Güssing (Hungarian Németújvár, Croatian Novigrad) is a town in Burgenland in Austria. It is a suburb of the district of the same name and an important political, economic and cultural center of southern Burgenland. The town with its medieval Güssing Castle, situated on a former volcanic cone, was for centuries an important bulwark on the western border of the Kingdom of Hungary. It gained historical and cultural importance under the rule of the Batthyány family of magnates, who made Güssing their ancestral seat and had the castle and town expanded. In addition to the castle with its fortifications, there are other monuments from this period such as the Franciscan monastery with the Basilica of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, the Batthyány Castle and the Draskovich Castle.
Burg Güssing, 7540
Güssing. Phone: +43 (0)3322-43400. Fortifications located on a volcanic
cone with numerous bastions and gates and a distinctive keep. With roots
dating back to the 12th century, it is the oldest castle complex in
Burgenland. From 1522 it was the headquarters of the Batthány family and
since 1840 it has been owned by the Prince Philipp Batthyán Foundation.
Home to a restaurant with a viewing terrace and a castle museum with
around 5,000 historical exhibits such as weapons, sculptures, decorative
arts and paintings, including two portraits of Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Venue of the Güssing Castle Games since 1994.
Jakobuskirche:
Romanesque parish church in the cemetery, built in the 9th century
Franciscan monastery: Three-winged monastery building from 1574 and
former corner bastion of the city fortifications. Has a valuable
monastery library with numerous manuscripts, incunabula and first
editions, including many unique items from the Protestant period. In the
cloister there is a Roman tombstone with an inscription.
Church of
the Visitation of the Virgin Mary: Church adjoining the monastery with
Renaissance elements and a Baroque high altar designed by Filiberto
Lucchese. Built around 1638, minor basilica since 2013. The shrine of
Ladislaus Batthyány-Strattmann, who was beatified in 2003, can also be
found in the church. Beneath the church is the Batthyány family tomb,
the second largest of its kind in Austria. Among other things, it has a
remarkable lead sarcophagus for Karl Josef Batthyány, which was created
by Balthasar Ferdinand Moll.
Batthyány Castle: Two-storey,
castle-like arcaded building in the inner city, which has beautiful
stucco work.
Güssing Castle: One-storey building from the 17th
century above Batthyány Castle. Former seat of the district
administration.
Drašković Castle: Classicist castle in the lower
town, with Empire furnishings and Gothic winged altar from 1469 in the
castle chapel.
Old farm mill with the emigrant and Josef Reichl
museum
Regular events
Musical Güssing: The cultural
association has several major events throughout the year. At the end of
January, the carnival cabaret takes place in the cultural center in
Güssing. In September, a well-known musical is performed annually, in
which professionals and amateurs take part. The musical actor Florian
Resetarits has his musical roots in the club.
Burgspiele Güssing:
Güssing was already a cultural center 500 years ago. The theater was
always important. The castle games are a fixed point in the summer
cultural programme. Until his death in 2022, the actor Frank Hoffmann
was the director of the Güssinger Kultursommer, during which plays are
performed at Güssing Castle in the summer. The Güssing Castle
Association plays summer theater for children and adults on the festival
grounds at the foot of the castle
By plane
Airfield LOGG - 820 m asphalt runway
By train
Güssing cannot be reached by train, the nearest train station is
Fürstenfeld (bus connection).
In the street
By car:
From Vienna and Graz via the A 2 to the Ilz exit, continue on the B 69
to Heiligenkreuz and the B 57.
Castle plays with theater performances take place at Güssing Castle in summer. http://www.bnet.at/guessing
The city is located in southern Burgenland in the Strem valley at an
altitude of 229 m above sea level. A.. A little less than half of the
area is used for agriculture, almost forty percent is forested.
Congregational structure
The localities of the municipality are
(number of inhabitants in brackets as of January 1, 2023):
Glasing
(117) with Glasinger mountains
Güssing (core city) (2671) with
Langzeil, Ludwigshof and Rosenberg
Krottendorf (219)
Saint
Nicholas (202)
Stone moat (174)
Urbersdorf (227)
Other
places are Langzeil, Rosenberg and since September 2006 Ludwigshof,
located in the northeast of Güssing, has been a separate part of the
local administration.
The roots of Güssing go back to a suburb that developed in the
shadow of Güssing Castle and formed a lenticular green around the
castle rock. In 1427 it was called civitas and in 1459 civitas et
suburbium.
Since the 16th century, Güssing has been a free
city with full city rights. In 1619 it was surrounded by a curtain
wall and had four districts: suburb (Mühlviertel), lower town
(location of Drašković Castle), inner town (monastery church up to
the town hall) and high town.
