Bad Kleinkirchheim is a municipality with 1711 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2020) in the Spittal an der Drau district in Carinthia. Known today as a spa and climatic health resort as well as a ski area in a valley in the Gurktal Alps, it was mainly rural in the middle of the 20th century. Although the legend says that the first spa guest already appreciated Bad Kleinkirchheim as a recreational area in the 11th century and the first bathers visited the place in the 17th century, it was only a few decades ago that there was a radical structural change away from the agricultural and towards the touristy Bad Kleinkirchheim a. Today the community is one of the twenty most visited tourist destinations in Austria in both the summer and winter seasons.
The settlement of the Kirchheim valley
There are no traces of
settlement in the region around Kleinkirchheim from the pre-Roman
times, and also for the Romans, who from 15 BC onwards. Chr.
Carinthia ruled, the remote, densely wooded valley was probably too
far from their traffic routes. With the end of the Great Migration,
the Roman Empire collapsed and Slavs, coming from the east via the
Drau Valley, invaded Carinthia and settled there. Gradually they
also settled in the side valleys. The first Baier and Frankish
settlers came to the country from the middle of the 8th century.
After the Frankish rule had finally established itself in the
first half of the 9th century, the first Bavarian settlers probably
also settled in the Kirchheim Valley. It is not known when exactly
the first “Capella” was created in “Chirchem”. On July 5, 1166, a
pastor named Pabo was mentioned in a document in which the
Archbishop of Salzburg, Konrad II, confirmed the donation of the St.
Ruprecht Chapel to the Millstatt Monastery - this document is the
first documentary mention of Kirchheim. Another document from Pope
Alexander III. from April 6, 1177 mentions a place of the same name;
this document issued in Rialto in Venice is still preserved and is
in the Vienna State Archives. It is assumed, however, that the first
church was built much earlier, before the turn of the millennium, in
honor of Saint Ulrich, the bishop of Augsburg. The place was only
given its current name Kleinkirchheim in the 16th century, in order
to be able to distinguish it more easily from the mining town of the
same name in Mölltal, today's Großkirchheim.
Slavic settlers
soon followed the first Baier immigrants: The place name of today's
Zirkitzen indicates that they settled east of the first settlement,
because in their language "Circica" means the same as Kirchheim.
Double names like in this case, which occur several times in
Carinthia, show that Bavarians and Slavs apparently settled
peacefully next to each other in this region in the early Middle
Ages.
Since 976 the Duchy of Carinthia was an area
independent of Bavaria, but the Bavarian landlords still retained
the upper hand over their possessions. The Aribones, who had had the
hereditary dignity of the Palatine count towards the Dukes of
Carinthia since 977, also had large estates in Carinthia. They are
the first verifiable masters of the Kleinkirchheim valley. Count
Palatine Poto Graf von Pottenstein from this Bavarian family is said
to have been the first to experience the healing properties of the
spring in Bad Kleinkirchheim in the 11th century after being wounded
in battle. According to legend, he bequeathed the healing spring to
the Millstatt Abbey, which he founded around 1070, in gratitude.
Irrespective of this, from the above-mentioned documentary
confirmation in 1166 until the abolition of the monastery in 1773,
Kleinkirchheim belonged to the Millstatt rule.
Development of
the St. Oswalder high valley
The still densely forested and
probably uninhabited high valley of St. Oswald did not belong to the
Aribones at that time. It was not until 1197 that the “apud
Chirchem” forest came into the possession of the Millstatt monastery
through an exchange, which was confirmed in a papal deed from 1207.
The Benedictine monks cleared the newly acquired valley and created
meadows and fields so that farmers settled down here too. The monks'
convent had a church built in the new settlement, which was
consecrated to St. Oswald and first mentioned on June 8, 1228.
The clearing activity was continued to the east, the closed
Millstätter property extended into the current municipal areas of
Reichenau and Gnesau, only after 1500 no more new hubs were created.
