Hohenems is a town with 16,731 inhabitants (as of January 1,
2020) in the Dornbirn district of the Austrian state of Vorarlberg.
The city is famous for its Hohenems Palace, the former residential
palace of the Counts of Hohenems. In the 18th century, two of the
three most important manuscripts of the Nibelungenlied were found in
the palace library. Hohenems was the residence of numerous Jewish
families from the 17th to the 19th century. In the 20th century
Hohenems became world famous through the Schubertiade music
festival.
The second smallest town in Vorarlberg after Bludenz offers a diverse range of culture and has several sights in the city area.
Jewish Museum Hohenems
The Jewish Museum Hohenems is a regional
museum with international appeal. It commemorates the rural Jewish
community of Hohenems and their diverse contributions to the development
of Vorarlberg and the surrounding regions. The museum's events address
the Jewish present in Europe, the Diaspora and Israel, as well as
questions about the future of the European immigration society.
See also: Mikveh (Hohenems).
Music museums
In connection with
the Schubertiade music festival founded here, several museums were
created that deal with different aspects of the music performed here.
The Schubertiade Museum is dedicated to posterity's efforts to preserve
the works and person of the Viennese composer Franz Schubert. The focus
is on personalities who have made outstanding contributions to Schubert
as interpreters, editors or teachers. The Dreimäderlhaus Museum opposite
explores - based on the 1916 operetta of the same name - the legends and
curiosities that the study of Schubert gave rise to. The Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf Museum is dedicated to one of the most important sopranos of
the 20th century, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. In the Walter Legge Music and
Record Museum you can see original documents from the extensive archive
of the first and one of the most important record producers of classical
music.
Hohenems and Nibelungenlied Museum
This museum is about
the city's rich history, including the discovery of the Nibelungen
manuscripts C and A at the end of the 18th century.
Stoffels
Sawmill Museum
The “Stoffels Säge-Mühle” museum is located in a
historic commercial area that was mentioned in a document as early as
1626. The building, which at that time already housed two saws powered
by water wheels, has been owned by the Amann family (house name
“Stoffels”) since 1835. The museum documents 2,000 years of technology
and development of mills and sawmills up to the present day on an area
of 600 m². It consists of two parts:
In the open-air museum, a
historical, waterwheel-driven saw and mill are exhibited in their
original size and in their original surroundings, as well as 30 tools
for the sawing and milling trade as well as the runners of the Pelton,
Kaplan and Francis turbines.
The mill museum houses 35 milling
machines from the 1880s and mill technology from the period 1920 to 1955
up to computer-controlled mills from the 1990s. Display boards provide
information about wheat cultivation and flour production.
Old
Times Museum, Quarter Säge
The Alte-Zeiten-Museum sponsoring
association is renovating the wooden house at Sägerstrasse 5, which was
dated to 1602 using dendrochronology. The small history museum - opened
in April 2016 - shows the history of the house and sheds light on life
in Hohenems at the beginning of the 17th century. There are old crops in
the garden.
Noah's Ark – Art & Nature Collection
Since May
2019, the private museum in Bäumler Park, Markus-Sittikus-Straße 20 has
been showing two collections by Hans Bäumler from Ingolstadt. In a
former textile factory owned by his family, taxidermy animals -
butterflies, game, albinos - as well as fossils and minerals from
different countries and paintings can be seen. From the late romantic
period of the 19th century, pictures by Waldmüller and Spitzweg, for
example. Works by French and German Impressionists and
Post-Impressionists, such as Manet, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Liebermann.
107 works form a panorama of 130 years of art history, the most recent
being a still life by Picasso from 1945/46.
Alt-Ems ruins
With seven gates, a drawbridge and 47 rooms, the
Alt-Ems castle complex was once one of the largest castle complexes in
southern Germany. At 740 meters above sea level, about 300 meters above
the Rhine Valley, the castle was originally 800 meters long and up to 85
meters wide. The legendary Konradsbrunnen is still visible in the inner
courtyard.
