Vienna Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == History== {{Main|History of Vienna}} {{For timeline}} === Early history=== Evidence has been found of continuous habitation in the Vienna area since 500 BC, when [[Celts]] settled the site on the Danube.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Vienna – History {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Vienna/History |access-date=12 November 2021 |newspaper=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en |archive-date=28 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220628234651/https://www.britannica.com/place/Vienna/History |url-status=live }}</ref> In 15 BC, the [[Roman Empire|Romans]] fortified the frontier city they called [[Vindobona]] to guard the empire against [[Germanic peoples|Germanic tribes]] to the north. [[File:Canabae legionis Vindobona.jpg|thumb|Overview of the Roman legion settlement [[Vindobona]] in the center of today's Vienna]] Close ties with other Celtic peoples continued through the ages. The Irish monk [[Coloman of Stockerau|Saint Colman]] (or Koloman, Irish ''Colmán'', derived from ''colm'' "dove") is buried in Melk Abbey and [[Saint Fergil]] (Virgil the Geometer) served as Bishop of Salzburg for forty years. Irish Benedictines founded twelfth-century monastic settlements; evidence of these ties persists in the form of Vienna's great [[Schottenstift]] monastery (Scots Abbey), once home to many Irish monks. In 976, [[Leopold I, Margrave of Austria|Leopold I of Babenberg]] became count of the [[Bavarian Ostmark|Eastern March]], a district centered on the Danube on the eastern frontier of [[Duchy of Bavaria|Bavaria]]. This initial district grew into the [[List of rulers of Austria|duchy of Austria]]. Each succeeding Babenberg ruler expanded the march east along the Danube, eventually encompassing Vienna and the lands immediately east. In 1145, [[Henry II, Duke of Austria]] moved the Babenberg family residence from [[Klosterneuburg]] in Lower Austria to Vienna. From that time, Vienna remained the center of the Babenberg dynasty.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lingelbach |first=William E. |title=The History of Nations: Austria-Hungary |publisher=P. F. Collier & Son Company |location=New York |year=1913 |pages=91–92 |asin=B000L3E368}}</ref> In 1440, Vienna became the resident city of the [[Habsburg dynasty]]. It eventually grew to become the ''de facto'' capital of the [[Holy Roman Empire]] (800–1806) in 1437 and a cultural center for arts and science, music and fine cuisine. [[Hungary]] occupied the city between 1485 and 1490. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Christian forces twice stopped [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] armies outside Vienna, in the 1529 [[Siege of Vienna (1529)|siege of Vienna]] and the 1683 [[Battle of Vienna]]. The [[Great Plague of Vienna]] ravaged the city in 1679, killing nearly a third of its population.<ref> {{cite book |last=Spielman |first=John Philip |title=The city & the crown: Vienna and the imperial court, 1600–1740 |publisher=Purdue University Press |location=West Lafayette, Indiana |year=1993 |isbn=1-55753-021-1 |page=141}} </ref> === Austrian Empire and the early 20th century=== [[File:Canaletto (I) 058.jpg|thumb|''Vienna from Belvedere'' by [[Bernardo Bellotto]], 1758]] In 1804, during the [[Napoleonic Wars]], Vienna became the capital of the newly formed [[Austrian Empire]]. The city continued to play a major role in European and world politics, including hosting the [[Congress of Vienna]] in 1814–15. The city also saw major uprisings against Habsburg rule in [[Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire|1848]], which were suppressed. After the [[Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867]], Vienna remained the capital of what became the [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]]. The city functioned as a center of classical music, for which the title of the [[First Viennese School]] (Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven) is sometimes applied. [[File:Rudolf von Alt-Opera Crossroads in Vienna.jpg|thumb|Vienna's {{lang|de|Ringstraße}} and the State Opera in around 1870]] During the latter half of the 19th century, Vienna developed what had previously been the [[bastion]]s and [[glacis]] into the {{lang|de|[[Ringstraße]]}}, a new [[boulevard]] surrounding the historical town and a major prestige project. Former suburbs were incorporated, and the city of Vienna grew dramatically. In 1918, after [[World War I]], Vienna became capital of the [[Republic of German-Austria]], and then in 1919 of the [[First Republic of Austria]]. From the late-19th century to 1938, the city remained a center of high culture and of [[modernism]]. A world capital of music, Vienna played host to composers such as [[Johannes Brahms|Brahms]], [[Anton Bruckner|Bruckner]], [[Gustav Mahler|Mahler]] and [[Richard Strauss]]. The city's cultural contributions in the first half of the 20th century included, among many, the [[Vienna Secession]] movement in art, the [[Second Viennese School]], the architecture of [[Adolf Loos]], the philosophy of [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]], and the [[Vienna Circle]]. ===Red Vienna=== [[Image:Döbling (Wien) - Karl-Marx-Hof.JPG|thumb|220px|The [[Karl-Marx-Hof]] remains symbolic for ''Red Vienna'']] The city of Vienna became the center of [[socialist]] politics from 1919 to 1934, a period referred to as "[[Red Vienna]]" (''Das rote Wien''). After a new breed of socialist politicians won the local elections they engaged in a brief but ambitious municipal experiment.