Oberwart is a city in Burgenland, Austria and the economic center of southern Burgenland. The city, located in the flat valley of the Pinka, has around 7,500 inhabitants and was founded as a Hungarian border guards settlement (first documented mention in 1327). In and around Oberwart you can find a significant Hungarian and Roma minority, and around 40 percent of the population profess Protestant churches.
Catholic Parish Church Oberwart
Catholic parish church of St.
Martin in the Wart
Reformed Parish Church Oberwart
Evangelical
parish church in Oberwart
The former synagogue in Oberwart, which
houses a music school, the former rabbinate house and the Jewish
cemetery in Oberwart, which has largely been preserved in its original
state, are reminiscent of the Jewish community today. All three objects
are under monument protection. With a memorial in the city park,
Oberwart commemorates the numerous victims that National Socialism
claimed in the city.
House Dellacher
The art and culture center
Offenes Haus Oberwart (OHO) hosts regular exhibitions of visual artists,
music and theater events, readings and annual festivals such as the
"Burgenland Dance Days".
diesel cinema
By bicycle
Oberwart is on the "Paradiesroute
Südburgenland" - a bicycle route through Southern Burgenland. With
an e-bike, the route of 260 km with a total of 2500 meters of
altitude can be comfortably traveled in 6 days. Details can be found
on the official homepage at
http://www.suedburgenland.info/de/themen/sport/paradiesroute/
Weekly market
Every Wednesday there is a
market right in the center of Oberwart. There are a number of market
vendors from the near and far, who offer a wide variety of everyday
goods (socks, clothing, ...) and gifts (especially toys).
Traditionally, people strengthen themselves with various sausage
products that are prepared directly at the market at the butchers'
stalls. The weekly market starts at 7 a.m. and ends at 12 noon.
Farmers market
Every Saturday (except on public holidays),
the direct marketers in the region offer their delicacies for sale
from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Oberwart farmers' market. The location
for the farmers' market has been in the city park since October
2013.
By plane
The two closest airports are Vienna
International Airport and Graz Airport. There are bus connections to
Oberwart from both cities.
By train
In the past there were
direct regional trains from Vienna to Oberwart, but these have been
discontinued. It is currently not possible to travel by train - the
association "Südburgenland Pro Bahn" is trying to change this.
By bus
There are direct bus connections from Vienna to
Oberwart.
By car
Oberwart is located directly on the A2
Südautobahn and has its own exit "Oberwart-Lafnitztal". You then
come from the west to Oberwart via the federal road B50. Further
connections are via the federal road B50 from the north-east (from
the direction of Mittelburgenland) and the federal road B63 (coming
north-west from Pinkafeld or south-east from Großpetersdorf).
1 Gasthof Neubauer, Wiener Strasse 35, A-7400 Oberwart. Tel .: +43 3352 324 89, email: gasthofneubauer@gasthofneubauer.at. Price: from € 38
There are a number of general practitioners and specialists in various fields in Oberwart, so that comprehensive care is guaranteed.
In Oberwart there is a specialty hospital with 351 beds. In addition to the departments of a standard hospital, there are also areas of specialization in paediatrics, neurology, trauma surgery and urology. Institutes such as anesthesiology and intensive care medicine, a central X-ray institute with magnetic resonance tomography, computed tomography as well as an institute for pathology and an ENT department are also available.
Oberwart is represented in the moment library. To put it simply, the Momentothek is an online photo album that shows (sometimes very) old photos, postcards, newspaper clippings and other visual evidence of Oberwart's history.
About 6 km north of Oberwart is the small, tranquil spa town of Bad Tatzmannsdorf with a modern thermal bath and an important rehabilitation center for cardiovascular patients.
Oberwart was first mentioned in a document in 1327 as a border guard
settlement in the Hungarian Gyepű system. The area had already become a
Bavarian settlement area in the early Middle Ages. The construction of
the border guards' settlement resulted in a predominantly Hungarian
settlement in the midst of German villages. In the course of the
Reformation in 1580, almost the entire population became Protestant. The
Reformed parish of Oberwart was declared an articular parish by the
Ödenburg state parliament in 1681, so that Oberwart was the only
tolerated Protestant parish in what is now Austria. The Catholic parish
was only re-established in 1683 and received back the parish church that
had been taken over by the Reformed.
Like the entire Burgenland,
the town belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary until 1920/21. Since 1898
only the Hungarian place name Felsőőr could be used due to the
Magyarization through ethnic homogenization.
Oberwart was in many ways a special feature of southern Burgenland.
