Schwaz is a city in Tyrol. At the same time, Schwaz is the
district capital of the Schwaz district. The city borders on the
Karwendel Mountains to the north and the Tux Alps to the south. In
the Middle Ages, Schwaz was the second largest city after Vienna due
to the silver mining.
Schwaz can be reached centrally via the
Innsbruck - Kufstein motorway. You can drive over the Achenpass and
Jenbach to Schwaz toll-free. You can take the train by public
transport. Schwaz has a train station, where some express trains
stop. The nearest airport is Innsbruck (approx. 40 km). Directions
are available from the local Silberregion Karwendel tourist office.
With the Klangspuren in Schwaz
(September 6-21, 2008) one of the most successful festivals for new
music in Central Europe has established itself in the "Silver City"
(the name comes from ore mining in the Middle Ages).
Schwaz
is "Jazz City" when the Outreach Academy starts a festival with
concerts and workshops every year.
Catholic Parish Church of the Assumption: The town parish church, a
four-aisled hall church built in 1460, was extended in 1502 and is now
the largest hall church in Tyrol. The citizens sat on the left, the
miners on the right, separated by a wooden wall. A special feature of
this church are the two bell towers, one of which is around 400 years
younger. It was erected in 1911 after the older one had a critical
inclination in the upper third and there was a risk of it collapsing
when the bell was rung.
Catholic Parish Center St. Barbara
(1984/1985)
The Franciscan monastery in Schwaz with its remarkable
cloister with Gothic wall paintings was inaugurated in 1515.
The
episcopal grammar school Paulinum emerged from a grammar school founded
in Brixen in the 19th century and was re-established in Schwaz in 1926
because of repression there by fascist Italy.
Freundsberg Castle
of the Lords of Frundsberg on a hill 170 m above the town. The museum of
the city of Schwaz is housed in the tower of the castle. Among other
things, it shows the development of the city and mining in Schwaz. The
Fruntsperg Fähnlein meets monthly in the Knights' Hall.
The
Fuggerhaus was built around 1525 as the residence of the Augsburg
merchant family. From here Anton Fugger temporarily managed his empire.
Today the house is the seat of the Tertiary School Sisters.
The
trading house is a late Gothic town house that was built in 1500-1509 by
the two tradesmen Hans and Jörg Stöckl. The large building includes a
three-story arcaded courtyard and now serves as the town hall.
Franz-Josef-Strasse is the former main street and is now a pedestrian
zone. Despite the fire of 1809, it appears as a closed street. At the
end of the street is the baroque Palais Tannenberg-Enzenberg.
The
Museum der Völker shows art objects from distant cultures and
ethnographic objects from Africa and Asia.
The Schwaz silver mine is
located at the east end of the city. The Sigismund-Fürstelauf Erbstollen
opened in 1491 was made accessible to visitors in 1989/90. A mine train
drives 800 m into the tunnel.
The Zeiss Planetarium Schwaz is a very
modern small planetarium. Since 2001, it has been imparting knowledge
about the starry world to visitors. In 2006 it received FullDome
technology to be able to show modern 3D films.
The Salva Guardia zu Schwaz, an association first mentioned in 1686
that accompanies the Holy of Holies in processions, was recognized by
UNESCO in 2013 as an intangible cultural heritage in Austria under the
name Sakramentsgarden in Tirol.
Beginning in 1993, the Outreach
Festival and the Outreach Academy take place in Schwaz every year.
The festival for new music Klangspuren, renowned throughout Austria, has
been held in Schwaz since 1994 and is based in the Museum Quarter in
Vienna.
Special exhibitions from ethnographic collections, modern
non-European art and photo exhibitions in the Museum der Völker.
The
Karwendel region offers numerous opportunities for hikers, mountain
bikers and holidaymakers. In recent years the famous Transalp
Challenge mountain bike race has also led through the Karwendel
silver region. Follow in the footsteps of the bikers from Hinterriss
to the Falkenhütte, into the Eng and on to Schwaz, Weerberg via the
Geiseljoch. For some years now there have also been offers for
e-bikers. Rental stations in Schwaz offer e-bikes for the city and
e-mountain bikes for the terrain.