The oldest surviving Millstätter land register from 1470 also
contains a list of 73 properties in the Kirchheim office. Of these,
26 Huben and 28 Schwaigen were in Kirchheim, and one Hube and 21
Schwaigen in St. Oswald. Due to the altitude, the St. Oswalder
settlement was mainly kept cattle, which is why the farms at that
time were mainly classified as Schwaigen, which had to pay a lower
tithe. The land register from 1470 also shows a "Taferne" (inn) that
stood at today's Unterwirt country house.
Kleinkirchheim in
the late Middle Ages
Emperor Friedrich III. caused Pope Paul II to found an order of
knights in honor of St. George in 1469. Millstatt was designated as
the seat of the Order of St. George, the Benedictine monastery there
was dissolved and its possessions, including Kleinkirchheim, were
transferred to the new order. Its task in the first years of
existence was to protect Carinthia from the Turkish threat, because
at the time the order was founded, a threat to its territory was
getting closer and closer: The Turks, who had conquered
Constantinople in 1453, had then moved across the Balkans and had
reached the Carniola region in 1469.
Since Carinthia had
already found out about this a few weeks earlier, the passports in
the south of the country began to be sealed off and the castles,
monasteries and churches were secured. A body tax was levied in the
country to raise funds for defense. In Millstatt the Knights of St.
George built a fortified order castle next to the old, "desolate due
luggage" of the monastery.
At the end of September 1473 the
Turks invaded Carinthia for the first time and marched through the
valleys, robbing and pillaging; the Kleinkirchheimer Tal was spared
this incursion and a second raid three years later. The people of
the country had to watch impotently as their rulers fled from the
Turks and withdrew behind the expanded walls, while entire valleys
were reduced to rubble. As a consequence, some Kirchheim farmers
also joined the farmers' union founded by Peter Wunderlich in
Spittal in 1478, which was directed against the Turkish tax, but
also prepared to fight the invaders.
In Kleinkirchheim the
farmers tried to organize themselves against the threat because they
did not want to rely on the St. George Knights. In Zirkitzen there
is a large cave in a rock wall, the front of which the inhabitants
walled up with rocks. This "Wihrwand" - the remains of which can
still be seen today - was completed just in time, because on June
25, 1478, the Turks attacked the country, this time coming from
Friuli. The farmers' union was only able to provide 600 men and was
overwhelmed, the Millstatt knights entrenched themselves, as had
been feared, in their castle. After the Turks set Radenthein on
fire, they moved to the Kirchheimer Tal. When the first houses in
Zirkitzen were set on fire, the farmers tried to defend themselves
with arrows and stones. Although they were able to defend their
position against the attackers, they were unable to prevent further
farmsteads from being burned down. The valley was spared from
further attacks by the Turks, but the Hungarians invaded Carinthia
as early as 1480 and also came as far as Kleinkirchheim. In 1490,
after the death of Matthias Corvinus, the Hungarian occupation
ended.
Reformation and Counter Reformation
After the
Knights of St. George had already failed in their task of defending
their country against the Turks, their leadership in the decades
that followed was characterized by disorder and arbitrariness.
Despite the use of imperial administrators, the mismanagement in the
Millstatt rule increased and with it the discipline of the subjects
decreased. The order faced dissolution during the 16th century. The
ideas of the Reformation found fertile soil among the population,
who were also impoverished as a result of taxes, raids and
occupation. In addition, the Carinthian nobility supported the
renewal of faith in their endeavors for more independence from the
provincial duke, who belonged to the strictly Catholic Habsburgs.
Towards the end of the 16th century, most of the farmers in
Kleinkirchheim were of the Lutheran faith after the duke had assured
them freedom of religion.
