rise of
Wörgl during the time of Emperor Franz Joseph I.
In 1842 more than 40 people died in Wörgl from a cholera
epidemic. Serious illnesses repeatedly circulated in Wörgl, which
were carried off to the small town by people passing through. In
1896 the village suffered from a typhus epidemic.
In the
years 1863/64, the Wörgl settlement area was raised to two
independent communities, Wörgl-Rattenberg and Wörgl-Kufstein, after
they had been attached to the neighboring communities of Kundl and
Kirchbichl in 1815 as independent political groups and in 1854 as
dependent groups. The Wörgler Bach formed the natural border between
the two communities and at the same time between the judicial
districts of Rattenberg and Kufstein. This division, which existed
until 1910, is still reminiscent of the fact that Wörgl consists of
two cadastral communities and therefore has two land registers that
correspond to the old community areas and names.
Wörgl's
economic rise began with the construction of the Giselabahn between
1873 and 1875 and its connection to the Lower Inn Valley Railway,
which was built in 1858, making Wörgl the first Tyrolean railway
junction before Innsbruck. For this reason, the Wörgl main train
station is the busiest in Tyrol after the Innsbruck main train
station.
Emperor Franz Joseph I is likely to have passed
Wörgl about ten times by train, where he and his wife Empress
Elisabeth also paid a visit to the village and the village church.
After the murder of the Empress in Geneva, the “court corpse
procession” stopped on November 24, 1898 in the Wörgler train
station for a funeral service.
Emperor Karl I also passed the
market several times by train, on July 5, 1917, he and his wife
Empress Zita were received at the train station. Queen Victoria of
England and Kaiser Wilhelm II also passed the town by train. During
a stopover in Wörgl on April 6, 1938, Adolf Hitler was
enthusiastically welcomed by numerous supporters at the train
station.
In 1891, Wörgl was given a parish office when, by
order of Emperor Franz Joseph, all vicariates of the monarchy were
promoted to parishes. During this time there was also a significant
increase in population, so that in 1912 the parish church was
expanded.
On December 31, 1910, the communities of
Wörgl-Kufstein and Wörgl-Rattenberg ("entern and herentern Bach")
were united. There were difficulties in convincing the municipality
of Wörgl-Rattenberg of the merger, as it should merge into the
larger neighboring municipality of Wörgl-Kufstein. In 1910 the
Wörgl-Rattenberg village chief Franz Gruber succeeded in convincing
his local council, which on July 4th approved the merger.
Wörgl-Kufstein's approval was given on June 23, 1910. On September
10, the two community boards met to declare legal validity, the
Tyrolean state parliament approved on November 3, 1910, and one day
later the k.k. Ministry of the Interior. At the time of the local
unification, Wörgl had 4232 inhabitants, of which only 1280 were
Wörglers (around 30%), around 1,200 came from all parts of Tyrol and
Vorarlberg, around 800 were citizens of various Austro-Hungarian
crown lands, and a further 700 came from other communities in the
District. It is noteworthy that even then around 200 foreign
citizens were living in Wörgl. On March 28, 1911, the two united
village communities Wörgl-Kufstein and Wörgl-Rattenberg were raised
to market in the presence of the emperor. At that time, between the
train station and the village center, there was the image of a
pioneer settlement in the heated optimism of progress of the early
days. In the course of the market survey, the parish council moved
into the first parish hall, which was a converted farm and stood in
the city center in place of today's Raiffeisenplatz.
Wörgler
emergency money
After the First World War, coins became
increasingly rare, and the State Office for Finance (today's
Ministry of Finance) issued a permit for municipalities to print
their change themselves if there was a shortage. From 1919 this
happened to an increasing extent, in Tyrol starting from Innsbruck
they started to print emergency money. The market town of Wörgl also
began issuing Wörgl emergency money in 1919 with a value of 10, 20,
30, 50, 75 and 90 Heller, which was valid until the end of 1920. The
community was able to keep the amount that had not been redeemed as
a profit, but the amount of this profit is no longer known. In
Wörgl, several editions were necessary due to the great success.
Wörgler Schwundgeld (free money)
In Wörgl, the local cement
and cellulose production had declined sharply around 1932 and the
unemployment rate rose dangerously. On the one hand, the
municipality had considerable tax shortfalls, on the other hand,
high burdens from support payments to the unemployed. The cash
register was empty and there was no end in sight. A welfare
committee was set up to organize the issue of emergency money. From
the end of July 1932, the municipal administration under Mayor
Michael Unterguggenberger issued its own so-called labor vouchers,
the Wörgler Schilling, as wages for the municipal employees. The
notes were available in face values of one, five and ten
shillings. A total of 32,000 emergency schillings were issued, but
the municipality that issued the Schwundgeld only bought a total of
8500 emergency schillings from the committee, of which only an
average of around 6000 schillings were in circulation. It is
believed that the actual money circulation occurred over 400 times
within the 14 months.
