Amstetten is an industrial city in Lower Austria and the economic center of the Mostviertel. The city has about 23,000 inhabitants.
Edla Castle
Ulmerfeld Castle
Parish
Catholic Church Amstetten-St. Stefan: The city's parish church, mostly
Gothic, has ribbed vaults, numerous baroque paintings, a neoclassical
high altar, late medieval gravestones and statuettes, well-preserved
frescoes and a 15th-century triptych in the early Gothic baptistery.
Catholic parish church Amstetten-Herz Jesu, which was renovated after
severe war damage in 1953 in the then simplified Bauhaus style.
The
Catholic monastery church of the Congregation of School Sisters of the
3rd Order of St. Francis, the interior of which is completely decorated
with picturesque rows and ornaments in the neoclassical style.
Evangelical Church of the Redeemer in Amstetten
Parish Catholic
Church Amstetten-St. Marien: In contrast, the youngest church in
Amstetten, the parish church of St. Mary in the Allersdorf district,
built in 1973, is a bold and energetic attempt to implement the new
pastoral approaches of the Second Vatican Council.
Parish Catholic
Church Ulmerfeld Hll. Peter and Paul
Catholic branch of the
Eisenreichdornach hl. Agatha
In the urban area of Amstetten
itself, which is crossed by several streams, there are natural walking
paths and parks. Among them, Edla Park, with the feature of a landscape
park, which was a compilation of the flora of the then known world in
accordance with the ideal of the Renaissance, with a simple country
castle of Edla. In addition, the school park with large monuments to the
fallen, as well as the Hofmühlpark in Hausmening. The town hall on the
main square, which has now been turned into a pedestrian area (with
regular markets), has kept its classicist façade almost intact during
the reconstruction carried out in the 1980s, and the core of the
building has been completely renovated.
From the Federal
Gymnasium, the planetary path begins, which runs along the Mühlbach and
the "Schwarzen Weg" to Pluto in Greinsfurt.
An important, mostly
underestimated industrial monument is the former water tower on the
territory of the railway station, which today is of enormous size (circa
1880), but cannot be viewed from the inside and was used for
recreational purposes. The same can be said for the Ybbs power plant in
Klein Greinsfurt, which, after modernization, still provides the
majority of Amstett's power supply.
The psychiatric hospital in
Mauer was built in the Art Nouveau style by Carlo von Boog.
In the municipal area are:
Mostfirtler Farm Museum, owned
by the Distelberger family
private collection of a local resident
Mostfirthler, very attached to the home and to the simple life of former
eras
The collection of historic Ursitz weapons, owned by Amstettner,
who until a few years ago produced weapons for the Swiss Guard of the
Vatican.
Every year on April 24 in the district
of Ulmerfeld Georgi-Kirtag and September 29 Michaeli-Kirtag are
celebrated. A weekly farmers' market on Thursdays and Saturdays in the
pedestrian area is part of the permanent establishment.
Amstetten
offers a wide range of cultural events: on the one hand, the concert and
theater program of the Amstetten Event Center (AVB) is extremely popular
both regionally and nationally. On the other hand, the city's cultural
office offers other cultural events such as cinemas in the park, tokens,
demonstration exhibitions, the town hall gallery, exhibitions at
Ulmerfeld Castle or a street art festival.
Since November 2017,
sessions have been held in the city every last Thursday of the month.
They are organized by the association JAMstetten - make music together.
Amstetten's city marketing ensures a good mood in the center all
year round, for example with the Amstetten shopping night, the city's
flea market, the car mile and much more.
Amsteteten, as the center of the bridge, is deliberately trying to offer the products that the Earth produces there. First of all, it should be noted a wort whose cognac products are already using a reputation throughout Europe. Many wine taverns, as well as restaurants, often almost hidden village hotels in Amstetten and its immediate vicinity offer a kitchen that is aware of its strengths and in some cases rises to the level of Touque. Here, too, in recent years, a restructuring occurred, after Amsteteten, after a ten-year period of the huge gastronomic standards of the middle class kitchen, also rolled into the crisis of identity in this area, from which, however, once came out. He was again convincingly freed.