The Nordic walking routes
are also active. The area around Schwaz has the largest Nordic
walking network in Tyrol. Several hundred kilometers have been
equipped with extra signs.
The region is also ideal for
family vacations. In summer there is free childcare in the family
nests. There the children can take part in a varied program without
parents. From riding, looking for treasure, playing Indians or a
visit to the farm, everything is included.
In winter there is
a free children's ski course for children at the ski lifts, and in
winter there are three toboggan runs in Schwaz alone. If you are
looking for winter pleasure away from the lifts, you will also find
what you are looking for with snowshoeing and ski touring.
In
autumn there is a cattle drive through the pedestrian zone. The cows
come the long way from the Engalm to Schwaz and go home to the farm,
beautifully decorated.
For more information, see the official
tourism website.
The pedestrian zone in Schwaz gives a nice impression of the medieval mining town. There are still many smaller shops that make a cozy impression. Outside the city there are the usual chain stores, discount stores and wholesale markets. Recently there is also a large shopping center ("Stadtgalerien") directly on the B171 federal road.
The area around Schwaz was already inhabited in the Neolithic
(4000-2000 BC) and Bronze Age (from 1500 BC, finds near St. Martin). The
locality itself was first mentioned in 930/31 as "Sûates".
Around
1170, the Fruntsbergers (later Freundsbergers) erected a simple
residential tower on the hill above Schwaz, which they expanded into
Freundsberg Castle in the 13th century. The first Inn bridge was built
in the 14th century.
The townscape was initially rural in character, but after the
discovery of silver and copper deposits it soon advanced to metropolitan
dimensions. As early as the Bronze Age, copper was mined in the
mountains between Schwaz and Kitzbühel, which was needed together with
tin to produce bronze. At the heyday of mining in the 16th century,
Schwaz was one of the largest mining metropolises in Europe. With over
12,000 inhabitants (today around 13,000), it was the second largest town
in the Habsburg Empire after Vienna. With the takeover of the ore mines
in Tyrol, Fugger's share of the global trading volume of copper
increases from 40 to 80 percent.
According to an unconfirmed
legend, silver mining in Schwaz began in 1409, when the maid Gertraud
Kandlerin discovered a stone containing silver ore while grazing a bull
on the Kogelmoos (area above the village). Mining near Schwaz already
took place on a larger scale in the Bronze Age. For the year 1420, the
Schwaz chronicle reports about pits on the Falkenstein. The immigration
of mining specialists from Bohemia and Saxony began. Within a few years,
metal production in Schwaz became a European economic factor, and the
Falkenstein became a source of silver and money for the Habsburgs. The
Augsburg trading families Fugger and Paumgartner were present during the
silver mining period. The doctor Paracelsus (Philipp Aureol Theophrast
Bombast von Hohenheim in Egg an der Sihl) also visited Schwaz twice
(1516 and 1533/1534) on his research trips to deal with mining diseases
and probably received information from the Schwaz doctor Johannes
Milchtaler.
In a period from 1420 to 1827 about 2,300 tons of
silver and about 191,000 tons of copper were extracted. Even before the
final end of all mining in 1999, the Sigmund Erbstollen was prepared for
visitor traffic in 1989 and opened as a silver mine for visitors in
Schwaz.
Georg Rösch von Geroldshausen wrote the following rhyme
about mining in Schwaz in 1558:
Swatz is all perckhwerck muater
though
I'm very annoyed by that
Whether treyssygh taussent, I was
right
Of men, women, young and old.
Translation into New High
German:
Schwaz is the mother of all mines
A great crowd [of
people] feeds on it
Thirty thousand if I'm right [remember]
men,
women, young and old.
