Cafe Central
Gilmstrasse 5
Worth knowing
The Café Central is an Innsbruck institution and stands for a piece of old Austrian culture and tradition. The first coffee house on the site of today's Central opened on 14 September 1876 as "Café Grabhofer". Although the year 1848 did not bring a revolution in Tyrol, social changes did occur. The coffee house culture was one of them. This was where the upper middle classes met. Newspapers had become part of everyday life after the censorship of the Metternich era in Austria. People met at the Central to discuss politics and current affairs. Just like today, there was a bank directly opposite. The financial services provider and modern café probably formed an unplanned symbiosis that was perfectly suited to the target group of the upper middle classes.
Until then, coffee had not been an everyday drink, but an expensive colonial commodity. The consumption of coffee symbolised a new, bourgeois work ethic and lifestyle. For a long time, wine had been the everyday drink of the masses. Even if wine was not particularly strong in the Middle Ages, it did dull the senses. Among the working class, beer and cheap spirits had become both popular and problematic in the 19th century. Those who took care of themselves stayed away from them. Coffee, on the other hand, made people alert and productive and favoured the new virtues of industriousness and hard work. In cities like Innsbruck, the willing Catholic subject who worked for his master in agriculture was increasingly replaced by the industrious and critical citizen who read the newspaper in the coffee house.
After the death of the house founder Johann Grabhofer, his daughter and her husband managed the café. When she also died in 1891, Leopold Eck bought the café and gave it the name Café Central. Just one year later, the hotel of the same name opened in the same building on the unused floors above. In 1896, Eck sold the building to the tenant of the pub at the time, Franz Kosak. Under financial pressure, he also served beer for the first time in order to expand the clientele. In the
In the Belle Epoque Before the First World War, the Central was one of the many lively centres of city life. Students, soldiers, industrialists, citizens and travellers met here to discuss, read and celebrate in a pleasant atmosphere. Café houses had now become a standard feature of everyday culture in the cities of the Danube monarchy. No matter where you were between Innsbruck in the west and Czernowitz in the east of the vast empire, you could be sure to find a railway station, a hotel and a café with German-speaking staff and a similar menu and furnishings. The Hotel Europa and the Central had become the benchmark for the culture of the Habsburg Empire.
In 1919, in the post-war period, the café building was first converted by Josef Falkner into a depot for the wines of his winery in Tramin, and later as an office building in part of the Commerzbank before it reopened under Falkner's management in 1928. In the period after the Second World War, the Central became the "Comptoir Francais" and used as a French restaurant. In 1954, the pub was returned to the Falkner family. With the Falkner cellar an early nightclub was built.
After Josef Falkner's death, the savings bank acquired the Central in 1967. The new management turned the nightclub into a respectable establishment, even staging theatre plays. In 1987, the building contractor Fröschl bought the traditional pub and had it renovated while retaining its special charm.
Today, you can enjoy the pleasant atmosphere, good coffee, cakes and Austrian specialities at Central. The neo-baroque interior has survived the various renovations of the building well, and the furnishings are still reminiscent of the good old days, when Viennese coffee house culture decided to make its home in Tyrol and raise the provincial town of Innsbruck to the standard of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
March 1848... and what it brought
The year 1848 occupies a mythical place in European history. Although the hotspots were not to be found in secluded Tyrol, but in the major metropolises such as Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Milan and Berlin, even in the Holy Land however, the revolutionary year left its mark. In contrast to the rural surroundings, an enlightened educated middle class had developed in Innsbruck. Enlightened people no longer wanted to be subjects of a monarch or sovereign, but citizens with rights and duties towards the state. Students and freelancers demanded political participation, freedom of the press and civil rights. Workers demanded better wages and working conditions. The omnipotence of the church was called into question.
In March 1848, this socially and politically highly explosive mixture erupted in riots in many European cities. In Innsbruck, students and professors celebrated the new freedom of the press with a torchlight procession. It would be foolhardy to speak of a spontaneous outburst of emotion; the date of the procession was postponed from 20 to 21 March due to bad weather. There were hardly any anti-Habsburg riots or attacks; a stray stone thrown into a Jesuit window was one of the highlights of the Alpine version of the 1848 revolution. The students even helped the city magistrate to monitor public order in order to show their gratitude to the monarch for the newly granted freedoms and their loyalty.
The initial enthusiasm for bourgeois achievements was quickly replaced by German nationalist, patriotic fervour in Innsbruck. On 6 April 1848, the German flag was waved by the governor of Tyrol during a ceremonial procession. A German flag was also raised on the city tower. Tricolour was hoisted. While students and conservatives disagreed on freedom of the press, they shared a dislike of the Italian independence movement. Innsbruck students and marksmen marched to Trentino with the support of the k.k. army leadership to Trentino and
The city, home to many Italian speakers, became the arena for this nationality conflict. Combined with copious amounts of alcohol, anti-Italian sentiment in Innsbruck posed more of a threat to public order than civil liberties. An argument between a German-speaking craftsman and an Italian-speaking Ladin, both actually Tyroleans, escalated to such an extent that it almost led to a pogrom against the numerous businesses and restaurants owned by Italian-speaking Tyroleans.