The municipality of Amsteteten is located on historical
-poisoning, topographically predetermined through tracks - as a narrow
place between the foothills of the Alps in the south and the granite
foothills of the Bohemian plate, cut by the Danube of Neustadtler, and
borders on the lush farmers of the bridge in the west and east. These
factors - transit and agriculture - also formed historical development
up to the New Year, and especially the development of the economic and
shopping center in the today's harmony with historical changes - the
loss of the importance of military security, which led Amsteteten to the
limit of the existing and the increased value of transport, with which
The value of amstettten is traditionally directly related.
Today,
the city is located on Westautobahn a 1 and Westbahn and is not only
important gates to Annstal, but also became the Economic Center of the
Western Mostfiger with the Judicial District Amsteteten with a
population of about 110,000 people.
The municipality consists not
only of the actual central part of the city, but also applies to six
cadastral communities: Edla, Hausmening and Mauer near Amstesteten. In
addition, the community was joined by the Obinnsbach, Shenbihl and
Ulmerfeld.
In addition to several streams, some of which are quite many -water (including ghirbas, Edlabach, Provinsbach and Mülbach), Amstetten has two rivers in the Malaya Url, which flows into the main river of the region rich in water, YBBS, shortly before Amsteteten. It is also the heraldic river Amstettten. Only the extensive structures of dams - as the third line that separated the urban territory near the railway and roads, which is the biggest problem of urban planning to this day - were able to prevent the regular flooding of the city of Ibbus. It separates (several times connects) the southern parts of Allerysdorf, Grainsfurt, Ulmerfeld and Hausmening from the rest of the city. The IBBS river, which initially bordered with Amstetten in the south, and now crosses it, was a popular river for swimming in the inhabitants of Amstesteten until the 1960s, and its water also had an old open pool. However, it was almost completely destroyed by the cellulose-paper industry of Ibstali. The river, which used to be used as a drift, has now become a popular place for local rest (fishing, bathing) after radical measures to improve water quality.
Amsteteten is located in the climate province of the Austrian foothills
of the Alps and in the transition zone between the moist ocean climate
in Western Europe and the dry continental climate in the east. Due to
the protected location, an average of 3-6 ° C is warmer than in nearby
areas. The average annual temperature is from 9 to 12 ° C. The average
annual rainfall is 1000 mm, while the most frequent precipitation in the
form of rain and in the summer months.
In the autumn and winter
months, in particular, persistent inversion clouds often occur due to
the location of the pool, which means that the duration of sunlight is
very short.
The wind usually blows from the weak to moderate
force 2-3 points on the box scale, mainly from the west. Eastern winds
often occur only in conditions of high pressure. They blow very
constantly and often for several days and can be very strong, but rarely
reach wind strength more than 7 points.
Strong storms happen
quite rarely, they come only from the west, but occasionally reach the
wind speed of more than 100 km/h, which once every few years causes
severe wind damage to the surrounding forests.
Findings show that the area was inhabited as early as the Neolithic,
Bronze and Iron Ages. The Mauer area contains important excavation sites
where ancient Roman finds were made. In Roman times, Mauer was part of
the Locus Felicis fort. In 1937 Austria's most important Roman treasure
was found here: an inventory of a sanctuary dedicated to the god Jupiter
Dolichen. Bronze figurines and bronze vows, silver vows, bronze utensils
and iron utensils were probably buried around 233 AD. Today they are in
the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Amstetten was located on what
was already an important through line: the Roman linden road anticipated
all later through roads (B 1). By the time of the migration of peoples,
the country was again largely depopulated, only the Slavs settled. In
the 7th century, the Avars used the Roman road. The troops that
Charlemagne led in the fight against the Avars later moved along it. The
battle of 788 is documented. "In Campo Ibose" - on Ybbsfeld near
Neumarkt an der Ybbs.
In the 9th century, the area that became
known as the "Slavic land" (the names of many places and fields still
date back to Slavic words) was settled and converted to Christianity
from both Salzburg and Passau. It is no longer entirely clear whether
the parish of St. Stephen, with the surrounding properties and the
vicarage, existed before the actual city of Amstetten, even if it did
not belong to the original parishes of the area. In any case, this must
be the oldest part, which called itself Amstetten. From 903 to 955, the
territory was initially occupied by Hungary - up to the Enns. At that
time, a courtyard surrounded by a thorny fence must have existed in the
Eisenreichdornach district or along the Roman road to St. Georgen.