In 1540 the magnate Franz
Batthyány received permission from Emperor Ferdinand I to develop
ore mines in Güssing, and in 1549 the Emperor also granted him the
right to hold markets in Güssing. A market is held in the town every
first Monday of the month.
Like the entire Burgenland, the
town belonged to Hungary (German-West Hungary) until 1920/21. Since
1898, the Hungarian place name Németújvár ("German Neuburg") had to
be used due to the Magyarization policy of the government in
Budapest. After the end of the First World War, after tough
negotiations, German West Hungary was ceded to Austria in the
Treaties of Saint-Germain and Trianon in 1919. The place has
belonged to the newly founded federal state of Burgenland since 1921
(see also History of Burgenland). In 1973, Güssing was elevated to
the status of a town.
From 1909 until after the end of the
Second World War, Güssing had a railway connection via the Güssinger
Bahn to Körmend, which was primarily used for timber transport.
After 1945 it seemed pointless to keep the railway running, not
least because the traffic was only directed to Hungary on the one
hand and on the other hand because the "Iron Curtain" now separated
the railway line. Rail traffic was stopped, the tracks rotted away.
Today, the new federal highway 56 between Güssing and Strem mainly
runs along the former railway bed. The station building in Güssing,
built in 1899, was renovated and is still standing.
The population has been declining since 1991 despite immigration
because the birth rate is very negative.
After the annexation of
Burgenland to Austria, the ethnic and linguistic structure of the
population changed significantly. In 1910 the Magyar population was
still around 45.1%; In 1934 the proportion of the Hungarian-speaking
population was around 8%. This change is due on the one hand to the
withdrawal of many Magyar civil servants, military personnel, etc. to
Hungary, and on the other hand to the language-national self-definition
of the inhabitants.
In the last census, Güssing counted 2% (1991)
or 1.0% (2001) of the Hungarian-speaking population (resident population
with Austrian citizenship).
From the mid-19th century, Jews began
to play a role in the city's trade. In 1824 the rapidly growing Jewish
community already had 491 members. Güssing reached its highest Jewish
population in 1859 with 766 people. From 1860, however, many Jewish
families moved away, so that in 1934 only 74 Jews lived here. The
seizure of power by the National Socialists brought the end of Jewish
life in Güssing through expulsion and deportation.
Güssing is connected via the Güssinger Straße to the national road
network in a north-south direction within Austria: Eisenstadt is about
120 kilometers away via the Güssinger Straße, the Burgenland Straße and
the Burgenland expressway. The southern autobahn towards Vienna
(distance around 160 kilometers) is about 40 kilometers away via the
Lafnitztal/Oberwart junction (near Markt Allhau), towards Graz (distance
around 85 kilometers) the Ilz-Fürstenfeld junction can be reached after
around 35 kilometers. With the opening of the Fürstenfeld expressway,
both the connection to the southern autobahn and the M80 (Hungary) in
the direction of Hungary will be significantly improved. From
Szombathely, about 40 kilometers from Güssing, the Autópálya M86 runs in
Hungary to Mosonmagyaróvár on the Autópálya M1. Budapest is 250
kilometers away, Bratislava just over 200 kilometers, Zagreb around 230
kilometers and Ljubljana around 240 kilometers away.
The Güssing
– Körmend railway connection was discontinued after the Second World
War, and since then the Güssing district has been the only political
district in Austria without a railway connection. National express bus
connections exist with Vienna and Graz.
The nearest airports are
the regional airport in Graz and the international airports in Vienna,
Bratislava, Zagreb and Budapest.
Under Mayor Peter Vadasz, the city developed an energy concept for
independent and sustainable energy generation in the early 1990s.
The European Center for Renewable Energy Güssing (EEE) was founded
with EU funding as a measure for economic development. This should
create jobs in the region and slow down the outflow of purchasing power
through energy imports. Using wood gasification, electricity and heat
worth 20 million euros could be produced on the basis of renewable
energy sources in the past few years. In 2005, Güssing was already
generating significantly more heat (57.5 GWh) and electricity (14 GWh)
from renewable raw materials than the city itself needs. The power plant
with wood gasification in Güssing also included a test facility that
uses Fischer-Tropsch synthesis to produce a diesel-like biofuel. In 2013
the power plant went bankrupt.
After the decline in biodiesel
production, the municipality's self-sufficiency rate was only 51%. The
photovoltaic company Blue Chip Energy Güssing had already gone bankrupt
in 2011.