While the other towns in the area were part of the Batthyány family's
dominion, Oberwart was home to free farmers. They were considered the
descendants of the Hungarian border guards (“Warte”) who gave their name
to the city and region (“Die Wart”). The settlement consisted of the
"upper run" (Hungarian Felszeg) and the "lower run" (Hungarian Alszeg);
in the space that now forms the city center, German traders, tradesmen
and civil servants subsequently built their houses or worked in the
public buildings that were erected there.
Another special feature
were the four denominations that arose over time. Around 1600, the
Reformed parish of Oberwart formed in the Obertrum, the oldest
Protestant parish in Austria. In contrast, the majority of Catholic
farmers settled in the lower part. There were also members of the AB
Evangelical Church, and after the settlement of Jews in the 19th
century, an Israelite religious community developed over time.
When the first Jews settled in Oberwart cannot be precisely determined.
A Jewish resident was mentioned for the first time in 1822 in
statistical records of the Jewish population, the "Conscriptiones
Judaerum". These first Jews came from the Schlaining Jewish community,
which moved to Oberwart, a few kilometers away.
Around 1850
fourteen Jewish fellow citizens lived in Oberwart. Their number
increased to 100 in the years up to 1900. An important reason for this
was Oberwart's elevation to the market in 1841. While all other Jewish
communities experienced a decline in population from 1900 to 1934,
Oberwart's Jewish population continued to grow. The majority of these
people came from the parent community of Schlaining, who moved to the
up-and-coming Oberwart because of the cramped conditions there and the
low earning potential.
In 1927, the district authority issued a
decision with which the previous branch community of Oberwart was
converted into an independent religious community. In August 1929, the
Schlainingen religious community was dissolved by the authorities, while
Oberwart was finally officially elevated to the Jewish religious
community Oberwart/Felsőőr by the district administration on May 23,
1930.
Since the Jewish settlement only came about after the
ghetto was abolished and Jewish emancipation was achieved, the Jewish
residents lived scattered throughout the settlement, but mostly along
the main street. The fact that four denominations lived together
peacefully also testified to a certain tolerance on the part of the
people of Oberwart towards fellow citizens with a different religion or
language. The Jewish children were taught in the Protestant school, and
there were also many points of contact between Jews and non-Jews in
everyday life.
After the end of the First World War, after tough negotiations,
German-West Hungary was ceded to the Republic of Austria in the treaties
of St. Germain and Trianon in 1919.
A footnote to the seizure of
Burgenland was the passage of Emperor Karl I through Oberwart on March
27, 1921, Easter Sunday. Karl I was traveling incognito in the company
of Count Erdődy from Rotenturm on a horse-drawn carriage borrowed from
the Pinkafeld innkeeper Lehner on his first attempt at restoration to
Hungary, which failed, however. In his notes about this trip, the
emperor wrote that his chariot had to stop in Oberwart because of the
resurrection procession. Passengers disembarked and knelt in front of
the procession before the journey continued.
In order to prevent
the western Hungarian villages from being handed over to Austria,
volunteer groups formed throughout the country, although members who
came from the affected areas themselves were the exception. The I.
Freischärlerkorps had its headquarters in Oberwart under the command of
Lieutenant Arpad Taby. When the Austrian gendarmerie tried to occupy
Burgenland with 11 columns on August 28, 1921, column 7 intended for
Oberwart was involved in a skirmish with irregulars before Pinkafeld, in
which there were injuries on both sides and two dead on the Hungarian
side. Column 8, which was coming from Hartberg and wanted to advance to
Oberwart via Markt Allhau, was shot at shortly after crossing the border
and also had to turn back.
The next day the Hungarian forces had
retreated to Oberwart, and so the two columns of gendarmerie could renew
their march. But at the entrance to Oberwart it was over again; because,
according to newspaper reports, several hundred volunteers had gathered
there under the command of Thomas Erdődy, the Rotenturm count who had
accompanied Emperor Karl I a few weeks earlier. An Austrian gendarme was
seriously wounded in the skirmish that now developed, after which the
gendarmerie withdrew to Styria.
The volunteers then again
controlled the area up to the Styrian border and, under their leader Pál
Prónay, proclaimed an operetta state in Oberwart on October 4th called
Lajtabánság/Leitha-Banat. With the Venice Protocol, Hungary finally
committed itself to handing over Burgenland. The land grab by the
federal army was able to take place between November 25th and 30th
without any problems. Already on November 26th of this conquest, units
of the Austrian 4th Brigade of the Armed Forces marched into Oberwart,
coming from Pinkafeld and Markt Allhau. As of November 26, Oberwart was
part of the new federal state of Burgenland.
