Download The Suburbanized City, 1914-today

The
Suburbanized
City
1914 – today
360 GRAZ The City
in all Times
Dänemark
Irland
(Eire)
Vereinigtes Königreich
von Großbritannien
und Nordirland
Riga
Lettland
Kopenhagen
Kārlis Ulman
streich im M
Europe in 1934
Litauen
Antanas Smetona
Kaunas
Danzig
London
Amsterdam
Niederlande
Berlin
Warschau
Brüssel
Belgien
Deutsches Reich
Polen
Adolf Hitler
Józef Piłsudski
Luxemburg
Paris
Prag
Tschechoslowakei
Wolfsegg
Frankreich
Hallein
Bern
Schweiz
Wörgl
Bregenz
Liechtenstein
Innsbruck
Attnang
Krems
Linz
Enns
St. Pölten
Steyr
Ebensee Waidhofen/Ybbs
Salzburg
Österreich
Engelbert Dollfuß
(autoritär ab 1933)
Wien
Korneuburg
Lilienfeld
Neunkirchen
Eisenstadt
Kindberg
Gloggnitz
Leoben
Fohnsdorf
Bruck
Judenburg
Lienz
Voitsberg
Budapest
Weiz
Graz
Klagenfurt
Ungarn
Miklós Horthy
Rumänien
König Carol II.
(Königsdiktatu
Burgos
Republik
San Marino
Monaco
Belgrad
Jugoslawien
König Alexander I.
Bukarest
Andorra
Portugal
Italien
Austria
Korsika
Border of the Republic
of Austria
(französisch)
Fights in February 1934
Combat and riot zones
government troops
Balearen Movement of the Sardinien
Benito Mussolini
Antonio Salazar
Madrid
Lissabon
Vatikanstadt
Spanien
Francisco Franco
(Militärputsch 1936)
Valencia
Rom
Systems of Government
Democracies
Dictatorships before 1920
Dictatorships as of 1920
Dictatorships as of 1933
Bulgarien
Kimon Georgiew
(Staatsstreich im
Sofia
Tirana
Forms of Government
Albanien
Republic
Monarchy
Interrupted monarchy
Griechenland
Ioannis Metaxas
(autoritär ab 1935)
Gibraltar (britisch)
Graz and the Europe of Dictatorships
Athen
After the First World War, the political order in almost all European countries
Malta
(britisch) democracies. By the
was unstable, but first and foremost in the young
mid-1930s, authoritarian fascist governments prevailed everywhere in
Central Europe, with the exception of Switzerland and Czechoslovakia.
Kreta
Due to the Great Depression, authoritarian movements attracted the masses
in Austria. The differences between them were fuzzy. E.g. parts of the
Styrian Home Guards—which were originally Christian-conservative—joined
the National Socialists. The Social Democrats did successful work in the
cities, and also in Graz. Their leaders at federal level rather tended to wait
than act: they believed that the crisis of capitalism would resolve itself.
When in February 1934 the Dollfuß administration increased its pressure
on the Social Democratic Party again, the party organizations, starting
off from Linz, stood up against the much too powerful government troops.
In Styria, the revolts concentrated in the industrial areas. Bruck an der
Mur was temporarily controlled by the Social Democrats. But on February
14, the government troops conquered the last pockets of resistance in
the west of Graz.
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In the City of the Popular Uprising
Some careers outlive all political upheavals. Hanns Wagula’s, who before
World War II mainly worked as a poster artist, is one of them.
For his filmic documentation of the Graz version of the “Anschluss”, i.e.
the actual annexation of Austria in March 1938, Wagula, who sympathized
with National Socialism since the late 1930s, received an award from
the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. The film forges
a suggestive bridge between the poverty of the population in the Austrian
“Ständestaat” (Corporative State) and Adolf Hitler’s visit in Graz on April 4,
1938, and the vote on the “Anschluss” on April 10.
After the war, Wagula was mainly a filmmaker. So, for example, he made
the short film “Salzburger Impressionen” (Impressions of Salzburg), which
was screened in the competition of the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.
Hans Haacke: Und ihr habt doch gesiegt (And You Have Won After All), 1988
Laminated photograph on aluminum
© Hans Haacke
The Defeated Ones in Styria
In biblical revelation a woman crowned with stars appears on a half moon.
