Legend has it that when the Turks laid siege to Vienna in 1683, they brought two things to Austria that have left a lasting mark on breakfast culture to this day: the crescent-shaped Kipferl and coffee. How the exotic beverage actually made its way from distant growing regions into the German-speaking world can no longer be conclusively reconstructed; it was almost certainly not through sacks of coffee beans allegedly abandoned on the battlefield outside Vienna. This urban legend can more plausibly be traced back to the late seventeenth century, when the coffee bean began to establish itself in Europe as a luxury commodity consumed by political and economic elites. This was the era of the great trading companies, the first stock exchanges, and the philosophers, legal scholars, and economists of the early Enlightenment—a period in which lucrative overseas trade brought coffee and the economic sectors that developed around it into Europe’s cities. As part of the Habsburg Empire and an important trading town, Innsbruck was involved in this imperial business from an early date. Long-distance trade was an integral part of the local economy. Thanks to the Inn Bridge and its favourable geographic position, the city had been integrated into European trade networks since the twelfth century. A substantial portion of Innsbruck’s wealthy elite—who also exercised political influence through the city council—emerged from the mercantile class.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, coffee appeared for the first time in Innsbruck’s municipal legislation, a strong indication that it had crossed the threshold into public significance within urban life. In 1713, the city council decreed that coffee might be purchased exclusively in pharmacies. Much like Red Bull in the 1990s, the exotic drink was initially viewed with suspicion. As demand grew in the Enlightenment climate of Emperor Joseph II’s reign and coffee gradually gained wider social acceptance, these restrictions were relaxed. Coffee nevertheless remained an exclusive and expensive indulgence of eccentric elites rather than an everyday beverage. Spice merchants—shops specialising in spices and foodstuffs—began to sell coffee. The Innsbruck coffee brand Nosko, which still exists today, claims to be the city’s oldest roastery, tracing its origins to the spice shop founded in 1751 by Josef Ulrich Müller at Seilergasse 18. Unterberger & Comp. Kolonialwaren, the second coffee roastery still operating in Innsbruck today, likewise began as a spice merchant’s business. Jakob Fischnaller took over a shop in the Old Town that had existed since 1660 and began selling coffee there in 1768. Restaurateurs followed this slowly emerging trend. With the arrival of the first licensed coffee servers at the end of the 1750s, the triumphal advance of the coffee bean began. These early establishments bore little resemblance to the Viennese coffeehouse culture known worldwide today. In 1793, Café Katzung opened its doors to the affluent bourgeoisie, who began to appropriate public space with billiard tables and newspaper stands. Fifty years later, there were already eight coffeehouses in the small city of Innsbruck. Unlike traditional inns, coffeehouses symbolised a new, urban, and enlightened lifestyle and marked a clear distinction between city and countryside. For a long time, wine and beer had been the everyday drinks of the masses. In the Middle Ages, water from wells—especially in larger cities—was often considered unsafe, while light wine and nourishing, calorie-rich beer were more reliable alternatives. Alcohol, however, dulled the senses. Under Maria Theresa, peasants were granted local distilling rights. The strong, often cheaply produced spirits distilled from fallen fruit were popular among the rural population and among workers and employees in cities alike—and problematic at the same time. Anyone concerned with social standing avoided them. Coffee, by contrast, promoted alertness and productivity and supported the new virtues of diligence and industriousness. In cities such as Innsbruck, the compliant subject was gradually replaced by the critical, newspaper‑reading citizen. Consuming the expensive colonial commodity allowed one to present oneself as a connoisseur, capable of distinguishing genuine bean coffee from the cheap brews adulterated with various fillers—and able to afford it—thereby setting oneself apart from the lower classes. When Napoleon banned the import of coffee in the territories under his control in 1810 in an attempt to weaken the British economy, which depended heavily on overseas trade, this sparked fierce protests throughout Europe. Fig and chicory coffee, used as substitutes—as would later again be the case during the World Wars—met with little enthusiasm among the bourgeois population.