The peaceful coexistence of the different denominations began to
crack when a German-speaking administrative elite settled in after the
seizure of Burgenland. This group of people, which years later formed
the nucleus of the NSDAP in Oberwart, not only had a problem with the
Jews, but above all with the Hungarian ethnic group. Because many of
Oberwart's Jewish residents felt committed to Hungary, the local
administrative officials often equated them with a Hungarian elite. The
cracks first became apparent in Oberwart's association landscape,
because language and religion were suddenly declared admission criteria,
which led to splits and the founding of various associations.
On
February 1, 1936, the newspaper Burgenländisches Volksblatt reported
that a group of people had tried to set up a Nazi underground cell in
Oberwart. The men had been traced and found guilty of the crime of
secret bundling.
The years that followed, with their dreary
economic situation in Austria, led to a strengthening of the National
Socialist movement. At a time when Federal Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg
was fighting for state independence (Berchtesgaden Agreement), a
National Socialist rally with 8,000 participants took place in Oberwart
on February 27, 1938. A second, even larger event on March 11th
attracted as many as 14,000 participants from the town and the
surrounding villages. In the night from March 12th to March 13th, the
“Annexation” of Austria to the German Reich finally took place.
Burgenland was divided and Oberwart became part of Styria for the first
time in its history. In 1939 Oberwart was raised to a municipality.
At the end of March 1945, the first Red Army units reached the Reich
border near Rechnitz in the north-east corner of the Oberwart district.
After a few days of fierce border fighting, the rifle divisions of the
26th Soviet Army set out on April 5 to conquer the northern half of the
district. Since there were only the remnants of individual alarm units
of military district XVIII on the German side, units of XXX. Rifle corps
without a fight Oberwart. As was usual for this phase of the war, there
were the well-known side effects such as rape and looting.
The
attack by the 26th Army cut off the garrison of Rechnitz, the SS
Panzergrenadier Replacement and Training Battalion 11, from the rest of
the German troops. She therefore tried to reach the new German lines on
the Styrian border. To do this, the battalion had to cross the
2-kilometer-wide Pinkatal north of Oberwart in a westerly direction.
Fired on from three sides - among other things, a flank attack from
Oberwart had to be repelled - the battalion managed to reach the forest
areas around Buchschachen and finally on the morning of April 8th their
own lines in the Lafnitz valley.
In the course of the next few
weeks, the municipality became a front hinterland, while fighting
continued to rage in eastern Styria and on the Styrian-Burgenland
border. About 400 Red Army soldiers who died in these battles were
buried in Oberwart in the newly built Soviet military cemetery.
Oberwart has the only surviving Jewish cemetery in Burgenland whose
tombstones are not inscribed in Hebrew. The victim database of the
documentation archive of the Austrian Resistance contains the names of
24 people of Jewish origin who either lived in Oberwart or were born
there. They all fell victim to the Holocaust, most of them perished in
the Auschwitz concentration camp, some in the Buchenwald, Treblinka and
Theresienstadt concentration camps; a 12-year-old boy was probably shot
in Maly Trostinec. The database also contains the names of 11 men
belonging to the Roma ethnic group who died in the Mauthausen and Dachau
concentration camps between 1940 and 1942. The names of 17 other members
of the Roma ethnic group, including many women, who lost their lives
mainly in 1943, can be found in the Auschwitz victim database.
During the war, a resistance cell was formed in the district, to which
some Oberwart residents also belonged. After this had been betrayed, the
verdict was passed by a people's court in Graz. The two Oberwart
resistance fighters, Alexander Heigl and Joseph Seper, were sentenced to
death and executed in Vienna in 1943.
In the night from February 4th to 5th, 1995, the four Roma Peter Sárközi, Josef Simon and Ervin and Karl Horvath were killed near Oberwart by a pipe bomb by the letter bomber Franz Fuchs. They had tried to remove a racist slur plaque ("Roma back to India") that was attached to the bomb. The murders were processed in literary form by Stefan Horvath and Elfriede Jelinek (in her play Stecken, Stab und Stangl).
59% of the population are Catholics and 33% Protestants, who - due to the Hungarian past of the city and the language situation that still exists today - mostly belong to the Evangelical Church of the Helvetic Confession.
Until 2011 Oberwart was the second largest city in Burgenland after the provincial capital Eisenstadt. After the number of inhabitants in Neusiedl am See rose faster, Oberwart was from then on only the third largest town in Burgenland. In December 2022 Oberwart passed the mark of 8,000 inhabitants.
