The municipality of Berndorf with 9046 inhabitants (as of January
1, 2020) is located on the edge of the Vienna Woods in the
Triestingtal in Lower Austria. Due to the historical development in
the 19th century, it is also known as Krupp town.
Finds from
the various epochs of the Stone Age show that settlements were
already present in the area.
In 1133, a Perindorf is
mentioned in the Göttweiger Salbuch, which probably got its name
from a settler named Pero, who settled here with a group around
1070. The Perendorf foundation estate can also be found in the
annals of Kleinmariazell Abbey in 1136.
In the course of the
following centuries, Berndorf was often ravaged by the Hungarians
and later by the Turks, similar to the other places in the
Triestingtal.
As early as the 18th century, a metalworking
industry settled here, such as the Neuhirtenberger Kupferhammer,
whose successor, the k. k. priv. Neuhirtenberg factory of metal
machines, already in 1836, in addition to the water power of
Triesting, used the first - locally manufactured - steam engine in
Lower Austria. In the 19th century, the metal industry, due to
constant expansion, became the main source of income for the local
population. Around 1844 there were around 50 houses with 180
inhabitants when the company began producing cutlery with 50 workers
under Alexander Schoeller and Hermann Krupp. This company later
developed under Arthur Krupp into a global corporation with 6,000
employees. The entire development of Berndorf was closely linked to
the history of the Kruppf family. Arthur Krupp built a private
elementary school and a public bath in addition to the industrial
plants. For the influx of workers and employees, Krupp had the
districts of Wiedenbrunn and Margareten built at the company's
expense, between 1880 and 1918 a total of 260 houses with over 1,100
apartments. The neo-baroque Margaret Church was also built by Krupp.
The urban planning planner and partially executive architect was
Ludwig Baumann.
In 1866 Berndorf was raised to a market town
and in 1900 to a town. At that time, Berndorf had around 4,300
residents. The Krupp company employed 3,500 people from Berndorf and
the surrounding area. With the state law of April 26, 1923,
Berndorf, St. Veit an der Triesting, Ödlitz and, until then, part of
the local community of Grillenberg, the village of Veitsau and the
Rotte Steinhof merged to form the town of "Groß-Berndorf".
After the Anschluss in 1938, the Arthur Krupp company was
incorporated into the German Krupp concern.
Due to the local
industry, Berndorf was also an important target of the Allied air
raids in the later years of the Second World War. During the war
years, however, the forces of nature did not stop at Berndorf, with
Triesting causing the strongest floods in its history twice (in 1939
and 1944) and causing great damage.
After the end of the war,
the metal goods factory was confiscated by the Soviet Army and
incorporated into the USIA companies. It was only handed over to the
Austrian state in 1957 and merged with the Vereinigte Aluminumwerke
Ranshofen (VAW) to form the Vereinigte Metallwerke Ranshofen
Berndorf AG (VMW) and Austria Metall AG (AMAG).
Due to
financial problems of the nationalized industry in the early 1980s,
Berndorf was again spun off from the VMW Group in 1984 and
privatized separately as Berndorf AG in 1988 through a manager
buy-out. In addition, the smaller SME was created, but it is active
in the same sector as Berndorf.