The colonial goods trade, which linked the exploitative business models of African coffee plantations, American tobacco plantations and South American fruit plantations with the Alps, reached a high point in Innsbruck, as in the entire German-speaking region, from the end of the 19th century, when the European powers' race for Africa entered the home straight. In 1900, there were around 40 colonial goods traders in Innsbruck. These were mostly speciality shops and general merchants who sold various, usually expensive goods from all over the world. Above all, luxury goods such as rum, tobacco, cocoa, tea and coffee or exotic fruits such as bananas were sold as colonial goods to the wealthy Innsbruck bourgeoisie. From this time onwards, the Viennese coffee house culture with all its peculiarities finally became the standard for the bourgeois culture of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Monarchy. No matter where you were between Innsbruck in the west and Czernowitz in the east of the vast empire, you could be sure of finding a railway station, an appropriate hotel and a coffee house with German-speaking staff and a similar menu and furnishings. Coffee houses, unlike traditional inns, were places where not only the aristocracy and new elites, but also men and women, albeit often in separate areas as in the Cafe Munding, could spend time.

Neither coffeehouse culture nor colonial goods shops disappeared from everyday life with the rupture of the First World War and the end of the monarchy. In the 1930s, around sixty such businesses were still operating in Innsbruck. Supermarkets with extensive assortments as we know them today did not yet exist; shopping was still done at market stalls or in small shops. Only after the Second World War did the term Kolonialwaren disappear from the city’s trade registers, replaced by the designations coffee roastery and fruit importer. What remains, however, is not only Viennese coffeehouse culture. Innsbruck is still home to several of the oldest cafés of their kind, including Katzung, Munding, and Central. Since 1884, the firm Ischia has distributed exotic fruits in the city and remains a prominent feature of the urban landscape to this day with its distinctive logo on the company building next to the new city library. A brass plaque at Herzog‑Friedrich‑Strasse 26 and a large version of the logo depicting a trading ship on the main thoroughfare Egger‑Lienz‑Strasse near the Westbahnhof attest to the presence of the Unterberger brand. More contentious is the logo of Praxmarer Kaffee, which shows a kneeling “Moor” offering a cup on a façade in Amraserstrasse. While the traditional coffee company no longer exists, the firm Praxmarer Obst—trading in exotic fruits—continues to operate under the same name.

The year 1848 occupies a mythical place in European history. Innsbruck was not one of the hotspots like Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Milan or Berlin, but even in the “Holy Land” of Tyrol the revolutionary year left its mark. In contrast to the rural surroundings, an enlightened educated bourgeoisie had developed in Innsbruck. Enlightened people no longer wanted to be subjects of a monarch or territorial prince, but citizens with rights and duties in relation to a modern state. Students and members of the liberal professions demanded political participation, freedom of the press and civil rights. Workers demanded better wages and working conditions. Particularly radical liberals and nationalists even questioned the absolute authority of the Church. In March 1848 this socially and politically highly explosive mixture erupted in uprisings and street fighting in many cities. In Innsbruck, some students and professors celebrated the newly granted freedom of the press with a torchlight procession. On the whole, however, the revolution proceeded quietly in the rather leisurely Tyrol. To speak of a spontaneous outburst of emotion or even a revolution would already be an exaggeration: the date of the procession was postponed from 20 to 21 March because of bad weather. There were hardly any anti-Habsburg riots or violent incidents; a stray stone thrown into a Jesuit window was one of the highlights of the Alpine version of the Revolution of 1848. The students even supported the city magistrate in maintaining public order, thereby demonstrating their gratitude to the monarch for the newly granted freedoms and their loyalty.