When things continued to boil in Vienna even after March, Emperor Ferdinand fled to Tyrol in May. Innsbruck was once again the emperor's residence, if only for one summer. According to press reports from this time, he was received enthusiastically by the population.
"Wie heißt das Land, dem solche Ehre zu Theil wird, wer ist das Volk, das ein solches Vertrauen genießt in dieser verhängnißvollen Zeit? Stützt sich die Ruhe und Sicherheit hier bloß auf die Sage aus alter Zeit, oder liegt auch in der Gegenwart ein Grund, auf dem man bauen kann, den der Wind nicht weg bläst, und der Sturm nicht erschüttert? Dieses Alipenland heißt Tirol, gefällts dir wohl? Ja, das tirolische Volk allein bewährt in der Mitte des aufgewühlten Europa die Ehrfurcht und Treue, den Muth und die Kraft für sein angestammtes Regentenhaus, während ringsum Auflehnung, Widerspruch. Trotz und Forderung, häufig sogar Aufruhr und Umsturz toben; Tirol allein hält fest ohne Wanken an Sitte und Gehorsam, auf Religion, Wahrheit und Recht, während anderwärts die Frechheit und Lüge, der Wahnsinn und die Leidenschaften herrschen anstatt folgen wollen. Und während im großen Kaiserreiche sich die Bande überall lockern, oder gar zu lösen drohen; wo die Willkühr, von den Begierden getrieben, Gesetze umstürzt, offenen Aufruhr predigt, täglich mit neuen Forderungen losgeht; eigenmächtig ephemere- wie das Wetter wechselnde Einrichtungen schafft; während Wien, die alte sonst so friedliche Kaiserstadt, sich von der erhitzten Phantasie der Jugend lenken und gängeln läßt, und die Räthe des Reichs auf eine schmähliche Weise behandelt, nach Laune beliebig, und mit jakobinischer Anmaßung, über alle Provinzen verfügend, absetzt und anstellt, ja sogar ohne Ehrfurcht, den Kaiaer mit Sturm-Petitionen verfolgt; während jetzt von allen Seiten her Deputationen mit Ergebenheits-Addressen mit Bittgesuchen und Loyalitätsversicherungen dem Kaiser nach Innsbruck folgen, steht Tirol ganz ruhig, gleich einer stillen Insel, mitten im brausenden Meeressturme, und des kleinen Völkchens treue Brust bildet, wie seine Berge und Felsen, eine feste Mauer in Gesetz und Ordnung, für den Kaiser und das Vaterland."
In 1848, Ferdinand left the throne to the young Franz Josef I. In July 1848, the first parliamentary session was held in the Court Riding School in Vienna. The first constitution was enacted. However, the monarchy's desire for reform quickly waned. The new parliament was an imperial council, it could not pass any binding laws, the emperor never attended it during his lifetime and did not understand why the Danube Monarchy, as a divinely appointed monarchy, needed this council.
Nevertheless, the liberalisation that had been gently set in motion took its course in the cities. Innsbruck was given the status of a town with its own statute. Innsbruck's municipal law provided for a right of citizenship that was linked to ownership or the payment of taxes, but legally guaranteed certain rights to members of the community. Birthright citizenship could be acquired by birth, marriage or extraordinary conferment and at least gave male adults the right to vote at municipal level. If you got into financial difficulties, you had the right to basic support from the town.
On 2 June 1848, the first issue of the liberal and pro-German Innsbrucker Zeitung was published, from which the above article on the arrival of the Emperor in Innsbruck is taken. The previously abolished censorship was partially reintroduced. Newspaper publishers had to undergo some harassment by the authorities. Newspapers were not allowed to write against the provincial government, the monarchy or the church.
"Anyone who, by means of printed matter, incites, instigates or attempts to incite others to take action which would bring about the violent separation of a part from the unified state... of the Austrian Empire... or the general Austrian Imperial Diet or the provincial assemblies of the individual crown lands.... Imperial Diet or the Diet of the individual Crown Lands... violently disrupts... shall be punished with severe imprisonment of two to ten years."
After Innsbruck replaced Meran as the provincial capital in 1849 and thus finally became the political centre of Tyrol, political parties were formed. From 1868, the liberal and Greater German orientated party provided the mayor of the city of Innsbruck. The influence of the church declined in Innsbruck in contrast to the surrounding communities. Individualism, capitalism, nationalism and consumerism stepped into the breach. New worlds of work, department stores, theatres, cafés and dance halls did not supplant religion in the city either, but the emphasis changed as a result of the civil liberties won in 1848.
Perhaps the most important change to the law was the Basic relief patent. In Innsbruck, the clergy, above all Wilten Abbey, held a large proportion of the peasant land. The church and nobility were not subject to taxation. In 1848/49, manorial rule and servitude were abolished in Austria. This meant that land rents, tithes and roboters were abolished. The landlords received one third of the value of their land from the state as part of the land relief, one third was regarded as tax relief and one third of the relief had to be paid by the farmers themselves. The farmers were able to pay off this amount in instalments over a period of twenty years. The after-effects can still be felt today. The descendants of the successful farmers of the time enjoy the fruits of prosperity through their inherited landholdings, which can be traced back to the land relief of 1848, as well as political influence through the sale of land for housing, leases and payments from the public purse for infrastructure projects.