The ruins have been renovated since 2006.
Glopper
Castle – Neu-Ems Castle
In 1343, knight Ulrich I of Ems built a new
castle on the ridge of the Rhine valley in Emsreute, near his fortress
of Alt-Ems, in order to create a permanent home for his large family in
troubled times.
Neu-Ems Castle, also known as Glopper Castle and
popularly known as Glopper for short, consists of a uniform
architectural ensemble consisting of a small-scale stronghold with a
keep-like bulwark as well as an attached palace and a lower-lying outer
bailey. In 1843 the castle fell to Clemens
Waldburg-Zeil-Lustenau-Hohenems and has been owned by the Waldburg-Zeil
family ever since.
Hohenems Palace
The Hohenems Palace was planned
and built by Martino Longhi between 1562 and 1567.
The building is a
regular three-story structure with gable roofs with a rectangular
courtyard. In the north and south there are two-axis corner projections
under conical roofs, the central axis is emphasized by a sculpturally
structured round arched portal. The Hohenems Palace is the most
important Renaissance building in western Austria. It is still inhabited
today and used for catering and events.
City hall
The town hall
originally belonged to the palace as a guest house and was also planned
by Martino Longhi. A two-armed staircase leads to the raised entrance.
Old Town Hall
The old town hall is located in the oldest urban area
of Hohenems on Sägerstraße in the direction of Emsreute and served as a
town hall from 1637 to 1830. The building, also known as the
Chancellery, is owned by the city and is a listed building. A notched ax
in a window sill is a reminder of the earlier count's blood
jurisdiction, or so the well-known tradition goes.
Salomon Sulzer
Hall (former synagogue)
From 1770 to 1772, the high-arched church was
built in the late baroque, classicist style according to plans by the
Bregenzerwald master builder Peter Bein. It was one of the most
important synagogue buildings in the Lake Constance area - a cubic
structure with a mansard hipped roof. Between 1863 and 1867, the
interior of the synagogue was rebuilt and received a tower with a clock
and chimes.
In 2003/2004, the former synagogue was renovated under
the direction of the architects Ada and Reinhard Rinderer and the
original appearance was largely restored. After more than 60 years, a
Jewish Sabbath service was held in the former synagogue for the first
time on July 22, 2004. The official opening after the renovation took
place on May 21, 2006. It was opened jointly by Rabbi Hermann Schmelzer
(Jewish Community of St. Gallen), Pastor Thomas Heilbrun (Parish
Community of St. Karl; see below) and Imam Samir Redzepovic as a
representative of the Islamic religious community in the presence of
some descendants of Jewish citizens who are important for the city.
The building is now called Salomon-Sulzer-Saal, named after the famous
cantor and citizen of the city, and is available to the public as an
event hall and part of the music school.
Hohenems Jewish Cemetery
The Jewish cemetery is located on the southern outskirts of the city.
The cemetery was built in 1617 on the occasion of the settlement of Jews
in Hohenems.
Parish Church of St. Charles Borromeo
The church,
which was built between 1796 and 1797 on the site of the former Hannibal
Church and is connected to the Hohenems Palace by a corridor, is
dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo, the patron saint of Hohenems.
Herrenried parish church
Markus Sittikus Hall
This building, built
in 1913 according to plans by the architect Hanns Kornberger, served as
a gym for nine decades; During the last renovation it was converted into
a concert hall and was used as such for the first time by the
Schubertiade Vorarlberg in 2005. The hall is named after Markus Sittikus
von Hohenems, who was Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg from 1612 to 1619.
Embroidery Amann
The representative functional building from the time
before the First World War was planned from 1910 to 1911 by the
Vorarlberg architect Hanns Kornberger (1868–1933). The architecture is
based on clear pillar structures with balanced window divisions and an
elaborately designed entrance with fencing.
Kaiserin Elisabeth
Hospital (Old Hospital)
This building complex was built by the Art
Nouveau architect Hanns Kornberger from 1905 to 1908.