In 976, Leopold I received the
Margraviate of the Danube Valley (from which Austria later emerged) as a
fief, including Amstetten. Today's Ulmerfeld area is first mentioned in
a document from 995 as the Freising market. As a place itself, it is
mentioned in documents only in 1111 as the market of the Bishop of
Passau, and its fortification, which c. a. strengthening the parish of
St. Stephen's was probably just a push of Passau away from the original
Salzburg parish of Winklarn, then "Ipus" (Ybbs). The name "Amstetten"
probably comes from Ahd. ambahtsteti, office, administrative city. The
core of the oldest surviving building in Amstetten also dates from
around this time: the northern part of the Gothic (only slightly
Baroque) parish church of St. Stephen.
1321 castle in Ulmerfeld
under Bishop Conrad III of Freisinger. built and place with the consent
of the first Habsburg, as the Romano-Germanic king Rudolf I expanded
with the city wall.
The trading city of Amstetten also received
permission to build a fortification, but almost never used it. There
were only temporary ditches and mounds, some of which can still be seen
today. Not least because of this, the history of the market during the
late Middle Ages and early modern period is a series of robberies, arson
and ruin - by peasant uprisings, Hungarians, Hussites or other disputes.
The place burned down completely in 1509 and during the Turks in 1529,
which is described as "its deepest and most terrible decline", so that
the place was abandoned and empty until about 1542 and thus lost its
market privileges for decades. Imperial documents were simply burned.
The Thirty Years' War did less damage to this boom than might have
been supposed, because the area enjoyed imperial privileges due to its
proximity to "Eisenwurzen" (as an armory), which was important to the
war effort. Nevertheless, Amstetten, which had its first post office in
1640, was bled dry and weakened by billeting and supply obligations, as
well as by plague. Even if the Merian engraving of 1649 with probably
the most historically famous view of the market place, she is again
depicted with a respectable row of brick townhouses around the central
main square.
By the end of the 17th century, the city began to
slowly prosper again. With the economic position as a market, the
importance as a place of jurisdiction and taxation has increased, but
still only with market rights. The fact that in the metric books of the
oldest parish of St. Stephen, an extremely high percentage of marriages
with "foreigners" is noted, which speaks of the amazing development of
supra-regional relations. Often there are those who have previously
found work in Amstetten.
The spirit of baroque optimism that also
touched Amstetten through a flourishing pilgrimage system (the
Sonntagberg, sometimes visited by more than a million pilgrims a year),
also suffered from the worst European plague of 1679, which half
depopulated the place, or the devastating Ruhr epidemic of 1684, which
wiped out about 110 lives, only a little tired. When the Turks and
Tatars invaded again in 1683, which caused panic throughout the country
and the fortified Ulmerfeld became a place of refuge for the
Amstetteners, the imperial troops really managed to defend the bare
village and save it from the worst devastation. In any case, they
organized the supply of troops "from the country." Why is not clear -
Amstetten may have lost the entire 18th century in regards to its market
rights. Parish report of St. Stephen for 1718 shows, including the
branch of the church in Viedorf, 1870 adults and 523 children.
In 1803 the reign of the two spiritual principalities of
Passau and Salzburg ended with the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss. In
1805, a major battle took place near Amstetten. The French advancing to
Vienna from Bavaria after the defeat of the Austrians near Ulm (who were
supposed to evacuate Bavaria) met the retreating Russians under the
command of Kutuzov, who "settled on the heights of Amstetten" (Napoleon)
and were defeated here. As a result, the place was looted and heavily
burned. Napoleon reports in his memoirs "My Life" about 400 killed and
wounded and 1,500 captured Russians. The battle is also mentioned by Leo
Tolstoy in War and Peace.
In 1850 and 1868 Amstetten became the
seat of the district administration. In the same year, he received the
district court of one prison.
At this time, Amstetten finally
experienced its breakthrough, namely with the opening of the
Empress-Elisabeth-Westbahn, today's Westbahn (1858) and, above all, the
Kronprinz-Rudolf-Bahn (1872). The latter was an "emergency decision"
because the people of Blindenmarkt spoke out against the expected dirt
and noise pollution, so the railway line was not allowed to be built in
the village itself, as in Amstetten. This made Amstetten an important
railway junction with the Styrian ore and forest regions and Ennstal.