<ref>{{cite book | author1= Richard Cockett |title=Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World |publisher= Yale University Press |year=2023 |page=71 |isbn= 9780300266535 }}</ref> Social democrats had won an absolute majority in the May 1919 municipal election and ruled the city council with 100 of the 165 seats. [[Jakob Reumann]] was appointed by the city council as city mayor.<ref>{{cite book | author1= Richard Cockett |title=Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World |publisher= Yale University Press |year=2023 |page=77 |isbn= 9780300266535 }}</ref> The theoretical foundations of so-called [[Austromarxism]] were established by [[Otto Bauer]], [[Karl Renner]], and [[Max Adler (Marxist)|Max Adler]].<ref>{{cite book | author1= Richard Cockett |title=Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World |publisher= Yale University Press |year=2023 |page=78 |isbn= 9780300266535 }}</ref> In the [[Austrian Civil War]] of 1934 Chancellor [[Engelbert Dollfuss]] sent the [[Austrian Armed Forces]] to shell civilian housing such as the [[Karl Marx-Hof]] occupied by the [[Republikanischer Schutzbund]] (''socialist militia''). === Anschluss and World War II=== {{Main|Anschluss}} [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1972-028-14, Anschluss Österreich.jpg|thumb|Crowds greet [[Adolf Hitler]] as he rides in an open car through Vienna in March 1938.]] In 1938, after a triumphant entry into Austria, the Austrian-born [[German Chancellor]] [[Adolf Hitler]] spoke to the [[Austrian Germans]] from the balcony of the Neue Burg, a part of the [[Hofburg Imperial Palace|Hofburg]] at the [[Heldenplatz]]. In the ensuing days the new Nazi authorities oversaw the harassment of Viennese Jews, the looting of their homes, and their on-going deportation and murder.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Erlanger |first1=Steven |title=Vienna Skewered as a Nazi-Era Pillager of Its Jews |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/07/world/vienna-skewered-as-a-nazi-era-pillager-of-its-jews.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=11 May 2017 |date=7 March 2002 |archive-date=2 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220702054818/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/07/world/vienna-skewered-as-a-nazi-era-pillager-of-its-jews.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Expulsion, Deportation to concentration camps and mass murder – History of the Jews in Vienna From racist mania to genocide |url=https://www.wien.gv.at/english/culture/jewishvienna/history/nationalsocialism.html |access-date=11 May 2017 |work=wien.gv.at |quote=The entry of Hitler's army into Austria in March 1938 triggered unprecedented suffering and hardship for Vienna's Jews. Grave acts of violence against the Jewish population began to proliferate. |archive-date=20 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220320223715/https://www.wien.gv.at/english/culture/jewishvienna/history/nationalsocialism.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Between 1938 (after the [[Anschluss]]) and the end of the [[Second World War]] in 1945, Vienna lost its status as a capital to [[Berlin]], because Austria ceased to exist and became part of [[Nazi Germany]]. During the November pogroms on 9 November 1938, 92 synagogues in Vienna were destroyed. Only the city temple in the 1st district was spared, as the data of all Jews in Vienna were collected in the adjacent archives. [[Adolf Eichmann]] held office in the expropriated Palais Rothschild and organized the expropriation and persecution of the Jews. Of the almost 200,000 Jews in Vienna, around 120,000 were driven to emigrate and around 65,000 were killed. After the end of the war, the Jewish population of Vienna was only about 5,000.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.doew.at/erkennen/ausstellung/1938/die-verfolgung-der-oesterreichischen-juden |title=DÖW – Erkennen – Ausstellung – 1938 – Die Verfolgung der österreichischen Juden |website=www.doew.at |access-date=3 February 2021 |archive-date=6 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220706103854/https://www.doew.at/erkennen/ausstellung/1938/die-verfolgung-der-oesterreichischen-juden |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.xn--jdische-gemeinden-22b.de/index.php/gemeinden/u-z/2087-wien-oesterreich |title=Jüdische Gemeinde – Wien (Österreich) |website=www.xn—jdische-gemeinden-22b.de |access-date=3 February 2021 |archive-date=10 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220610035119/https://www.xn--jdische-gemeinden-22b.de/index.php/gemeinden/u-z/2087-wien-oesterreich |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.wien.gv.at/english/culture/jewishvienna/ |title=Jewish Vienna |website=www.wien.gv.at |access-date=11 May 2017 |archive-date=19 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220619120020/https://www.wien.gv.at/english/culture/jewishvienna/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.zeit.de/2018/11/nationalsozialismus-oesterreich-anschluss-antisemitismus-adolf-eichmann/komplettansicht |title=Hitlers willige Vasallen |newspaper=Die Zeit |date=12 March 2018 |access-date=3 February 2021 |archive-date=5 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220505105703/https://www.zeit.de/2018/11/nationalsozialismus-oesterreich-anschluss-antisemitismus-adolf-eichmann/komplettansicht |url-status=live |last1=Riedl |first1=Joachim }}</ref> Vienna was also the center of the important resistance group around [[Heinrich Maier]], which provided the Allies with plans for V-1, [[V-2 rocket]]s, Peenemünde, [[Tiger tank]]s, [[Messerschmitt Bf 109]], [[Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet]] and other aircraft. The information was important to [[Operation Crossbow]] and [[Operation Hydra (1943)|Operation Hydra]], both preliminary missions for [[Operation Overlord]]. In addition, factory locations for war-essential products were communicated as targets for the Allied Air Force. The group was exposed and most of its members were executed after months of torture by the Gestapo in Vienna.<ref>Christoph Thurner "The CASSIA Spy Ring in World War II Austria: A History of the OSS's Maier-Messner Group" (2017), pp 35.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.dday-overlord.com/en/d-day/preliminary-operations/crossbow |title=Operation Crossbow – Preliminary missions for the Operation Overlord |date=19 February 2016 |access-date=8 February 2021 |archive-date=20 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180220112540/http://www.dday-overlord.com/en/d-day/preliminary-operations/crossbow |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Peter Broucek "Die österreichische Identität im Widerstand 1938–1945" (2008), p. 163.</ref><ref>Hansjakob Stehle "Die Spione aus dem Pfarrhaus (German: The spy from the rectory)" In: Die Zeit, 5 January 1996.</ref> The group around the later executed [[Karl Burian]] even tried to blow up the Gestapo headquarters in the Hotel Metropole.<ref>Karl Glanz "Die Sozialdemokratie", 2020, pp 28.</ref> On 2 April 1945, the [[Soviet Red Army]] launched the [[Vienna Offensive]] against the Germans holding the city and besieged it. British and American air-raids, as well as artillery duels between the Red Army and the [[SS]] and [[Wehrmacht]], crippled infrastructure, such as tram services and water- and power-distribution, and destroyed or damaged thousands of public and private buildings. The Red Army was helped by an Austrian resistance group in the German Wehrmacht. The group tried under the code name Radetzky to prevent the destruction and fighting in the city. Vienna fell eleven days later.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.wienerzeitung.at/archiv/139520-Der-Kampf-um-Wien-im-April-1945.html |title="Operation Radetzky" verhinderte das Ärgste – Der Kampf um Wien im April 1945 |first=Friedrich |last=Weissensteiner |website=Archiv |date=26 March 2005 |access-date=3 February 2021 |archive-date=21 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421144903/https://www.wienerzeitung.at/archiv/139520-Der-Kampf-um-Wien-im-April-1945.html |url-status=live }}</ref> At the end of the war, Austria again became separated from Germany, and Vienna regained its status as the capital city of the Republic of Austria, but the Soviet hold on the city remained until 1955,<ref>{{Cite web |date=20 September 2021 |title=The Soviet Occupation of Austria |url=https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/soviet-occupation-of-austria |access-date=11 August 2023 |website=The National WWII Museum {{!}} New Orleans |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=24 May 2007 |title=The Soviet occupation of Austria, 1945–1955 |url=https://www.eurozine.com/the-soviet-occupation-of-austria-1945-1955/ |access-date=11 August 2023 |website=www.eurozine.com}}</ref> when Austria regained full sovereignty. === Four-power Vienna=== {{further|Allied-occupied Austria}} [[File:Wien Besatzungszonen.png|thumb|upright=1.35|left|Occupation zones in Vienna, 1945–55]] After the war, Vienna was part of [[Allied-occupied Austria|Soviet-occupied Eastern Austria]] until September 1945. As in Berlin, Vienna in September 1945 was divided into sectors by the four powers: the US, the UK, France, and the Soviet Union and supervised by an [[Allied Commission]]. The four-power occupation of Vienna differed in one key respect from that of Berlin: the central area of the city, known as the first district, constituted an ''international zone'' in which the four powers alternated control on a monthly basis. The control was policed by the four powers on a ''de facto'' day-to-day basis, the famous "four soldiers in a jeep" method.