However, the religious conditions
changed radically in 1595 after Ferdinand II came to power. In 1598
he handed over the properties of the Millstatt Order to the Jesuits,
to which he himself belonged. They declared Millstatt a residence,
which was run by a superior. Since they had the imperial mandate to
financially support the newly founded University of Graz, and the
finances were on the ground due to the mismanagement of the George
Knights, they imposed high taxes on the farmers.
At the same time, the Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church
began, the population - around 1500 subjects between Liesertal and
Turrach were summoned to a commission in Millstatt in 1600 - were
given the choice of either becoming Catholic or emigrating within
three months. Books labeled heretical were burned, preacher's houses
and churches destroyed. In spite of these hardships, many of those
who took the Catholic religious oath in order not to have to leave
their homeland retained their faith. Protestant books were smuggled
in and secret meetings were held. Despite all efforts by the
authorities to prevent this, secret Protestantism was still
widespread in the region between Spittal and Gnesau, which also
includes Kleinkirchheim, even in the middle of the 18th century. A
councilor, who traveled and studied the country on imperial orders,
reported in 1751: "Almost all of Upper Carinthia is mixed with
non-Catholic people." As a result, there were further expulsions of
the "sectarians"; Nevertheless, a comparatively high proportion of
the population of Kleinkirchheim - as in other rural areas of
Central and Upper Carinthia - has remained true to the Protestant
creed.
In 1773 the Jesuit order was abolished by papal bull.
With the tolerance patent of Emperor Joseph II of 1781, Protestants
and Jews in Austria were given almost full equality with Catholics.
Wherever 100 families or 400 people of their faith lived together,
they were allowed to form a parish, build houses of worship and
schools and build a cemetery. Since Kleinkirchheim did not meet this
requirement - 228 Protestants lived in Kleinkirchheim in 1820 and 55
Protestants in St. Oswald - the community in Feld am See was
initially affiliated with, and later Wiedweg became the parish
responsible for Kleinkirchheim.
During this time, further
reforms fell: serfdom was abolished, the land register patent was
re-measured and taxed, the cadastral communities of Kleinkirchheim,
Zirkitzen and St. Oswald were formed and the farmers were given free
rights of disposal over their property.
The French Wars
From the end of the 18th century, the consequences of the French
Revolution were felt in Carinthia: Napoleon's coalition wars reached
Carinthia for the first time in March 1797 and again in 1799 and
1805 after the Austrians had been defeated by the French. The wars
had mainly economic consequences: inflation, war taxes and levies on
the occupiers burdened the peasants. In the Peace of Schönbrunn,
among other things, the western part of Carinthia fell to France in
1809, the border ran just a few kilometers east of Kleinkirchheim
near Patergassen. A new kingdom under French rule, the Illyrian
Provinces with the capital Laibach, was formed, which also included
Kleinkirchheim. The place was assigned to the main community
Feldkirchen, but received its own Mairie.
After the Wars of
Liberation in 1813/14, Emperor Franz I put the Illyrian provinces
back into the possession of the Austrian Empire with a patent dated
July 23, 1814. The old subservience as it existed before 1809 was
not reestablished for Upper Carinthia. This meant that the personal
liberation from manorial rule, in particular the decree from all
robot services that the French occupation had brought with it,
continued to exist, even if this did not mean the end of the
material dependence on the landlords for the peasants.
March
Revolution and Church Planting
The Viennese March Revolution of
1848 resulted in liberal and democratic changes, the peasants now
also received complete personal and civic freedom by abolishing all
payments and taxes to their landlords. On March 4, 1849, Carinthia
again became an independent crown land with its own state parliament
and state government in Klagenfurt. On March 17th, the new Reichstag
in Vienna passed a provisional municipal law, which resulted in the
foundation of many municipalities in what is now Austria. In the
course of this, the community of Kleinkirchheim was founded in 1850,
and its dimensions have hardly changed to this day. Franz Ebner, who
held this office for a total of 16 years, was elected the first
mayor.