The Church places this figure as a symbol of victory, et al. in the form of
Marian columns, in the public space.
In July 1934, SS men staged a coup against Federal Chancellor Dollfuß
and acclaimed the former Governor of Styria, Anton Rintelen, the new
Federal Chancellor. The putsch was put down but on July 25, 1938,
Adolf Hitler gave Graz the honorary title of a “City of the Popular Uprising”.
The Marian column at Eisernes Tor (Iron Gate) was sheathed in the form
of an obelisk with the inscription: “And you [putschists of July] have
won after all!”
In the frame of the steirischer herbst festival 1988, Hans Haacke reconstructed the sign of Nazi triumph with a new inscription (in German; this is
the English translation): “The defeated ones in Styria: 300 gypsies killed,
2,500 Jews killed, 8,000 political prisoners killed or deceased under arrest,
9,000 civilians killed in the war, 12,000 missing, 27,900 soldiers killed.”
Right-wing extremists set the memorial on fire. The general public responded
immediately with protests in front of the burnt down obelisk.—The brownshirt
spirit has not won after all.
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Hanns Wagula: Graz, Stadt der Volkserhebung, Dokumentation über den “Umbruch” 1938 in Graz
(Graz, City of the Popular Uprising, documentary about the ‘radical change’ in Graz in 1938), 1938
Film (clip), length: 13:00 min
GrazMuseum, ACNO 96
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Graz in the 20th Century
XII. Andritz
Total population development:
Wien
XI. Mariatrost
r
Mu
r
fe
uru
uru
sM
te
ch
Re
sM
ke
Lin
XIII. Gösting
III. Geidorf
r
fe
Leechwald
l
rte
gü
Rosenhain
en
ari
lv
Ka
Hilmteich
X. Ries
l
ürte
hofsg
Bahn
IV. Lend
KF Uni
Hauptbahnhof
IX. Waltendorf
II. St. Leonhard
Ruckerlberg
ger Gürtel
Eggenber
XIV. Eggenberg
I. Innere Stadt
Quayside streets: Located close to
the center, these became important
access roads from the north and the
south and also altered the cityscape
(cf. Neutorgasse).
on-H
ad-v
Conr
rtel
gü
rett
f-St
ndor
ötze
Laza
r.
VI. Jakomini
Geplante Stadtautobahn durch
ugürtel
Schöna
r Gürtel
Karlaue
VIII. St. Peter
hn
ba
Ost
f
ho
Eggenberg
Triester
Triestersiedlung
Straße
Südtirolersiedlung
Köflach
Budapest
Social housing: This was mainly
conducted on the right bank
of the Mur River, e.g. along the
former trade route from Vienna
to Trieste (e.g. Triester Siedlung,
Südtirolersiedlung).
Population density:
Districts I - VI
Districts VII - XVII
Right Bank of the Mur River
VII. Liebenau
XVI. Straßgang
XVII. Puntigam
Groß-Graz (Greater Graz)
Already in the end of the 19 century, the incorporation of the surrounding
communities of Graz was considered. Eventually, in 1918, the city parliament took a decision of principle pertaining this issue. A more efficient
administration was hoped for; more people should profit from the industrial
enterprises and the surrounding communities should enjoy a better
infrastructure and higher social benefits.
th
But the surrounding communities feared the disadvantages of the big city
and the loss of their autonomy. Not until the era of National Socialism,
“Greater Graz” was realized within a few weeks. Industrial enterprises
established their premises in the large undeveloped areas between the
city and its new centers on the periphery.
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Population development:
TU
V. Gries
XV. Wetzelsdorf
Beltway system: Until the Plabutsch
Tunnel was built, the strained
north-south route (“Gastarbeiterroute”,
i.e. literally: foreign workers’ route)
ran through Graz and the indoor
environment quality for residents
in its immediate vicinity was
correspondingly low.
The city expansion increased the
extent and concentration of the
functions of industry, trade, and
traffic on the right bank of the
Mur River again, as well as in the
southern part of the city.