The significance of the railway for Amstetten cannot be overestimated,
and not only because the emperor stopped here from time to time during
his trip to Bad Ischl, for example, to visit the newly opened monastery
church of the Sisters of the School. One of the most important 19th
century foundations for the village in its significance as a school
place was the establishment in 1876 of a branch of the Judenau School
Sisters, which soon became their largest. In the first half of the 20th
century there were periods, such as during World War II, when up to
5,000 people worked in and around the station. At the turn of the 19th
and 20th centuries, the city's population grew.
Under mayor
Johann Wagmeister, dikes were also built on the Ibb, which later had to
be raised after new floods. A devastating fire on June 17, 1877 brought
bad luck: almost the entire city burned down, which explains the small
number of old buildings. In 1897 Emperor Franz Joseph I finally made
Amstetten a city. This grew rapidly: Greimpersdorf, Edla, Dornach,
Eggersdorf were included. In 1898, the construction of the
Herz-Jesu-Kirche began, which since 1939 became the center of the second
parish.
Amstetten was also the garrison of
the city of kuk. Army of the Austrian Armed Forces (Melck Command),
which became part of the Wehrmacht after the annexation of Austria in
1938. For Cold War strategic reasons, Amstetten was a "key military
area".
The Commercial Academy and Commercial School in Amstetten
were founded in 1932.
A large war memorial in the city park, a
memorial to the victims of ideological persecution in 1934 and
1938-1945, testifies to the large losses of the population in the world
wars of the twentieth century. in the "new cemetery", two monuments to
the dead Red Army soldiers in prominent places. In 1978, a decision was
made to build the Ostarrichi barracks, which was inaugurated in
September 1982.
In 1937, Austria's most important Roman treasure,
Jupiter Dolichen, was made in Mauer near Amstetten, which is today in
the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Towards the end of the
war, women's and men's camps were established in Amstetten as a subcamp
of the Mauthausen concentration camp. After the end of Nazi rule, few
residents of the city said they saw or knew anything about local Nazi
crimes.
The Jewish religious community in Amstetten existed from
1861 to 1938.
As a railway
junction, Amstetten was of strategic importance as a military target
during the war and was therefore heavily bombed several times by
American and later Soviet forces. Repair work on the infrastructure was
mainly carried out by prisoners of concentration camps. The city,
crowded with refugees and retreating units of the Wehrmacht, only in the
last days of April 1945 was subjected to heavy shelling, caused by the
long senseless anti-aircraft reaction of the SS troops guarding the
prisoners of the concentration camp. . This attack alone claimed more
than 200 lives, in addition to major destruction, including one of the
few surviving buildings from the Middle Ages, "Kilianbrunnen", on the
site of a medieval pillory.
Bricks have been fired in Amstetten
since the 16th century, giving the western part of the city its
topographical character (Kreuzberg and Sonnleitenberg). This played an
important role in the fact that the reconstruction after 1945 proceeded
relatively quickly.
Shortly after the war, new democratic
structures were created, resulting in a struggle of the population for
an Austrian identity and resulting in disputes between "blacks" (ÖVP)
and "reds" (SPÖ), much like Don Camillo from today with the weekly
newspapers Amstettner Bote (later Niederösterreichische Nachrichten ;
founded in 1946 by Josef Wagner and Franz Biberauer) and the Amstettner
Zeitung (expropriated by the Nazis from the private property of the
Kweiser family, transferred to the SPÖ by the Russians in 1946,
abandoned in 1947) adopted by the Soviet military administration. played
with the true "shield bourgeoisie" .
The municipality of
Amstetten reached its current size in 1972 under mayor Johann Pölz, with
the inclusion of the then independent municipalities of Preinsbach,
Mauer and Ulmerfeld-Hausmening, with Ulmerfeld and Hausmening having
merged earlier. Amstetten has finally become the economic and
educational center of western Lower Austria, even if the high growth has
only been digested and Amstetten has to fight for its historical
identity again.