The Schubertiade Days take place in Hohenems several times a year,
focusing on the music of Franz Schubert and his time. The events usually
take place in the Markus Sittikus Hall.
The annual Homunculus
festival, which the organizers describe as a festival for puppets, punch
lines and poetry, is a fixed part of the city of Hohenems' event
calendar.
The Hohenems Choir and Organ Days take place annually on
three days at the beginning of October.
The Emsiana cultural
festival, held every weekend in May, offers guided tours, lectures and
exhibitions, readings and concerts.
The coat of arms of Hohenems, the ibex, is likely to be traced back to the same heraldic animal in the coat of arms of Graubünden, because the first documentary mention of the Ems family comes from the year 1170 for Ober- or Wälsch-Ems ob Chur. Whether the Counts of Ems actually come from this place is controversial, as historian Andreas Ulmer mentions that the Counts of Ems may also come from the progenitor Hainricus de Amides, a half-brother of the last Count of Bregenz named Rudolf (d. 1160 ), could descend.
Middle age
The beginning of the settlement in the Hohenems
area is not known. Since the end of the 12th century, the Altems
Castle of the Lords of Ems has been one of the most powerful and
largest castle complexes (350 meters long and 80 meters wide) in
southern Germany. The Staufer fortress served, among other things,
as a repository for prominent prisoners such as Wilhelm III from
1195. (Sicily) or in 1206 Archbishop Bruno of Cologne. In 1406 the
Appenzeller burned down the village of Ems completely in the
so-called Bund ob dem See.
In 1333 Hohenems was granted city
rights, but this was not realized because the financial means were
not raised for the construction of the city wall.
For the
history of the spa, see sulfur bath.
Free imperial county
On April 27, 1560 Ems Ferdinand I elevated Ems to an imperial
county. A Renaissance palace was built at the foot of the
Schlossberg. In 1570 Karl Borromäus paid a short visit to Count
Jakob Hannibal, the husband of his half-sister Hortensia. The parish
church is consecrated to Karl Borromeo, who was canonized for his
services to the Counter Reformation, and he is the patron saint of
Hohenems. Count Kaspar acquired the imperial county of Vaduz and the
Freiherrschaft Schellenberg and granted the county of Hohenems
market privileges.
At the end of the 18th century Hohenems
gained notoriety with the discovery of parts of the Nibelungenlied:
in 1755 the manuscript C was discovered in the library of the Lindau
doctor Jacob Hermann Oberreit, and a little later in 1779 the
manuscript A appeared again in the palace.
Rule of the
Habsburgs
In 1765 the County of Hohenems was acquired by Austria.
The Habsburgs ruled the County of Hohenems alternately from Tyrol
and Upper Austria (Freiburg im Breisgau). From 1805 to 1814 the
place belonged to Bavaria, then after four years of dispute over
ownership rights back to Austria. The respective Habsburg rulers
showed the title of Count of Hohenems in the grand title. Franz
Joseph I, however, used to go on private trips abroad under the
title of Count von Hohenems, if he made it his business to spare his
hosts the observance of disruptive protocol obligations.
Hohenems has belonged to the Austrian state of Vorarlberg since it
was founded in 1861.
In 1595 the sulfur chapel, in 1607 the
chapel of St. Sebastian and St. Anthony, 1617 the chapel of St. Karl
Borromeo, 1898 the chapel of St. Josef erected in Unterklien.
Republic of Austria
The place was part of the French
occupation zone in Austria from 1945 to 1955. Since 1969 the
community has belonged to the newly founded Dornbirn district. In
1983 Hohenems was made a city and is the youngest city in
Vorarlberg.
Emser Chronicle
In 1616 Bartholomäus Schnell
(* 1580 in Langenargen, † April 19, 1649 in Hohenems) established
the first printing works in Vorarlberg, the Graflich Hohenemsische
Buchdruckerei (1616-1730) in Hohenems. With the Emser Chronik, which
he presented in the same year, Schnell succeeded in creating a
"masterpiece of book printing" in the first year of his activity in
Hohenems, which was repeatedly described as "the most beautiful book
ever printed in Vorarlberg". A well-preserved copy is one of the
treasures of the State Library in Bregenz today.