Development: Previously green
and little developed village
structures experienced partial
“devaluation” as sought-after
residential and recreational areas
due to development (cf. former
“summer retreat” Wetzelsdorf).
Housing shortage: The immigration
of refugees after World War I and II
led to increased demand for housing.
Groß-Graz (Greater Graz):
Surrounding communities with
a predominantly rural peasant
population most strongly rejected
the incorporation.
Left Bank of the Mur River
The bourgeois and more attractive
residential areas expanded towards
the new periphery. Like the west
of the city, this former surrounding
area was to a great extent green
space.
As industry and trade had not settled
down there, formerly poorer settlement areas were upgraded and
became sought-for residential areas
(cf. Ruckerlberg).
This further increased the extent
and concentration of the functions
of living, recreation and education
towards the east.
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Graz today
Land Use:
XI. Mariatrost
Development of built-up residential
areas and areas of arable land in Graz
XIII. Gösting
Mu
III. Geidorf
r
X. Ries
IV. Lend
Multi-story houses
I. Innere Stadt
XIV. Eggenberg
IX. Waltendorf
Single-family- and semidetached
houses
II. St. Leonhard
Areas of arable land
V. Gries
VI. Jakomini
Suburban Space:
XV. Wetzelsdorf
City in between: The comprehensive
expansion of the city space into
formerly rural areas has led to a loss
of identity. The project “Lebendige
historische Ortszentren” (Vibrant
Historical Village Centers) is trying
to reactivate the social fabric in the
centers of Graz St. Peter und Graz
Straßgang.
VIII. St. Peter
VII. Liebenau
XVII. Puntigam
XVI. Straßgang
Single-Family-Houses:
Seiersberg
The “City in Between”
The economic miracle brought about the disintegration of old city structures
everywhere. In Graz too, the single-family-house became the dream come
true for an entire generation that needed space. Graz expanded first and
foremost towards the south, and the traditional inner-city suppliers such as
shops, cinemas and restaurants followed to the periphery. Shopping malls
increasingly took over the function of places of social encounter and the car
became the essential element of this new suburban lifestyle. The historical
limits between the city and the surrounding countryside became frayed and
both the inner workings and the shape of the city were transformed.
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Dense development: For affordability
reasons, both building grounds
and distances to the neighbors are
quite small here. In the settlement
areas located inter alia in the
south of Graz, single-family-houses
are mixed through with multi-story
residential complexes and close to
commercial areas.
Scattered development: This
settlement type is often to be found
in the greenbelt in the east but
also in the west of the city. What is
often found here, are attractive
freestanding and thus expensive real
estate locations within the city area.
Green Belt
Shopping malls: A large number
of shopping malls were built as of
the 1980s. Along with good
transport connections and all sorts
of stores satisfying the most diverse
consumer needs, the cleanliness
and the security of these seemingly
public spaces make them attractive.
They compete with inner-city trade.
Shadow of the Graz Clocktower:
Created by Markus Wilfling in 2003,
the year when Graz was European
Capital of Culture, and featuring the
contours of this landmark of Graz,
it was meant to remind us of the
dark sides of the city during the time
of National Socialism. After 2003,
the object was sold to Shoppingcity
Seiersberg and since then it has
served as advertising space for
the shopping mall which is visible
from afar.
Inner-City Shopping Street
9
Graz vs Linz
What if … the highway ran through the city in Graz too?
Austria’s first city highway runs through Linz since the 1960s. One was
planned in Graz too. Both projects have their origins in the Nazi era but
Linz was significantly quicker to realize it. The city became motorized much
earlier than the rest of Austria. The National Socialists expanded Linz as
an industrial location, enlarged the city’s area 16-fold, and connected it
to the Reichsautobahn (Reich Highway) from Vienna to Salzburg. In 1957,
the construction of a rapid transit ring road was resolved to take the traffic
load off the inner city and connect the industrial area.
The Subtle
Differences
In Graz, it was planned to build the Pyhrn Highway alongside the Plabutsch
Mountain through the districts of Eggenberg and Gösting. Mayor Gustav
Scherbaum from the SPÖ wanted to realize this project by all means. But this
was already in the 1970s. In 1973—during the first oil crisis—more than
35,000 people signed a petition against the highway. In a referendum in
1975, the Grazers declared themselves in favor of a tunnel. It was the first
referendum dealing with a traffic project like this. The Plabutsch Tunnel was
put into operation in 1987.