The initial enthusiasm for change among the bourgeois elites was soon replaced in Innsbruck by a surge of German-national patriotism. On April 6, 1848, the governor of Tyrol led a ceremonial procession in which the German flag was displayed. A German tricolour was also hoisted on the city tower. While students, workers, liberal-national citizens, republicans, supporters of a constitutional monarchy, and Catholic conservatives could not agree on social issues such as press freedom, they shared a common hostility toward the Italian independence movement, which had spread across northern Italy from Piedmont and Milan. Innsbruck students and riflemen, with the support of the imperial army leadership, marched into the Trentino to suppress unrest and uprisings at an early stage. Notable members of this corps included the already elderly Father Haspinger, who had fought alongside Andreas Hofer in 1809, and Adolf Pichler. Johann Nepomuk Mahl-Schedl, a wealthy owner of Büchsenhausen Castle, even equipped his own company and marched over the Brenner Pass to secure the border. However, the war did not remain confined to the southern borders. Innsbruck itself, as the political and economic center of the multinational crown land of Tyrol and home to many Italian speakers, became an arena of the conflict between nationalities. Combined with ample alcohol consumption, anti-Italian sentiment posed a greater threat to public order than the demand for civil liberties. A dispute between a German-speaking craftsman and an Italian-speaking Ladin escalated to such an extent that it nearly triggered a pogrom against the numerous businesses and inns of Italian-speaking Tyroleans.

The relative calm of Innsbruck suited the imperial court in Vienna, which was under pressure. As unrest in the capital continued after March, Emperor Ferdinand fled to Tyrol in May. According to contemporary press reports, he was enthusiastically welcomed by the population.

"“What is the name of the land to which such an honour falls, what is the people that enjoys such trust in these fateful times? Does the peace and security here rest solely on legend from ancient times, or is there also in the present a foundation on which one can build, which the wind cannot blow away and the storm cannot shake? This Alpine land is called Tyrol, do you like it? Yes, the Tyrolean people alone prove, in the midst of a shaken Europe, reverence and loyalty, courage and strength for their hereditary ruling house, while all around rebellion, contradiction, defiance and demands, often even revolt and upheaval rage; Tyrol alone stands firmly without wavering in custom and obedience, in religion, truth and law, while elsewhere insolence and falsehood, madness and passions prevail …”"

In June, a young Franz Joseph—still not yet emperor—also stopped at the Hofburg on his return from the battlefields of northern Italy instead of traveling directly to Vienna. Innsbruck once again became a royal residence, albeit only for one summer. While blood was shed in Vienna, Milan, and Budapest, the imperial family enjoyed rural Tyrolean life. Ferdinand, Franz Karl, his wife Sophie, and Franz Joseph received guests from foreign courts and were driven by carriage to excursion destinations such as Weiherburg, Stefansbrücke, Kranebitten, and even up to Heiligwasser, and went on hikes. This calm did not last long. Ferdinand, considered no longer fit to rule, handed over power under gentle pressure to Franz Joseph I. In July 1848, the first parliamentary session was held in Vienna, and a constitution came into force. However, the monarchy’s willingness to reform soon waned. The new parliament—the Reichsrat—could not pass binding laws, the emperor never attended it, and he did not understand why a monarchy ordained by God needed such a council.

Nevertheless, liberalization continued, especially in cities. Innsbruck was granted the status of a city with its own statute. Municipal law introduced a form of citizenship tied to property or tax payments, granting certain rights. Local voting rights were extended to adult male citizens. Innsbruck politics came to be dominated by a greater German liberal faction of merchants, traders, industrialists, and innkeepers. On June 2, 1848, the first issue of the liberal, pro-German Innsbrucker Zeitung was published. Conservative readers preferred the Volksblatt für Tirol und Vorarlberg, while moderates read the Bothen für Tirol und Vorarlberg. Press freedom, however, was soon restricted again. Censorship was partially reintroduced, and newspapers were not allowed to write against the provincial government, monarchy, or 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 had officially replaced Meran as the provincial capital in 1849 and had thus finally become the political centre of Tyrol, parties began to form. With the establishment of the Catholic-conservative faction and the liberals, a pair of opposing ideas emerged that would shape politics not only until the First World War. Associations of all kinds as political organisations in advance of parties, and newspapers, formed the lines along which society split in all questions of life from the cradle to the grave. From 1868 onwards, the liberal, greater German-oriented party provided the mayor of the city of Innsbruck. The influence of the Church declined in Innsbruck in contrast to the surrounding municipalities. Individualism, capitalism, nationalism and consumption stepped into the breach. New worlds of work, department stores, theatres, cafés and dance halls did not displace religion entirely even in the city, but the weighting shifted as a result of the civil freedoms won in 1848.

