Hartberg is a town with 6795 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2020) and is located in the federal state of Styria in the south-east of Austria. It is the administrative center of the Hartberg-Fürstenfeld district and is located in the Fürstenfeld judicial district.
The area around Hartberg was already settled in prehistoric
times, as evidenced by a Neolithic settlement on the nearby
Ringkogel. In the Hallstatt and Latène times there was a fortified
Celtic hilltop settlement on the Ringkogel. There are also traces of
settlement from Roman times, such as Villa Rustica; Remains of Roman
buildings from the second century were also found under the parish
church of Hartberg and the rectory.
Hartberg was planned and
expanded by Margrave Leopold I von Steyr from 1125 to 1128. In 1286
the settlement was first mentioned as a city. The town remained in
sovereign possession until 1529, before it was sold to the then
governor Siegmund von Dietrichstein.
In 1469 the city was
conquered by rebels under the imperial mercenary leader Andreas
Baumkircher, and a few years later it was devastated by the soldiers
of the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus. In 1532, Turkish troops
passed the city, but destroyed the suburbs. In 1605 the Haiducken
besieged Hartberg unsuccessfully; even then the suburbs were again
sacked.
In 1715 the city burned down except for a few houses.
In 1944, during the time of National Socialism, a resistance
group was formed in Hartberg around the Wehrmacht deserter Gustav
Pfeiler, which hid in the mountains and was sometimes voluntarily
supported by farmers in the area with food and accommodation. In
March 1945 the approximately 40 members of the group became
militarily active. So they were able to blow up three Fieseler Fi
156 planes and tried to arrest the Hartberg local group leader Erich
Heumann. They shot members of his family and seriously wounded him.
As a result, more and more people joined the group, on the other
hand, the SS used more and more men to persecute the group and
arrested numerous farmers in the area who were suspected of
supporting the partisans. On May 4, 1945, after a stand trial in the
city park, nine freedom fighters were shot and four others were
hanged in the main square. When the Red Army approached on May 7,
1945, SS units took more sympathizers of the partisans with them on
their retreat and shot them on the way. These executions or murders
claimed a total of 27 lives.
In 1946, a memorial plaque for
this group was placed on the Reckturm in the city park. A memorial
stone in the cemetery bears the unspecific inscription “In memory of
the victims of the last days of the war in 1945”. The graves of the
resistance fighters were also adapted to those of the Wehrmacht
soldiers.