After the First World War, progressive movements provided
the direction first: towards welfare state, eight-hour work day,
workers’ representation and women’s suffrage (in Austria
as of 1919). The “new woman” of the 1920s, with a short
hairstyle and fashionably dressed, was active and selfconfident. However, she could be seen much more often in
film and advertising than in real life. The big city celebrated
itself as the site of a new glamorous consumer culture; it
became brighter, louder and faster. The divide to the people
excluded from this became obvious. And critics were already
congregating who regarded the city as the root of all evil.
Graz: View on Eggenberg, part of the project area
for the highway planned in the 1970s
© Stadtvermessungsamt Graz
10
Linz: View on the meanwhile covered and
greened highway in Bindermichl
© 2009, StPL Linz / Pertlwieser
The counter-movement already formed in the 1930s: now the
countryside and its population became the model. National
Socialism too glorified nature and “simple” men. Its criterion
was neither social rank, nor wealth or education—it was the
“racial” origin that defined everybody’s value for society. The
woman shared responsibility for the “purity” of the “racial
corpus”. She was pushed back into the role of housewife and
mother again.
The Art of Social Criticism
The Fatherland Needs Mothers!
Paul Schmidtbauer, a founding member of the Grazer
Secession, was considered a member of the Styrian
avant-garde in the 1920s and 1930s. In this time, he
turned more and more to socio-critical subjects. The
everyday life in the backyards and on the outskirts
of cities as well as marginal people took center stage
in his works. When he was in London in 1938 and
considered emigration, many colleagues in Graz attacked him for this. After World War II he advocated
improved working conditions for artists.
Since the end of the 19th century, the Social Democrats
called for universal and equal suffrage—up to that
time the right to vote had depended on one’s property and
tax payments. After World War I and the proclamation
of the Republic of German-Austria the same right to vote
for both sexes was introduced in 1918. Due to WW I
more than half of the people eligible to vote were women.
Right up into the 1970s, election posters addressed
women first and foremost as mothers.
Paul Schmidtbauer: Die Klopfstunde (The Knocking Hour), 1928
Oil on canvas
Kulturamt der Stadt Graz
The “Cherry Revolution” of Graz
Starting out with protests of women against the high
prices of foodstuffs—and particularly of cherries—of at
the Kaiser-Josef-Markt, there was a riot on June 7, 1920,
that lasted all day. A crowd gathered within short time,
speeches were held, and eventually, market stands and
warehouses were looted and destroyed. In the course of
the day, the crowd moved up to Annenstraße, via Jakominiplatz and Hauptplatz. Fights with the police began, which
fired at the protesters in the end. 13 people were killed.
Axl Leskoschek: Kirschenrummel (Cherry Rage) 1919, 1955
Woodcut
GrazMuseum, ACNO 05 / 02241
Comrade Konsum Opens in Graz
Election Poster “Mütter!! denkt an eure toten Söhne”
(“Mothers!! Think of your dead sons”), 1919
Paper
GrazMuseum, without ACNO
Between Mutterkreuz (Cross of Honor of the
German Mother) and Enforced Sterilization
The role of the woman as mother was at the foreground
of National Socialist ideology. Women were supposed
to be faithful, willing to make sacrifices and capable of
suffering. “Aryan” women were encouraged to fulfill their
tasks, rewarded with the “Mother’s Cross” and honored
in the frame of Mother’s Day celebrations. This was
contrasted by systematic abortions and sterilizations of
forced women workers or women belonging to “inferior”
ethnic groups. “Aryan” women faced capital punishment
in case of abortions.
“Das Mutterherz” (The Mother’s Heart) from “Wochensprüche der NSDAP”, 1942
Paper
GrazMuseum, without ACNO
At the turn from the 19th to the 20th century, there was
a wave of new co-operative associations in the
industrialized European countries and in the context
of the growing political and unionized labor movement.
These followed the model of successful British institutions. The “Großeinkaufsgesellschaft österreichischer
Consumverein” (GÖC) was founded in 1905 to secure
the supply of goods for the individual co-operative
associations and to develop and produce own brands.