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=rMlnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22four+soldiers+in+a+jeep%22+vienna ''Austria: Facts and Figures''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221025172400/https://books.google.com/books?id=rMlnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22four+soldiers+in+a+jeep%22+vienna&dq=%22four+soldiers+in+a+jeep%22+vienna&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwim5rzos-7KAhXCJJoKHRBNBNsQ6AEIMzAA |date=25 October 2022 }}, Federal Press Service, 1973, page 34</ref> The [[Berlin Blockade]] of 1948 raised Western concerns that the Soviets might repeat the blockade in Vienna. The matter was raised in the UK [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] by MP [[Anthony Nutting]], who asked: "What plans have the Government for dealing with a similar situation in Vienna? Vienna is in exactly a similar position to Berlin."<ref>{{cite web |title=HC Deb 30 June 1948 vol 452 cc2213-49 |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1948/jun/30/germany#column_2238 |website=[[Hansard|Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)]] |access-date=17 February 2016 |archive-date=10 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220610035208/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1948/jun/30/germany#column_2238 |date=30 June 1948 |url-status=live }}</ref> There was a lack of airfields in the Western sectors, and authorities drafted contingency plans to deal with such a blockade. Plans included the laying down of metal landing mats at Schönbrunn. The Soviets did not blockade the city. The [[Potsdam Agreement]] included written rights of land access to the western sectors, whereas no such written guarantees had covered the western sectors of Berlin. Also, there was no precipitating event to cause a blockade in Vienna. (In Berlin, the Western powers had introduced a new currency in early 1948 to economically freeze out the Soviets.) During the 10 years of the four-power occupation, Vienna became a hotbed for international espionage between the [[Western Bloc|Western]] and [[Eastern bloc]]s. In the wake of the Berlin Blockade, the [[Cold War]] in Vienna took on a different dynamic. While accepting that Germany and Berlin would be divided, the Soviets had decided against allowing the same state of affairs to arise in Austria and Vienna. Here, the Soviet forces controlled districts 2, 4, 10, 20, 21, and 22 and all areas incorporated into Vienna in 1938. Barbed wire fences were installed around the perimeter of [[West Berlin]] in 1953, but not in Vienna. By 1955, the Soviets, by signing the [[Austrian State Treaty]], agreed to relinquish their occupation zones in Eastern Austria as well as their sector in Vienna. In exchange they required that Austria declare its permanent neutrality after the allied powers had left the country. Thus they ensured that Austria would not be a member of [[NATO]] and that NATO forces would therefore not have direct communications between Italy and [[West Germany]]. The atmosphere of four-power Vienna is the background for [[Graham Greene]]'s screenplay for the film ''[[The Third Man]]'' (1949). The films [[theme music]] was composed and performed by Viennese musician [[Anton Karas]] using a [[Zither]]. Later he adapted the screenplay as a novel and published it. Occupied Vienna is also depicted in the 1991 [[Philip Kerr]] novel, ''[[A German Requiem (novel)|A German Requiem]]''. === Austrian State Treaty and afterwards=== [[File:Graben, szemben a Pestisoszlop. Fortepan 58901.jpg|thumb|[[Graben, Vienna|Graben]] in 1966]] The four-power control of Vienna lasted until the [[Austrian State Treaty]] was signed in May 1955. That year, after years of reconstruction and restoration, the [[Vienna State Opera|State Opera]] and the [[Burgtheater]], both on the {{lang|de|Ringstraße|italic=no}}, reopened to the public. The Soviet Union signed the State Treaty only after having been provided with a political guarantee by the federal government to declare Austria's neutrality after the withdrawal of the allied troops. This law of neutrality, passed in late October 1955 (and not the State Treaty itself), ensured that modern Austria would align with neither [[NATO]] nor the [[Soviet bloc]], and is considered one of the reasons for Austria's delayed [[1995 enlargement of the European Union|entry into the European Union in 1995]]. In the 1970s, [[Chancellor of Austria|Austrian Chancellor]] [[Bruno Kreisky]] inaugurated the [[Vienna International Center]], a new area of the city created to host international institutions. Vienna has regained much of its former international stature by hosting international organizations, such as the United Nations ([[United Nations Industrial Development Organization]], [[United Nations Office at Vienna]] and [[United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime]]), the [[Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization]], the [[International Atomic Energy Agency]], the [[OPEC|Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries]], and the [[Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe|Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe]]. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). 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