From 1521 the Swiss evangelical theologian Jacob Strauss (1480-1530)
worked as a preacher in Hall and Schwaz and had many listeners. In his
reformatory sermons he criticized Catholic teachings and condemned
interest and usury. The bishop of Brixen was able to cause him to flee
Tyrol, although a majority had become evangelical. Only the Franciscan
monastery formed a last Catholic bulwark in town. In the parish church
Maria Himmelfahrt, on the other hand, the wooden dividing wall also
became a religious divide: on one side, citizens celebrated the Latin
Mass, on the other, the German Lutheran service.
In 1525, the
miners joined the peasant uprisings, which were put down and condemned
by Martin Luther. After that, the non-violent Anabaptist movement became
very popular. Jakob Hutter (1500-1536) was one of the charismatic
leaders, and he traveled through the Puster Valley, where he founded
some Anabaptist communities that practiced confessional baptism and
community of goods. They were persecuted as "heretics" by both the
Protestant and Catholic side. About 500 Anabaptists were executed in
Schwaz, Rattenberg and Brixlegg, and others were expelled from the
country.
In 1532 the evangelical singer and poet Hans Sachs
(1494-1576) founded a master singer school in Schwaz.
With the
onset of the Counter-Reformation from 1575, the Catholic confession
became mandatory again; those who wanted to remain evangelical had to
live their faith in secret or emigrate. Only the tolerance patent of
1781 by Emperor Joseph II permitted the reestablishment of Protestant
communities. As late as 1837, Protestant Christians from the Zillertal
were forced into exile. In 2017, there were only about 230 evangelical
Christians living in Schwaz, who made up 0.7 percent of the population.
After the decline of mining and the destruction of large parts of the
town during the Napoleonic Wars, an upturn was initiated in the 19th
century by the following institutions:
1819 district secondary school
1830 Establishment of a production facility for tobacco products (closed
in 2005; demolished, shopping center)
1837 Opening of the district
court
1858 train station
1871 commercial training school
1876
old people's home
1889 the first swimming pool in Schwaz
1897
first power connections
1898/99 Construction of the Franz Joseph
Hospital
1900 trade school
On September 16, 1899, Emperor
Franz Joseph I. made Schwaz a city by resolution of April 28. This late
elevation is due to the fact that Schwaz never had a city wall, despite
and because of its size. For the same reason, at the time of silver
mining under Emperor Maximilian I, the mint was not on site but in the
fortified Hall, about 17 kilometers west of Schwaz.
Until the First World War, Schwaz was a garrison town of the k.u.k.
Army, in 1914 the III. Battalion of the Salzburg Infantry Regiment
Archduke Rainer No. 59.
On July 10, 1999 there was a rock fall
from the Eiblschrofen. After that, the movement of the mountain was
measured for many years using placed GPS sensors. Armored bars and a dam
were built to protect settlement areas. Today the Silberwald is a
biotope and recreation area.
In 2017, Schwaz was awarded the
honorary title of "European City of Reformation" by the Community of
Protestant Churches in Europe.
In August 2017, Schwaz was the
second Tyrolean municipality to be awarded the title of "Fair Trade
City".
The district capital of Schwaz is located in the middle of the Lower
Inn Valley about 30 km east of the provincial capital of Innsbruck at
the foot of the Kellerjoch (local mountain and vantage point, 2344 m)
and the Eiblschrofen.
The municipality covers an area of 20.17
km². The settlement has been determined for centuries by the Lahnbach,
which built up the site-determining debris cone through gravel transport
and flooding and divides the city into the areas of market and village.
At the same time, there is a division into the geographical settlement
areas of Ried, Pirchanger, Bleiberg, Ost, Sonnseite, Surheim and
Falkenstein.
Skiing: TU Schwaz Skiing Section, Schwaz Ski Club
Baseball: Tigers
Schwaz
Basketball: Silverminers Schwaz
Archery: BSC Schwaz-Vomp
Handball: ULZ Sparkasse Schwaz
Football: SC Schwaz
American
Football: AFC Hammers Schwaz
Airsoft: ASVT Airsoft Sport Club Tyrol
Badminton: TU Schwaz badminton section
Tennis: TC Schwaz
Recreational sports: Hobby Club Schwaz
Chess: Schwaz Chess Club
Bowling: KV Schwaz