Poster on the Occasion of the Opening of the GÖC Department Store,
Annenstraße 22, November 27, 1926
Graphic design: Johannes Wohlfart, print: Senefelder, Graz
GrazMuseum, ACNO GRA05 / 09766
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13
The Civic
Project
In the first decades of the 20th century, the heyday of the
urban bourgeoisie was over for the time being. It was
destroyed by the First World War, which brought about the
dissolution of the municipal council, special and emergency
regulations, forced labor and quartering of armed forces.
After the Great War, it was urgent social issues that made it
more difficult to reinvigorate bourgeois politics. Refugees,
returning soldiers and wounded soldiers had to be cared
for, and housing shortage and starvation had to be alleviated.
Nevertheless, the social democratic mayor, Vinzenz Muchitsch,
managed to pursue civic and economy-related politics.
A more and more radicalized society, which led straightaway
into the authoritarian Corporative State—and National
Socialism at a later stage—ignored the original ideals of
bourgeoisie in the most brutal way. Rights were limited, and
Jews and Romani people were persecuted. Differently
minded citizens found “freedom” only in inner emigration
and exile, or occasional resistance.
Unlike in Linz, nobody speaks of “Hitlerbauten” (Hitler Buildings) in Graz. One
does not recognize that the foundation pillars of these buildings were completely
delusional ideas addressed against (fictional) enemies, such as “keeping clean the
Germanic blood” and the annihilation of the Judaism of the world. Hitler’s hatred
against the “inferior” Slavs, who must be enslaved in the new territories of the East,
is not expressed in these buildings. The banality of evil is practical and livable in
the Südtirolersiedlung, which was once built for those “Germans” (i.e. the South
Tyroleans) who opted against Mussolini.
After the end of World War II the civic project was continued
under Mayor Eduard Speck. Hereby the fight against starvation and housing shortage was to the fore at first. Only after
this fight was won, large-scale projects of the city could be
considered. The denazification of 27,000 registered NSDAP
members was a main task on the political level.
“Der Jud” (The Jew) as a Scapegoat
The Jews’ emancipation, which had been initiated by
Joseph II among others, and their assimilation associated to this, resulted in anti-Semitism based on racial
reasoning in the time of industrialization, which was
to driven by Jewish manufacturers, merchants or bankers
to a large extent. As shown in this poster created by
the “Deutschvölkische Einigungspartei” (i.e. literally:
German National Unification Party), Jews have always
served as scapegoats for the socially disadvantaged, who
are susceptible to anti-Semitic slogans such as “It’s the
Jew’s fault!” and the reiteration of medieval delusions.
Anti-Semitic election poster, around 1920
Paper
GrazMuseum, without ACNO
Red Graz
During the time of the First Republic, Vinzenz Muchitsch
(1873-1942) was the mayor of Graz and established
the city as a “red island” in predominantly Christian
Social Styria. His political career began in the Habsburg
Monarchy. Sympathizing with anarchist movements
at first, he later turned to the reformist part of social
democracy. In his term as Mayor of Graz, from 1919
until he was unseated by the Dollfuß regime in 1934, he
promoted communal housing and the expansion of
the city’s infrastructure following the model of Vienna.
Walter Seidl: Portrait bust of Vinzenz Muchitsch, 1935
Patinized plaster
GrazMuseum, ACNO SKU05 / 00134
A Social Democrat Modernizes
Graz from the Bottom Up
In 1919, the Social Democrat Vinzenz Muchitsch was
elected Mayor of Graz by the municipal council,
which, for the first time, also included women. He would
hold this function until 1934 and have an essential
impact on the city of Graz during his term. The expansion
of the city’s infrastructure and social housing were
among Muchitsch’s major concerns. To fund this, the city
took out loans, among them one with a US bank in
the amount of 2.5 million dollars. Most of this amount
was invested in the expansion of the waterborne
sewage system, which thus replaced the old system of
collecting human excrements in metal garbage cans
and carting these away when they were full (Heidelberger
Tonnensystem) once and for all.