The probably most important legal change of 1848 was the land relief patent. In Innsbruck the clergy, especially Wilten Abbey, owned a large part of the agricultural land. The Church and the nobility were exempt from taxes. In 1848/49 feudal lordship and the relationship of subjection were abolished in Austria. Ground rents, tithes and compulsory labour were thus removed. The landowners received one third of the value of their land from the state within the framework of the reform, one third was regarded as tax relief, and one third of the compensation had to be borne by the peasants themselves. They could pay this amount in instalments over twenty years. The after-effects can still be felt today. The descendants of the peasants who were successful at the time enjoy, through inherited land ownership resulting from the 1848 reforms, the fruits of prosperity and also political influence through land sales for housing, leases and compensation payments by public authorities for infrastructure projects. The landowning nobility of the past had to come to terms with the humiliation of taking up bourgeois occupations. The transition from privilege by birth to privileged status within society through financial means, networks and education often succeeded. Many Innsbruck dynasties of academics have their origins in the decades after 1848.

Life also changed for the broader population. The previously unknown phenomenon of leisure time emerged and, together with disposable income available to a greater number of people, fostered hobbies. Civil organisations and associations—from reading circles to choral societies, fire brigades and sports clubs—were founded. The revolutionary year also manifested itself in the cityscape. Parks such as the English Garden at Ambras Castle or the Hofgarten were no longer reserved exclusively for the aristocracy but served citizens as local recreational areas. In St. Nikolaus the Waltherpark was created as a small oasis of calm. One floor above, the first swimming and bathing facility in Tyrol opened at Büchsenhausen Castle; soon afterwards another bath followed in Dreiheiligen. Excursion inns around Innsbruck flourished. Alongside high-end restaurants and hotels, a scene of taverns emerged in which workers and employees could also afford pleasant evenings with theatre, music and dancing.

In the 1950s, Innsbruck began to recover from the crisis and war years of the first half of the 20th century. On 15 May 1955, Federal Chancellor Leopold Figl declared with the famous words "Austria is free" and the signing of the State Treaty officially marked the political turning point. In many households, the "political turnaround" became established in the years known as Economic miracle moderate prosperity. Between 1953 and 1962, annual economic growth of over 6% allowed an increasing proportion of the population to dream of things that had long been exotic, such as refrigerators, their own bathroom or even a holiday in the south. This period brought not only material but also social change. People's desires became more outlandish with increasing prosperity and the lifestyle conveyed in advertising and the media. The phenomenon of a new youth culture began to spread gently amidst the grey society of small post-war Austria. The terms Teenager and "latchkey kid" entered the Austrian language in the 1950s. The big world came to Innsbruck via films. Cinema screenings and cinemas had already existed in Innsbruck at the turn of the century, but in the post-war period the programme was adapted to a young audience for the first time. Hardly anyone had a television set in their living room and the programme was meagre. The numerous cinemas courted the public's favour with scandalous films. From 1956, the magazine BRAVO. For the first time, there was a medium that was orientated towards the interests of young people. The first issue featured Marylin Monroe, with the question: „Marylin's curves also got married?“ The big stars of the early years were James Dean and Peter Kraus, before the Beatles took over in the 60s. After the Summer of Love Dr Sommer explained about love and sex. The church's omnipotent authority over the moral behaviour of adolescents began to crumble, albeit only slowly. The first photo love story with bare breasts did not follow until 1982. Until the 1970s, the opportunities for adolescent Innsbruckers were largely limited to pub parlours, shooting clubs and brass bands. Only gradually did bars, discos, nightclubs, pubs and event venues open. Events such as the 5 o'clock tea dance at the Sporthotel Igls attracted young people looking for a mate. The Cafe Central became the „second home of long-haired teenagers“, as the Tiroler Tageszeitung newspaper stated with horror in 1972. Establishments like the Falconry cellar in the Gilmstraße, the Uptown Jazzsalon in Hötting, the jazz club in the Hofgasse, the Clima Club in Saggen, the Scotch Club in the Angerzellgasse and the Tangent in Bruneckerstraße had nothing in common with the traditional Tyrolean beer and wine bar. The performances by the Rolling Stones and Deep Purple in the Olympic Hall in 1973 were the high point of Innsbruck's spring awakening for the time being. Innsbruck may not have become London or San Francisco, but it had at least breathed a breath of rock'n'roll. What is still anchored in cultural memory today as the '68 movement took place in the Holy Land hardly took place. Neither workers nor students took to the barricades in droves. The historian Fritz Keller described the „68 movement in Austria as "Mail fan“. Nevertheless, society was quietly and secretly changing. A look at the annual charts gives an indication of this. In 1964, it was still Chaplain Alfred Flury and Freddy with „Leave the little things“ and „Give me your word" and the Beatles with their German version of "Come, give me your hand who dominated the Top 10, musical tastes changed in the years leading up to the 1970s. Peter Alexander and Mireille Mathieu were still to be found in the charts. From 1967, however, it was international bands with foreign-language lyrics such as The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, The Monkees, Scott McKenzie, Adriano Celentano or Simon and Garfunkel, who occupied the top positions in great density with partly socially critical lyrics.