The labor tokens were free money that
was secured against circulation. The ideas supplier was Silvio
Gesell's free economics. Every month, a stamp had to be bought at
one percent of the face value of the note and stuck in a space
provided on the front of the banknote in order to keep it valid. The
money was covered by depositing cash from the community at the
Wörgler Raiffeisenkasse and was linked to the schilling in the same
way. With these notes municipal taxes could be paid. Local
businessmen took free money in exchange.
The experiment was
successful. The money cycle and economic activity revived while the
rest of the country was deep in economic crisis. The project's
successes were impressive:
The revenue backlog has been reduced
by 34%,
the tax arrears could be reduced by over 60%.
Furthermore, there was an increase in the income from municipal
taxes by 34% and
an increase in capital expenditures of the
municipality of about 220%.
Until the 1980s, among other
things, the inscription "built with free money" on a road bridge
testified to this. In the 14 months of the experiment, the
unemployment rate in Wörgl fell from 21 to 15%, while it continued
to rise in the rest of the country.
The positive effects
meant that the model test was praised in the press as the “Wörgl
miracle”. The interest in it increased to such an extent that over a
hundred other communities in the Wörgl area wanted to follow the
example. The campaign also attracted considerable attention and
imitated abroad and overseas. From France the finance minister and
later prime minister Édouard Daladier traveled to Wörgl, and in the
USA the economist Irving Fisher proposed - albeit in vain - that the
American government introduce a Wörgl-like money called stamp scrip
to overcome the economic crisis.
However, the
Oesterreichische Nationalbank successfully appealed against the
Wörgler free money campaign in court because it alone had the right
to issue coins and banknotes. The Wörgl experiment and all further
planning were banned. After threatening military action, Wörgl ended
the experiment in September 1933.
The Unterguggenberger
Institute association, headed by chairwoman Veronika Spielbichler,
keeps alive the legacy of the Wörgl money experiment and brings
historical experience together with current projects. An exhibition
is held together with the local history museum and the city archive.
Up-to-date solutions on the subject of complementary currency are
compiled comprehensively and made available to a broad public.
In 1951 and 1983, free economic congresses in Wörgl recalled the
currency experiment, as did a conference in 1996. The city of Wörgl
officially declared 2007 the Wörgl free money year. At the end of
March 2009, Mayor Abler proposed the introduction of a complementary
currency based on the historical model because of the ongoing
economic crisis.
In the fall of 2017, the television film
"The Miracle of Wörgl" was shot. See also: section Honoring Michael
Unterguggenberger
In his novel "Wasserscheiden", Alfred
DeMichele transforms the events surrounding the Wörgl currency
experiment into the present day and presumably honors Michael
Unterguggenberger with the figure of one of the protagonists
(Professor Guggenmoser).
Interwar period
On February 12, 1934, young Social Democrats
took up arms in Wörgl, as in other Austrian cities, because after
Adolf Hitler's seizure of power they no longer believed in a
peaceful transformation of Austria. Wörgl was thus the westernmost
battlefield in the Austrian civil war. In the area of the train
station and the former cellulose factory, there were violent
exchanges of fire between the Social Democratic Republican
Protection Association and the Home Guard. Mayor Michael
Unterguggenberger and a cooperator were able to get the state
gendarmerie commandant to postpone the standing rights to 90
minutes. During this time, the Schutzbund could be persuaded to give
up, which resulted in two injured men on both sides, but no
fatalities. The arriving armed forces were able to adjust the
remaining resistance. Twelve “Radelsführer” were sentenced to heavy
dungeon by the regional court, but in 1935 Federal President Miklas
stopped the criminal proceedings against the 77 workers who were
involved in the fighting in the Wörgl area.
On March 12,
1938, German soldiers, followed by the SS standard “Germany”,
entered Wörgl, and the SS men withdrew to Munich on March 17. After
some positive changes such as the construction of people's
apartments and the large number of jobs through further projects as
well as flourishing tourism, worrying circumstances quickly
followed, such as the expansion of the garrison location in Wörgl,
the dissolution of some associations or the imprisonment of
political functionaries.
