Seewalchen am Attersee (until January 1st, 1962 only Seewalchen) is a market town in Upper Austria in the Vöcklabruck district in the Hausruckviertel with 5669 inhabitants (as of January 1st, 2020). The responsible judicial district is Vöcklabruck.
The first pile dwellings on Lake Attersee were
built between 4,000 and 3,500 BC. On the entire lakeshore, including
in Seewalchen, Litzlberg and Unterbuchberg, people used pile
dwellings. The finds in the Attersee go back to the Neolithic and
Bronze Ages.
Research on pile dwellings began in Upper
Austria on August 25, 1870, when Gundaker Count Wurmbrand excavated
the first pile dwellings in Seewalchen. They also sparked a real
pile dwelling bug in Austria.
At the Attersee a great number
of finds were recovered by the sand fisherman Theodor Wang while
digging for sand, who was able to more than double his income by
selling finds. Wang was born on October 15, 1870 in Vienna as
Theodor Krobatschek and, like his siblings, was adopted on October
27, 1909 by the property owner Nikolaus Wang, who operated a steam
saw in Seewalchen. He is considered to be the discoverer of several
pile building stations on the Attersee - including Misling 1,
Misling 2, Litzlberg. He sold the finds to the furniture
manufacturer and owner of the Schneckenvilla in Seewalchen, the
Natural History Museum in Vienna and, after the World War, also to
the Heimathaus in Vöcklabruck.
His role and that of other
sand fishermen who were found hunters are very controversial due to
the "brutal" recovery. They are therefore often referred to as
“predatory fishermen”. However, it is undisputed that the recovery
was “up to date” at the time and without this research would not
have been possible for a long time.
Today, many
stilt-dwelling villages submerged in water are endangered by
construction, shipping and divers.
A special position -
because it is unique in Austria - is the wetland settlement (that's
what science calls pile dwellings) in the Gerlhamer Moor. This
nature reserve, in the southwest of the municipality, is a listed
building. Important finds from the moor are a bronze belt hook
(natural history museum) and a long dagger blade made of bronze (Max
Schmidt collection), which were found in 1904 while cutting peat.
The peat cut was then owned by master brewer Paul Ellinger from
Litzlberg.
On June 27, 2011, the UNESCO declared 111 pile
dwellings around the Alps to be World Heritage. The Litzlberg Süd
pile-dwelling station, one of the 3 world heritage sites on Lake
Attersee and 5 in Austria, is represented in Seewalchen.
In
2005 a Celtic barrow from the Latène period (5th century BC) with
interesting grave goods was opened in the forest between Seewalchen
and Berg.
Around 15 BC Seewalchen belonged to the Roman province of Noricum. The fact that - as claimed in older writings - the important transport link from Wels to Salzburg ran along the Attersee is probably not historically tenable, and the view that Seewalchen is located on the Roman Laciacis is also not scientifically proven, but far in the literature on Seewalchen spread. However, several finds indicate Roman settlement: a Roman inscription was found in Litzlberg Castle in 1916. A fragment of a Roman tombstone is walled into the north side (outer wall) of the parish church. The treasure found in 1950 during leveling work on the lake shore was unusually valuable: 100 silver dinars, several rings and bracelets; probably from the year 200 after Christ. The valuable finds are exhibited today in Heimathaus Vöcklabruck.
Most of the place names in the municipality of
Seewalchen come from the Bavarians, who immigrated to the area
between 500 and 550 after the Romans withdrew in 488. The
immigrating Baiern follow the Roman roads and meet Romanized locals.
They called the places of the remaining population "walchen", as
place names such as Seewalchen or Ainwalchen prove. This is how the
name of the community came about: the place where the Walchen lived
on the lake.
The Old High German phase extends from around
500 to 1100. Place names with the ending -ing (a little older) and
-heim (a little younger) indicate this. However, there are also
spurious -ing names. The real -ing names come from basic settlements
from 600–800. In the expansion phase between 800 and 1000, home
names in particular were productive.
During the
Christianization period, the following place names were first
mentioned: Steindorf 750, Ainwalchen 807 and Kemating 822.
The Middle High German phase begins around 1000. The second
expansion phase is characterized by -dorf-, -berg- and -bach names.
The third phase of the expansion is characterized by -reit-,
-schlag- and -eck names. However, the many clearings led to a drop
in the groundwater level. -reit- and -öd names correspond to each
other.
Missionary work in the area began in Salzburg before the turn of
the millennium. The Church of St. Jakobus in Seewalchen is likely to
have already existed as the "original parish". In the Middle Ages,
the connection to the Michaelbeuern monastery in Salzburg had a
lasting effect. In 1135 Seewalchen was first mentioned in a document
there. The current church was built between 1439 and 1476.
The Catholic parish church of Seewalchen refers to the time of
Charlemagne. From the fact that the church is dedicated to St. James
the Elder, researchers conclude that a church already existed in
Roman times. In the Middle Ages, the surrounding areas were included
in the church structure based on Seewalchen. Thus Seewalchen was a
typical clearing parish, the parish of which encompassed the entire
Attersee area to the watershed to the Traunsee.
A large part
of today's municipal area came into the possession of the
Kremsmünster, Mondsee and Michaelbeuern monasteries through
donations. Since 1135, when the church was incorporated into the
Benedictine monastery and the name "Seewalchen" first appeared in a
document, Seewalchen was closely connected to the monastery for 748
years. The close ties to the Michaelbeuern monastery only ended in
1983 when the parish was taken over by the Linz diocese.
Since 1490 it has been assigned to the Principality
of Austria ob der Enns.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the place
was occupied several times. Since 1918 the place belongs to the
federal state of Upper Austria.
After Austria was annexed to
the German Reich on March 13, 1938, the place belonged to the Gau
Oberdonau. After 1945 the restoration of Upper Austria took place.
On May 9, 1977, the state government conferred market rights.