This change provoked a backlash. The spearhead of the conservative counter-revolution was the Innsbruck bishop Paulus Rusch. Cigarettes, alcohol, overly permissive fashion, holidays abroad, working women, nightclubs, premarital sex, the 40-hour week, Sunday sporting events, dance evenings, mixed sexes in school and leisure - all of these things were strictly abhorrent to the strict churchman and follower of the Sacred Heart cult. Peter Paul Rusch was born in Munich in 1903 and grew up in Vorarlberg as the youngest of three children in a middle-class household. Both parents and his older sister died of tuberculosis before he reached adulthood. At the young age of 17, Rusch had to fend for himself early on in the meagre post-war period. Inflation had eaten up his father's inheritance, which could have financed his studies, in no time at all. Rusch worked for six years at the Bank for Tyrol and Vorarlberg, in order to finance his theological studies. He entered the Collegium Canisianum in 1927 and was ordained a priest of the Jesuit order six years later. His stellar career took the intelligent young man first to Lech and Hohenems as chaplain and then back to Innsbruck as head of the seminary. In 1938, he became titular bishop of Lykopolis and Apostolic Administrator for Tyrol and Vorarlberg. As the youngest bishop in Europe, he had to survive the harassment of the church by the National Socialist rulers. Although his critical attitude towards National Socialism was well known, Rusch himself was never imprisoned. Those in power were too afraid of turning the popular young bishop into a martyr.

After the war, the socially and politically committed bishop was at the forefront of reconstruction efforts. He wanted the church to have more influence on people's everyday lives again. His father had worked his way up from carpenter to architect and probably gave him a soft spot for the building industry. He also had his own experience at BTV. Thanks to his training as a banker, Rusch recognised the opportunities for the church to get involved and make a name for itself as a helper in times of need. It was not only the churches that had been damaged in the war that were rebuilt. The Catholic Youth under Rusch's leadership, was involved free of charge in the construction of the Heiligjahrsiedlung in the Höttinger Au. The diocese bought a building plot from the Ursuline order for this purpose. The loans for the settlers were advanced interest-free by the church. Decades later, his rustic approach to the housing issue would earn him the title of "Red Bishop" to the new home. In the modest little houses with self-catering gardens, in line with the ideas of the dogmatic and frugal "working-class bishop", 41 families, preferably with many children, found a new home.

By alleviating the housing shortage, the greatest threats in the Cold WarCommunism and socialism, from his community. The atheism prescribed by communism and the consumer-orientated capitalism that had swept into Western Europe from the USA after the war were anathema to him. In 1953, Rusch's book "Young worker, where to?". What sounds like revolutionary, left-wing reading from the Kremlin showed the principles of Christian social teaching, which castigated both capitalism and socialism. Families should live modestly in order to live in Christian harmony with the moderate financial means of a single father. Entrepreneurs, employees and workers were to form a peaceful unity. Co-operation instead of class warfare, the basis of today's social partnership. To each his own place in a Christian sense, a kind of modern feudal system that was already planned for use in Dollfuß's corporative state. He shared his political views with Governor Eduard Wallnöfer and Mayor Alois Lugger, who, together with the bishop, organised the Holy Trinity of conservative Tyrol at the time of the economic miracle. Rusch combined this with a latent Catholic anti-Semitism that was still widespread in Tyrol after 1945 and which, thanks to aberrations such as the veneration of the Anderle von Rinn has long been a tradition.