Second World War in Wörgl
From
1942 to 1944 there was a transit camp in the district of Söcking,
consisting of 18 accommodation, four administrative barracks,
disinfection and disinfestation stations. At times up to 1,200
people were accommodated in the camp, a total of 34 transports with
31,759 people took place. Most of the forced laborers came from the
occupied territories of the Soviet Union and were among others. used
in agricultural and armaments factories in western Austria and
Bavaria. After the transports ended, it was used as a refugee camp,
and it was demolished in the 1950s.
Wörgl was badly damaged
by the Second World War. From the end of 1943, Wörgl was exposed to
Allied bombing in the aerial warfare, which culminated in the Wörgl
Bomb Days on February 22nd and 23rd, 1945. As part of Operation
Clarion (German: "Fanfare Blast"), numerous air raids began in the
Tyrolean lowlands, which reached Wörgl on February 22nd. The Allies
intended to destroy the station, but due to the thick fog and the
associated poor visibility, 16.5 tons of bombs dropped caused
widespread destruction, but the targeted area of the station was
hardly hit. The following day, another 390 tons fell on the station
in the form of over 1,000 bombs, which was destroyed as a result.
The bombing of these two days changed the cityscape of Wörgl forever
and claimed 69 lives, including 46 people living in Wörgl and 23
foreigners. 43 houses were completely destroyed, 105 houses and the
parish church were significantly damaged. Even today, aerial bombs
are repeatedly found during construction work, especially in the
area around the station.
At least twelve wörglers died in
concentration camps and other prisons. Between 1939 and 1945 during
the Second World War, 236 Wörglers died in the theaters of war, 46
soldiers are missing.
Wörgl after the city elevation
Just
ten days after the municipality's application to become a town, on
February 16, 1951, on the initiative of the then Mayor of Wörgl and
Vice-President of the Tyrolean state parliament, Kommerzialrat
Martin Pichler, the Tyrolean state parliament approved. The
milestone was celebrated with a three-day ceremony (August 17-19).
On August 19, Federal President Theodor Körner was received at the
train station, followed by a festive divine service with Prince
Archbishop Andreas Rohracher and a parade through the city with 112
participating groups and around 30,000 spectators.
In 1952,
the first Zamenhof monument in Austria was inaugurated in front of
Wörgl's main train station, commemorating the founder of the
Esperanto language. The monument in the city, which was badly
damaged in the war, is intended to be a memorial for peace, which is
the ultimate goal behind Zamenhof's planned language.
On Tuesday, August 23, 2005, Wörgl was badly affected by a flood
of the century. At around 4 p.m. at the Aubach pump lift - in which
the water carried by some streams is pumped up to the somewhat
higher level of the Inn - the separating dam that separated the
Wörgler Basin from the Inn broke open over a length of around ten
meters. As a result, massive water ingress was registered in the
western part of the city. The dam breach flooded an area of around
80 hectares with an estimated 1.4 million m³ of muddy water from the
Inn around two meters high. The evacuation was carried out by means
of fire engines, and in the hours that followed, fire brigades
rushed from South Tyrol to Lower Austria to Wörgl in order to master
the masses of water. Burst oil tanks made the work difficult. This
event of the century flooded around 200 buildings, two shopping
centers and several warehouses, and made some buildings
uninhabitable. In the new “WAVE” adventure pool in the west of the
city, the 2500 m² sauna area was flooded about six meters high. The
Inntal Autobahn had to be closed between the Wörgl West and Wörgl
Ost exits due to undercutting. Without this breach of the dam,
Kufstein would also have been a victim of the flood, as the Inn
level there had already reached critical levels during this period.
In Wörgl, the Brixentaler Ache and the Wörgler Bach also overflowed
their banks at their confluence with the Inn. The cleaning and
reconstruction work took several weeks. As a result, the community
tried to improve the flood protection, for example the dam was
replaced by several pump pipes into the Inn.
In 2010 the
construction of the planned Tyrol Tower was shelved.
Today
Wörgl is the second largest city in the Kufstein district and one of
the economic centers in western Austria as well as the most
important city in the Tyrolean lowlands in terms of retail sales.
The city has been a member of the Tyrol Climate Alliance since 1992.
By train
Wörgl train station is on the
Kufstein - Innsbruck railway line
In the street
Wörgl is
on the A12 Inntal motorway. Attention: The 5 km long, once toll-free
section of the Inntal motorway from the German border near
Kiefersfelden to the "Kufstein-Süd" motorway exit also has a toll!
(10-day vignette).