Election poster of the Social Democratic Party, 1929
Paper
Graz, Steiermärkisches Landesarchiv, ACNO Plakat Slg Politik 1929 Nr. 19
Vote Catching with Rustic Ideas
Soon after its foundation, the Christian-Socialist Party
was accused before Pope Leo of muddling ideas, antiSemitism and lack of knowledge of Catholic doctrines.
After the death of its leader, Karl Lueger, in 1910,
the party headed towards its decline due to its orientation
towards the rural population. Its answer to the social
issue consisted of an anti-capitalism which—at first,
in the frame of a party democracy—was opposed by an
economic reform based on the backward ideal of
a corporative social order.
Election poster of the Christian Social Party, 1929
Paper
Graz, Steiermärkisches Landesarchiv, ACNO Plakat Slg Politik 1929 Nr. 3
16
17
The Seemingly Harmless Beginnings
Social and national issues only apparently take center
stage in this excerpt from the NSDAP party program
of 1920. At a closer reading it becomes clear that the
claims of these two items on the agenda address the
Jews. What they contained was the Jews’ exclusion from
the “Volksgenossenschaft” (i.e. the national community):
they should be deprived of all their civil rights and
their professional means of existence. In Graz, the flyer
was distributed by the “Vaterländischer Schutzbund”
(Protectors of the Fatherland), Graz chapter, with the
martial name “Sturmabteilung Rossbach”.
Party program of the NSDAP – Ortsgruppe (chapter) Graz, 1920
Flyer
“recycled history” – Joachim Hainzl Collection
City of the Popular Uprising
In February 1938, Federal Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg
granted an amnesty and freedom of activity to the
Austrian National Socialists on the Obersalzberg.
Subsequently, protests of the brownshirt masses started
in Graz, which led to the honorary title of “City of
the Popular Uprising” at a later stage. Seen from the
perspective of international law, Adolf Hitler knew that
he could not afford the annexation of Austria as he
had to take the military intervention of Great Britain into
account. It was the mass demonstrations in Graz and
Innsbruck in March 1938 that encouraged him to risk
the annexation. That Adolf Hitler was made honorary
citizen of Graz in the following year already got lost in
the plethora of similar honorary titles across the entire
Third Reich.
Graz receiving the honorary title “City of the Popular Uprising”, 1938
Letter from the Reich Chancellery
GrazMuseum, without ACNO
18
The crisis-ridden Interwar period produced a modernity bound
by tradition in the architecture of Graz. Despite all rejection of
historicism local values were in the fore in the new building attitude.
All the more, the geometrical rationalism of the gas, electricity and
water plants planned by Rambald von Steinbüchel-Rheinwall stand
out from the harmoniously contradictory overall picture of the early
1930s. They were a symbol of “cold internationalism” which the
Home Guard had always warned against.
One’s Own
and the Alien
Noble Appearances and Sexual Reality
In this series of linocuts, Alwine Hotter depicts in
a provocative manner how the patriarchal bourgeois
society dealt with sexuality and gender relations.
The episodes she presents here circle around the idea
that the ‘tact’ of the noble ladies and gentlemen is
only about keeping up appearances while they are in
truth also driven by their instincts. After its presentation
in 1921, the work was censored and banned.
Alwine Hotter: Liebesleben der feinen Gesellschaft
(The Sex Life of the High Society), 1921
Series of linocuts
Privately owned, Graz
Gloomy Presentiments
Territorial reorganization after the Great War further
radicalized the conservative national segments not only
in the neighboring province of Carinthia. Members of
the Styrian Home Guard units were recruited in part from
among Carinthian and Styrian “defense fighters” against
the Slovenes. Around 1930, these groups were clearly
oriented towards fascism.
Fascist movements emerged in many European countries
after the First World War. This attitude, which has been
latent in society up to the present day, was in the majority
everywhere at the time. The fascist body of thought is the
expression of uncritical identification with one’s own group
and aggressive violence against the “others”. These “others”
were Jews, homosexuals and all people who were perceived
as belonging to a different race such as Romani people.