Education and training were of particular concern to the pugnacious Jesuit. The social formation across all classes by the soldiers of Christ could look back on a long tradition in Innsbruck. In 1909, the Jesuit priest and former prison chaplain Alois Mathiowitz (1853 - 1922) founded the Peter-Mayr-Bund. His approach was to put young people on the right path through leisure activities and sport and adults from working-class backgrounds through lectures and popular education. The workers' youth centre in Reichenauerstraße, which was built under his aegis, still serves as a youth centre and kindergarten today. Rusch also had experience with young people. In 1936, he was elected regional field master of the scouts in Vorarlberg. Despite a speech impediment, he was a charismatic guy and extremely popular with his young colleagues and teenagers. In his opinion, only a sound education under the wing of the church according to the Christian model could save the salvation of young people. In order to give young people a perspective and steer them in an orderly direction with a home and family, the Youth building society savings strengthened. In the parishes, kindergartens, youth centres and educational institutions such as the House of encounter on Rennweg in order to have education in the hands of the church right from the start. The vast majority of the social life of the city's young people did not take place in disreputable dive bars. Most young people simply didn't have the money to go out regularly. Many found their place in the more or less orderly channels of Catholic youth organisations. Alongside the ultra-conservative Bishop Rusch, a generation of liberal clerics grew up who became involved in youth work. In the 1960s and 70s, two church youth movements with great influence were active in Innsbruck. Sigmund Kripp and Meinrad Schumacher were responsible for this, who were able to win over teenagers and young adults with new approaches to education and a more open approach to sensitive topics such as sexuality and drugs. The education of the elite in the spirit of the Jesuit order was provided in Innsbruck from 1578 by the Marian Congregation. This youth organisation, still known today as the MK, took care of secondary school pupils. The MK had a strict hierarchical structure in order to give the young Soldaten Christi obedience from the very beginning. In 1959, Father Sigmund Kripp took over the leadership of the organisation. Under his leadership, the young people, with financial support from the church, state and parents and with a great deal of personal effort, set up projects such as the Mittergrathütte including its own material cable car in Kühtai and the legendary youth centre Kennedy House in the Sillgasse. Chancellor Klaus and members of the American embassy were present at the laying of the foundation stone for this youth centre, which was to become the largest of its kind in Europe with almost 1,500 members, as the building was dedicated to the first Catholic president of the USA, who had only recently been assassinated.

The other church youth organisation in Innsbruck was Z6. The city's youth chaplain, Chaplain Meinrad Schumacher, took care of the youth organisation as part of the Action 4-5-6 to all young people who are in the MK or the Catholic Student Union had no place. Working-class children and apprentices met in various youth centres such as Pradl or Reichenau before the new centre, also built by the members themselves, was opened at Zollerstraße 6 in 1971. Josef Windischer took over the management of the centre. The Z6 already had more to do with what Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda were doing on the big screen on their motorbikes in Easy Rider was shown. Things were rougher here than in the MK. Rock gangs like the Santanas, petty criminals and drug addicts also spent their free time in Z6. While Schumacher reeled off his programme upstairs with the "good" youngsters, Windischer and the Outsiders the basement to help the lost sheep as much as possible.

At the end of the 1960s, both the MK and the Z6 decided to open up to non-members. Girls' and boys' groups were partially merged and non-members were also admitted. Although the two youth centres had different target groups, the concept was the same. Theological knowledge and Christian morals were taught in a playful, age-appropriate environment. Sections such as chess, football, hockey, basketball, music, cinema films and a party room catered to the young people's needs for games, sport and the removal of taboos surrounding their first sexual experiences. The youth centres offered a space where young people of both sexes could meet. However, the MK in particular remained an institution that had nothing to do with the wild life of the '68ers, as it is often portrayed in films. For example, dance courses did not take place during Advent, carnival or on Saturdays, and for under-17s they were forbidden.