Thanks to ongoing building work, Amstetten has a
very modern infrastructure. Last but not least, in recent decades the
city center has been completely redeveloped, giving Amstetten the
character of a purely transit, industrial and banking centre, whose
territory is surrounded by the Westbahn high-speed line and important
federal roads (B 1 and B 121 Weyerer Straße in Ybbstal) , lost
something. Image change, which, among other things, should be carried
out through international musical summer productions.
On May 24,
2001, Mondi Neusiedler's obsolete high-bay paper warehouse burned down.
In 2008, the city attracted worldwide attention with the Josef
Fritzl case.
By car via the West Autobahn A1. Coming from the west exit Amstetten West, coming from the east exit Amstetten Ost. By train: The Amstetten train station is on the Vienna - Salzburg line (Westbahn) and is a stop for many international trains.
A shopping center is on the western outskirts of the
federal highway 121
The CityCenter Amstetten (CCA) is located
in the center. Most of the well-known retail chains are rented in
this center. The CCA is the largest inner-city shopping center in
Austria. For regional products, especially fruit juices, musts,
sheep's cheese and farmhouse bread, there are several farms in the
vicinity of Amstetten that sell their goods "ex-farm".
Musical performances take place in Amstetten in summer.
Amstetten is sometimes known as a
dangerous city, but generally not that much more dangerous than
other cities.
It is up to you whether you go for a walk in
the evening.
The municipality of Amstetten is located on
historically traditional, topographically predetermined routes - as
a bottleneck between the foothills of the Alps in the south, as well
as the granite foothills of the Bohemian Plate, the Neustadtler
Platte cut here by the Danube, and borders in the west and east on
the lush peasant landscapes of the Mostviertel . These factors -
transit and agriculture - have also shaped the historical
development up to modern times, and especially the development to
today's economic and trading center in harmony with historical
changes - the loss of the importance of military security, which led
Amstetten to the limit of existence, and the increased importance of
transport, with which Amstetten's importance is traditionally
directly related - promoted.
Today the city is located on the
A 1 western motorway and on the western railway and has not only
become an important gateway to the Ennstal, but also the economic
center of the western Mostviertel with the judicial district of
Amstetten with around 110,000 inhabitants.
The municipality
consists not only of the actual city core area, but extends over six
cadastral communities: Edla, Hausmening and Mauer near Amstetten.
Preinsbach, Schönbichl and Ulmerfeld are also affiliated to the
community.
In addition to several streams, some of which are quite water-rich (including Gschirmbach, Edlabach, Preinsbach, Mühlbach), there are two rivers in Amstetten: the small Url, which flows into the main river of the water-rich region shortly before Amstetten, the Ybbs. It is also the coat of arms of the Amstetten river. Only extensive dam structures - as the third line next to the railroad and road, which used to separate the urban area and which is still the biggest urban development problem today - were able to prevent the Ybbs from regularly flooding the city. It separates (bridged several times) the southern parts of Allersdorf, Greinsfurth, Ulmerfeld and Hausmening from the rest of the city. The Ybbs, which originally bordered Amstetten in the south and now cuts through, was a popular bathing river of the Amstetten until the 1960s and its water also fed the old outdoor pool. But it was almost ruined by the paper and pulp industry of the Ybbstal. The river, which used to be used as a wood drift, is now a popular destination for recreational areas (fishing, swimming) after dramatic measures to improve the quality of the water.
Amstetten is
located in the climatic province of the Austrian Alpine foothills
and in the transition area between a humid oceanic climate in
western Europe and a dry continental climate in the east. Due to the
protected location, it is on average 3 to 6 ° C warmer than in the
surrounding communities. The average annual temperature is around 9
to 12 ° C. The average annual rainfall is 1,000 mm, with the most
frequent precipitation occurring in the form of rain and in the
summer months.
Especially in the autumn and winter months,
due to the location of the basin, persistent inversion clouds often
occur, which means that the duration of sunshine is very short.
The wind usually blows only weakly to moderate with strengths of
2 to 3 Beaufort, mainly from the west. East winds only occur
frequently in high pressure weather conditions. These blow very
constantly and often for several days and can be very strong, but
rarely reach more than wind force 7.
Strong storms are rather
rare, come exclusively from the west, but occasionally reach wind
speeds of over 100 km / h, which leads to strong wind breaks in the
surrounding forests every few years.