Styria played a pioneering role in the enforcement of the
Nazi body of thought. The NSDAP Austria was founded by
a splinter group of the Styrian Home Guard. In 1938, at the
voting on the so-called “Anschluss” tens of thousands of
people who were persecuted by the regime were excluded
from voting. The mayor of Graz at the time, SS Obersturmbannführer Julius Kaspar, declared the “Gau capital” “free
of Jews” already in March 1940.
Ida Maly earned a living as a portrait painter. After she
gave birth to her daughter she entered a state of severe
financial and mental crisis and, eventually, she had to
put her daughter up for adoption. In 1928, she was
committed to the psychiatric hospital in Graz, then in
Vienna. What she dealt with in her works was among
other things her own break with socially determined role
stereotypes. In 1941, she was murdered in the frame
of the Nazi euthanasia program in the extermination
center Hartheim near Linz.
Ida Sofia Maly: Trübe Ahnungen (Gloomy Presentiments), Self Portrait, 1928
Watercolor and ink on tracing paper
Privately owned, Graz
Austria Wants back to the Reich
The desire in Austria to become part of the German
Empire dates back to 1871, the year the German
Empire was created, when the German-speaking
population of the Habsburg Monarchy suddenly turned
into a minority. The separation of Lower Styria as a
consequence of the Habsburg Monarchy’s defeat in the
Great War further increased these tendencies. The
poster’s creator, Hermann Bergmeister from Vorarlberg,
was a painter, graphic designer and illustrator and,
among other things, worked in Graz as an art teacher
in the early 20th century.
Hermann Bergmeister: Ein Volk – ein Reich (One People—One Empire), 1925
Paper
GrazMuseum, ACNO GRA05 / 08864
21
Cinema Advertising in Still Image
Lost Jewishness in the Streets of Graz
In 1910, Anton Ramisch opened his “Kunstgewerbliche
Malerei” in Glacisstraße 69 and the associated
workshop in Burggasse 4. He learned the crockery wholesale trade in his father’s business but he was mainly
interested in glass and porcelain painting. Along with
hand-painted crockery, Ramisch also produced socalled “cinema slides”, middle-format advertising
slides to be used in cinemas. He became internationally
acclaimed for his photographs on glass and porcelain.
To drive out Jewish competitors from local business has
always been one of the main objectives of Austrian antiSemitism throughout history. Already soon after 1867,
when Jews were allowed to freely move and do business
again in the Habsburg Monarchy, the first calls for the
boycott of Jewish shops were to be heard. Yet it was left
to Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist movement to turn
this anti-Semitism into the systematic genocide of at
least 6 million Jews.
Original sketch for the poster “Kunstgewerbliche Malerei Anton Ramisch”
Painted paper
Gschier Collection
List of Jewish shops in Graz from Grazer Nachrichten, March 23, 1929
Cover page (reproduction, original: 22.5 x 14.6 cm)
Graz, Steiermärkische Landesbibliothek
Escaped from Nazi Terror
The photo albums belonged to Daisy Bene-Kastner, granddaughter of company founder Carl Kastner and his
wife Julia Öhler, and heiress of a part of the Kastner &
Öhler department store. In several albums she tells her
relatives the history of the secret “landmark of Graz”
and her family. Daisy Bene, a “half Jew” in the diction
of the time, was lucky. She escaped the Nazi annihilation
machinery by a hair’s breadth. That a bomb hit the
SS Race and Settlement Office spared her the fate of
her uncle, Franz Öhler, who died in the Buchenwald
concentration camp in 1945.
The department store and the Kastner & Öhler family
Photo on cardboard / Daisy Bene Collection
The Jewish Cemetery is Burning
In the so-called “Reichskristallnacht” (referred to in
English as Crystal Night or Night of the Broken Glass)
in November 1938, the synagogue on the Grieskai burst
into flames like many other temples all over the Third
Reich. The fires were started by the Nazis. The Jewish
ceremonial hall in Wetzelsdorf met the same fate.—In
1934, the Jewish Community had 1,720 members.
Due to Nazi terror more than 400 Jewish Grazers
emigrated to Palestine alone until November 1938.
Those who stayed in Graz had to move to Vienna,
from where they were deported to the Theresienstadt
concentration camp at a later time.