Nevertheless, the youth centres went too far for Bishop Rusch. The critical articles in the MK newspaper We discuss, which reached a circulation of over 2,000 copies, found less and less favour. Solidarity with Vietnam was one thing, but criticism of marksmen and the army could not be tolerated. After years of disputes between the bishop and the youth centre, it came to a showdown in 1973. When Father Kripp published his book Farewell to tomorrow in which he reported on his pedagogical concept and the work in the MK, there were non-public proceedings within the diocese and the Jesuit order against the director of the youth centre. Despite massive protests from parents and members, Kripp was removed. Neither the intervention within the church by the eminent theologian Karl Rahner, nor a petition initiated by the artist Paul Flora, nor regional and national outrage in the press could save the overly liberal Father from the wrath of Rusch, who even secured the papal blessing from Rome for his removal from office.

In July 1974, the Z6 was also temporarily over. Articles about the contraceptive pill and the Z6 newspaper's criticism of the Catholic Church were too much for the strict bishop. Rusch had the keys to the youth centre changed without further ado, a method he also used at the Catholic Student Union when it got too close to a left-wing action group. The Tiroler Tageszeitung noted this in a small article on 1 August 1974:

"In recent weeks, there had been profound disputes between the educators and the bishop over fundamental issues. According to the bishop, the views expressed in "Z 6" were "no longer in line with church teaching". For example, the leadership of the centre granted young people absolute freedom of conscience without simultaneously recognising objective norms and also permitted sexual relations before marriage."

It was his adherence to conservative values and his stubbornness that damaged Rusch's reputation in the last 20 years of his life. When he was consecrated as the first bishop of the newly founded diocese of Innsbruck in 1964, times were changing. The progressive with practical life experience of the past was overtaken by the modern life of a new generation and the needs of the emerging consumer society. The bishop's constant criticism of the lifestyle of his flock and his stubborn adherence to his overly conservative values, coupled with some bizarre statements, turned the co-founder of development aid into a Brother in needthe young, hands-on bishop of the reconstruction, from the late 1960s onwards as a reason for leaving the church. His concept of repentance and penance took on bizarre forms. He demanded guilt and atonement from the Tyroleans for their misdemeanours during the Nazi era, but at the same time described the denazification laws as too far-reaching and strict. In response to the new sexual practices and abortion laws under Chancellor Kreisky, he said that girls and young women who have premature sexual intercourse are up to twelve times more likely to develop cancer of the mother's organs. Rusch described Hamburg as a cesspool of sin and he suspected that the simple minds of the Tyrolean population were not up to phenomena such as tourism and nightclubs and were tempted to immoral behaviour. He feared that technology and progress were making people too independent of God. He was strictly against the new custom of double income. People should be satisfied with a spiritual family home with a vegetable garden and not strive for more; women should concentrate on their traditional role as housewife and mother.

In 1973, after 35 years at the head of the church community in Tyrol and Innsbruck, Bishop Rusch was made an honorary citizen of the city of Innsbruck. He resigned from his office in 1981. In 1986, Innsbruck's first bishop was laid to rest in St Jakob's Cathedral. The Bishop Paul's Student Residence The church of St Peter Canisius in the Höttinger Au, which was built under him, commemorates him.

After its closure in 1974, the Z6 youth centre moved to Andreas-Hofer-Straße 11 before finding its current home in Dreiheiligenstraße, in the middle of the working-class district of the early modern period opposite the Pest Church. Jussuf Windischer remained in Innsbruck after working on social projects in Brazil. The father of four children continued to work with socially marginalised groups, was a lecturer at the Social Academy, prison chaplain and director of the Caritas Integration House in Innsbruck.

The MK also still exists today, even though the Kennedy House, which was converted into a Sigmund Kripp House was renamed, no longer exists. In 2005, Kripp was made an honorary citizen of the city of Innsbruck by his former sodalist and later deputy mayor, like Bishop Rusch before him.