The work, completed by Johann Georg Schleh from Rottweil in 1613,
also marked the "beginning of Vorarlberg regional historiography":
Around 100 coats of arms are depicted in this work - as are
cartographic woodcuts, including the oldest surviving map of
Vorarlberg. Not least because of this, the Emser Chronik represents
the high point of the art of printing in Vorarlberg. The political
intentions behind this work are clear in the Vorarlberg map, which
shows the whole of today's Vorarlberg: The area is marked with
hatched borders. which, if the initiator, Count Kaspar von Hohenems,
had wanted, would form a sovereign territorial state under the rule
of the Counts of Ems as a "sub-council".
In 1663 the print
shop was headed by Johann Kaspar Schwendimann, who, along with the
Emser Chronicle, produced the most famous Hohenems print with the
“Philotheus” (autobiographical shepherd novel) by the baroque poet
Laurentius von Schnüffis.
Jewish community
In 1617 a
letter of protection from Count Kaspar von Hohenems laid the legal
basis for the settlement of Jewish families and the establishment of
a Jewish community. The imperial count hoped that this would
generate economic impetus for his market. There were evictions in
the 17th century, but after Jewish families were allowed to return,
the Jewish community flourished. A synagogue, a ritual bath (mikveh)
and a poor shelter were built, and a cemetery was laid out.
In 1797, Herz Jakob Kitzinger from Augsburg founded the first coffee
house in Vorarlberg. The "Kitzinger Coffee House" was soon a meeting
place for a wide variety of Israelite social groups. In 1813, Jewish
citizens founded the reading society in this house. The community
grew continuously until the first half of the 19th century, with the
number of Jewish residents reaching its peak in 1862 with 564
people. The basic state laws of 1867 and the associated free choice
of residence for Jews then led to a strong emigration to surrounding
cities, so that in 1890 only 118 Jews lived in the city.
In
1935 the Jewish community had only 35 members. In 1938 after the
annexation of Austria, Jewish property was "Aryanized" by the
Hohenems community. This was followed by the forced dissolution of
the religious community in 1940 and the deportation of remaining
community members to the extermination and concentration camps.
Frieda Nagelberg was the last Jew to be deported from Vorarlberg on
February 25, 1942.
After the end of the Second World War in
1945, Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) were temporarily resettled.
None of the former parishioners returned.
After 1945, the
Hohenems community acquired the synagogue properties from the
Innsbruck IKG in order to convert them into a fire station. The
rabbinate house next to it was demolished. Due to the great
commitment of the St. Gallen community, it was possible to prevent
the tombstones from being removed from the cemetery and pencils made
from the old cedars. The cemetery itself should have been used for
planting Christmas trees. (Dreier 1988: 232 f.)
Gad Hugo
Sella, who was born Hugo Silberstein in Innsbruck in 1912 and was
able to leave Austria on time in 1938, describes his experiences in
an on-site report from 1977:
“Apart from the cemetery, nothing
remains of the flourishing Jewish community in Hohenems. […] The
synagogue, a large building in which the word of God was preached
for centuries, has become a tool shed for the Hohenems fire brigade,
truly blasphemy for which there is no excuse. Hohenems is also free
from Jews today. "
- Gad Hugo Sella: quoted in: Dreier 1988:
228 f.
20th century
With the Diepoldsau Rhine breakthrough
and the regulation of the Rhine in 1923, the centuries-old danger of
flooding ended and further settlement of the valley floor was made
possible.
In 1983 Hohenems was elevated to the status of town
by the Vorarlberg state government on the occasion of the 650th
anniversary of the town charter from 1333.
In 1998, the first
Vorarlberg crematorium was put into operation in Hohenems.