Oberwart is connected to inner-Austria in a north-south direction via
the Burgenland Straße: Eisenstadt is about 100 kilometers away via the
Burgenland Straße and the Burgenland expressway. The southern autobahn
towards Vienna (distance around 130 kilometers) is about 20 kilometers
away via the Pinggau junction, towards Graz (distance around 90
kilometers) the Lafnitztal/Oberwart junction (near Markt Allhau) is
around 10 kilometers away. The Steinamangerer Straße connects Oberwart
through the Pinkatal in the direction of Pinggau with the southern
autobahn, in the direction of Hungary with Szombathely. Güssinger Straße
continues south to Stegersbach and Güssing.
The nearest airports
are the regional airport in Graz and the international airports in
Vienna, Bratislava, Zagreb and Budapest.
There is also a location
for the Austrian air rescue service in Oberwart.
For many years, Oberwart station was the terminus of the
Pinkatalbahn, which originally ran to Szombathely (Steinamanger) in
Hungary. For a long time it was assumed that in 2011 the approximately
ten-kilometer section to Großpetersdorf, which was discontinued in 1984,
would be reopened for passenger traffic. The reopening of the remaining
30 km long route to Szombathely was also considered. Instead, the
Friedberg–Oberwart route was discontinued on August 1, 2011. Since then,
Oberwart has been one of the five district capitals in Austria, along
with Oberpullendorf, Güssing, Zwettl and Waidhofen an der Thaya, without
a connection to public rail passenger transport. Since the spring of
2005, a club has operated the Oberwart–Oberschützen route as a nostalgic
railway. This section of the line was closed in 2014.
In order to
maintain freight traffic, the state of Burgenland bought the route
between Friedberg and Oberwart from ÖBB in 2017. There are no plans to
resume passenger transport, but in future it will also serve as a test
track for self-driving trains.
Mayor of Oberwart is Georg Rosner (ÖVP), who succeeded Gerhard
Pongracz (SPÖ) in 2012. In the mayoral direct election on October 1,
2017, he was elected against four competitors in the first ballot by
58.10% of the voters. The previous deputy mayor Dietmar Misik (SPÖ)
received 26.59%, Ilse Benkö (FPÖ) reached 11.29%, Maria Racz (Greens)
got 2.68% and Michael Neiser (citizen list) 1.35%. In the 2022 election,
Georg Rosner was confirmed in office with 57.69 percent of the votes.
Office manager is Roland Poiger.
Franz Asboth (1902–1967), politician and foreman
Günter Benkö
(born 1955), football referee
Patrick Bürger (born 1987), soccer
player
Verena Eberhardt (* 1994), cyclist, born in Sankt Martin in
der Wart
Patrick Farkas (born 1992), soccer player
Tomislav Gaspar
(born 1983), basketball player
Ewald Gossy (born 1959), politician
Andrea Gottweis (born 1961), politician
Marianne Hackl (born 1967),
politician
Nora Heschl (born 1987), actress
Barbara Horvath (born
1973), actress
Michael Horvath (born 1982), soccer player
Stefan
Horvath (born 1949), writer
Michael Huber (born 1990), soccer player
Samu Imre (1917–1990), linguist, pioneer of modern Hungarian
linguistics[28]
David Jandl (born 1984), basketball player
Susanna
Koch (born 1987), soccer player
Kurt Kuch (1972–2015), journalist and
author
Andreas Leitner (born 1975), basketball player and official
Norbert Leser (1933–2014), social philosopher
Eduard Müller (* 1962),
civil servant and non-fiction author, Federal Minister of Finance
Flip Philipp (born 1969), percussionist and composer
Gert Polster (*
1975), historian, museum director and mayor of Bad Tatzmannsdorf
Harald Pomper (born 1976), singer-songwriter and cabaret artist
Leo
Radakovits (born 1959), politician
Johannes Schriebl (born 2002),
soccer player
Manuel Takacs (born 1986), football player and coach
Christoph Tepperberg (born 1952), historian, director of the War
Archives in Vienna
Hans Unger (* 1979), politician (ÖVP), Member of
Parliament
Fabian Wohlmuth (born 2002), soccer player
Ella Zipser
(1926–2012), politician
Under the name Eurowart, the city has been organizing a supporting
event for several years, at which a different European country presents
itself in individual events. So far, Italy, France, the Netherlands and
Ireland have hosted cultural and gastronomic events.
In September
1984, Opus composed the No. 1 world hit “Live Is Life” as a kind of
sing-along number for a concert in the Oberwart football stadium.