With the reign of Franz Joseph I, who ascended the imperial
throne in December 1848, a lot changed for Kleinkirchheim as well:
Religious freedom was confirmed as early as the beginning of 1849,
and the formerly known "Old Catholics" could now call themselves
followers of the "Evangelical Confession" . The gendarmerie was
founded in June, but a local post did not exist until 1894.
Kleinkirchheim was given its own post office in 1885, and until then
Millstatt, 20 kilometers away, was the closest post office. In the
same year a volunteer fire brigade was established in the village.
On August 15, 1897, the savings and loan association was founded,
from which the Raiffeisenkasse emerged in 1944.
Development
into a health resort and vacation spot
The warm spring of
Kleinkirchheim was discovered and used at the time the place was
built. Wooden troughs were set up along the drain to catch the
water. To protect the spring, the Millstatt Monastery built a chapel
above it in 1492 and consecrated it to Saint Catherine (ancient
Greek for "The Cleansing"). In the 17th century, next to the chapel,
which has been preserved to this day and is located above today's
thermal baths of the same name, “Sankt Kathrein”, a second spring
was taken and led via wooden pipes to a “bath house” below the
Kathrein church, where the water is heated and was filled in
bathtubs. The oldest written mention of such a bathing establishment
comes from the year 1670. A bathing regulation from 1762, which
describes the use of the baths for a three-week spa stay, is around
a hundred years younger. Bad Kathrein near Kleinkirchheim was
advertised in an advertisement in the Klagenfurter Zeitung in 1831,
and overnight stays were offered in different price ranges. The “Zum
Badwirth” inn, as it was called in 1884, was probably the only
larger accommodation facility in the town at the turn of the century
before last.
In 1909, Hans Ronacher took over the bath house
and instead built a new building with an attached hotel that could
accommodate 50 guests. During these years a railway line (“Area
Valley Railway”), which should also run through the Kleinkirchheim
Valley and would have meant a connection to Millstatt, was
discussed. However, the first plans were interrupted by the First
World War and were no longer taken up due to the subsequent economic
crisis. The thermal bath was reopened in 1922 and investments in
tourism continued in Kleinkirchheim. A tourist association was
founded, which advertised the resort with a year-round brochure.
From 1928 a post bus line was also set up from Spittal an der Drau
via Radenthein to Bad Kleinkirchheim, which initially served this
route once a day, from 1939 a second bus was used. On July 22nd,
1934, the thermal open-air swimming pool was put into operation and
in 1936 the small community with 1,100 residents was able to offer
400 beds for guests. Due to the political circumstances and the
Second World War, tourism then came to an almost complete
standstill.
After the war, the resumption of tourism was out
of the question, especially since a storm in 1946 caused great
damage in the valley. The roads were badly damaged by floods and
mudslides, and for months it was only possible to reach
Kleinkirchheim by horse-drawn carts. The road to Radenthein was
completely rebuilt and cars could not use it again until 1949. This
was followed by a renewal of the section to Patergassen. In 1954, a
supply system was set up and house connections made in the village,
which had previously only been supplied with electricity by the
smallest hydroelectric power stations, as part of the KELAG
electrification program. In the same year, work began on a
community-wide water supply, the full development of which was not
completed until the early 1980s.
In 1956/1957, a ski lift was
put into operation in Kleinkirchheim, which at the time was also the
longest in Carinthia at 620 meters, to attract ski tourists to the
place. In the meantime, a network of slopes with a total length of
over 100 kilometers and 26 lifts has developed in Bad
Kleinkirchheim, almost all available slopes can now be artificially
snowed in when there is not enough snow. In the 1960s, a thermal
indoor pool was built in addition to the complete new construction
of the facilities. In 1977 Kleinkirchheim was finally given the
official designation “thermal baths” by the state government, and
the community has been called Bad Kleinkirchheim since then. With
the "Römerbad" a second thermal bath was opened in 1979. In 2007,
the Römerbad was completely expanded and renovated to accommodate
even more bathers.