Alfred Steffen Collection: Fire at the ceremonial hall of the Jewish cemetery in
the Alte Poststraße (historic post road) / Wetzelsdorferstraße, 1938
Photograph (reproduction, original: 10 x 15 cm)
Graz, Multimedia Collections, Universalmuseum Joanneum, ACNO: RF54325
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The Shape
of the City
Around 1900, the development of the inner districts of Graz
was largely completed. It was the housing shortage after the
First World War that gave city development new momentum.
The municipality provided new housing and founded housing
estates—such as the one in Triester Straße—and provided
municipal building grounds on the eastern outskirts.
Yet the great urban development project of the 1920s
and 1930s was the incorporation of the surrounding
communities. Above all, Mayor Muchitsch promoted the
project. But he did not manage to prevail against the
communities’ resistance and the conservative wing of
the municipal council. But the authoritarian Nazi regime
realized “Greater Graz” within only a few weeks.
This hand grenade throwing range on the target practice
grounds of the Feliferhof has inscribed itself in many
people’s memory as a silent symbol of political crime.
Far more than 300 people were executed here for
“Wehrkraftzersetzung” (“subversion of the war effort” is
one of the common translations), political resistance,
and other reasons. In May 1945, a mass grave was opened
where 142 bodies were found. Subsequently, they were
buried with dignity at the central cemetery of Graz. In the
frame of an annual mourning ceremony there, all victims
of Nazi terror are commemorated.
According to the ideas of the National Socialists, the “City
of the Popular Uprising” was to become a National Socialist
model city. Parts of the inner city of Graz were to be razed
and replaced by gigantic boulevards, solemn squares and
stunning monumental buildings. In the end, Graz was spared
this assault on its appearance—not least due to successful
filibustering. Yet it was not spared the air raids of the Allied
Forces from late winter 1944 to Easter 1945. Almost 50 %
of the city’s buildings were destroyed or damaged by them.
Plan of the “Fuhrer City” of Graz
Topography of Destruction
On February 17, 1939, the Fuhrer declared by order
that Graz was one of those cities whose expansion
would enjoy particular support by the Reich. Upon the
recommendation of Albert Speer, Peter Koller was
entrusted with the planning for Graz. The intervention
into the cityscape of Graz would have been massive:
road axes up to 75 meters wide would have been built
in the west and south; train stations would have been
relocated; and vast squares with monumental buildings
were planned. In the vicinity of the Jakominiplatz alone,
100 houses would have been demolished.
Air warfare began in 1939, when Nazi Germany attacked
Warsaw, and culminated in the Battle of Britain. Unlike
in previous wars, the population of Graz experienced
the war events at home for the first time in World War II.
Because Hitler’s unconditional surrender was delayed,
the Allied forces also conducted air raids on Graz in 1944
and 1945. Almost 50 % of all buildings were damaged,
and many completely destroyed. That “only” about
3,000 people were killed is mainly due to the systems
of tunnels under the Schloßberg.
Plan of the main streets and inner city areas and
the locations of the new administration buildings, 1939-1940
Planned by: Arch. Dipl.Ing. Peter Koller Berlin
GrazMuseum, without ACNO
Aerial view of Graz after the air raid by the Allied Forces, April 1945
Photograph (reproduction, original: 20 x 20 cm)
Magistratsdirektion Sicherheitsmanagement
The Dream of Rural Graz
On the occasion of the celebrations for Peter Rosegger’s
100th birthday, Wilhelm Kadletz, a politician from
Leoben and head of the Upper Styrian branch of the
“Kameradschaft steirischer Künstler und Kunstfreunde”
(i.e. an association of Styrian artists and art lovers in
the Nazi era) opened the exhibition “Steirische Städtebilder” (Styrian City Views) in Leoben in 1943. It
showed 24 city views of the Gau of Styria. This painting
too, which shows Graz with sparsely populated agrarian
surroundings, formed part of the National Socialist
cultural project. The mountains of the Grazer Bergland
including the Schöckl are towering in the background.
Paul Schmidtbauer: Graz from the South, from the series “Styrian City Views”,
around 1943
Oil on canvas
MuseumsCenter Leoben
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Due to environmental protection considerations,
the GrazMuseum also offers this folder for download
as a PDF document at www.grazmuseum.at.
www.grazmuseum.at