Maximilian zählt zu den bedeutendsten Persönlichkeiten der europäischen und der Innsbrucker Stadtgeschichte. Über Tirol soll der passionierte Jäger gesagt haben: "Tirol ist ein grober Bauernkittel, der aber gut wärmt." Er machte Innsbruck in seiner Regierungszeit zu einem der wichtigsten Zentren des Heiligen Römischen Reichs. „Wer immer sich im Leben kein Gedächtnis macht, der hat nach seinem Tod kein Gedächtnis und derselbe Mensch wird mit dem Glockenton vergessen.“ Maximilian was highly successful in actively countering this fear. Under him, propaganda, images and the media played an increasingly important role, partly due to the burgeoning printing press. Maximilian used art and culture to maintain his presence. For example, he kept an imperial choir, a music band that was mainly used for public appearances and receptions of international envoys. He had a veritable cult of personality organised around himself with coins, books, printed matter and paintings.

For all the romanticism that this lover of courtly traditions and chivalry cultivated, he was a cool-headed power politician. Under him, political institutions such as the Imperial Diet, the Imperial Court of Justice and the Imperial Chamber Court were established, which strictly regulated the relationship between subjects, sovereigns and the monarchy. The laws passed centrally were implemented locally by the imperial districts. Salaried officials permeated the lives of individuals in a way that did not exist in the Middle Ages. Around 1500, Tyrol had a population of around 300,000. More than 80% of the people worked in agriculture and lived for the most part from the income from their farms. Maximilian was unpopular with the Tyrolean farmers during his lifetime. In a veritable furore of new laws, he curtailed the peasants' rights to the commons. Logging, hunting and fishing were placed under the control of the sovereign and were no longer common property. This had a negative impact on peasant self-sufficiency. Meat and fish, which had long been part of the diet in the Middle Ages, now became a luxury. It was around 1500 that hunters became poachers.

Restrictions on self-sufficiency were joined by new taxes. It had always been customary for sovereigns to impose additional taxes on the population in the event of war. Maximilian's warfare differed from medieval conflicts. The auxiliary troops and their noble, chivalrous landlords were supplemented or completely replaced by mercenaries who knew how to use modern firearms.

This new way of taking to the field swallowed up huge sums of money. When the revenues from the princely possessions such as the coinage, market, mining and customs regalia were no longer sufficient, the individual population groups were taxed according to their status and wealth, but the tax was still a far cry from today's differentiated system and accordingly brought with it injustice and resentment.

One example of a levy was Maximilian's Common penny. The wealth tax amounted to between 0.1 and 0.5% of wealth, but was capped at 1 guilder. Jews had to pay a poll tax of 1 guilder regardless of their wealth. For the first time, princes were also asked to pay, but due to the cap, they paid a maximum of the same amount as a middle-class Jew. Prelates, priests and secular lords were responsible for announcing and enforcing the tax. Pastors had to announce the tax from the pulpit on three Sundays, collect the contributions together with representatives of the courts and enter them in the Imperial Tax Register.

It was quickly realised that this type of tax collection did not work. A modern system and tax model was needed. A collegial chamber, the Regiment, centrally supervised the provinces of Tyrol and Vorderösterreich according to the modern model of Burgundian finance, which Maximilian had learnt about during his time in the Netherlands. Innsbruck became the financial and accounting centre for the Austrian lands. The Rait chamber and the House chamber were located in the Neuhof, where today the Goldene Dachl resided over the historic city centre. In 1496, all the financial resources of the Austrian hereditary lands were pooled in the treasury in Innsbruck. The Bishop of Brixen, Melchior von Meckau, was chairman of the court chamber and increasingly involved the Fuggers as lenders. Officials such as Jakob Villinger (1480 - 1529) used the Italian-influenced form of double-entry bookkeeping to handle monetary transactions with banks from all over Europe and tried to keep the imperial financial budget in check. Talented petty nobles and burghers, trained lawyers and educated civil servants replaced the high nobility in the controlling role. Financial experts from Burgundy took over the commercial leadership of the regiment. The transitions between finance and other fields such as war planning and domestic policy were fluid, which gave the new class of civil servants great power.

While it had previously been customary for the balance between sovereigns, church, landlord and subject to consist of contribution and military protection, this system was now enforced by the authorities through coercion. Maximilian argued that it was the duty of every Christian, regardless of their rank, to defend the Holy Roman Empire against external enemies. Even before Maximilian, the records of the disputes between the king, nobility, clergy, peasants and towns over the payment of taxes were very reminiscent of today's political discussions on the subject of social redistribution. The major difference and break between the end of the 15th century and the preceding centuries was that, thanks to the modern civil service, these taxes could now also be enforced and collected. The comparison with compulsory cash registers, the taxation of tips in the catering trade and the discussion about the abolition of cash is obvious.

The capital also followed the political importance to Innsbruck. During his reign, Maximilian employed 350 councillors to assist him. Almost a quarter of these highly paid councillors came from Tyrol. Envoys and politicians from all over Europe up to the Ottoman Empire as well as aristocrats had their residences built in Innsbruck or stayed in the town's inns. Just as big money from the oil business attracts all kinds of experts to Dubai today, the silver from Schwaz and the associated finance attracted experts of all kinds to Innsbruck, a small town in the middle of the inhospitable Alps.

During Maximilian's reign, Innsbruck underwent structural and infrastructural changes like never before. In addition to the representative Goldenen Dachl he had the Hofburg remodelled, began building the Hofkirche and created Europe's leading armoury with the Innsbruck Armoury. The streets through the old town were paved and paved for the fine people of the court. In 1499 Maximilian had the SalvatorikapelleThe hospital was renovated and extended to accommodate needy Innsbruck residents who were not entitled to a place in the city hospital. A modern water pipeline from the Nordkette to the city improved the drinking water supply, hygiene and safety. Maximilian had the trade route in today's Mariahilf laid and improved the city's water supply. Fire regulations for the city of Innsbruck followed in 1510, and Maximilian also began to chip away at the privileges of Wilten Abbey, the largest landlord in today's city area. Infrastructure owned by the monastery, such as the mill, sawmill and Sill Canal, were to come under greater control of the prince.

The imperial court and the wealthy civil servants who resided in Innsbruck transformed Innsbruck's appearance and attitude. Maximilian had introduced the distinguished courtly culture of Burgundy of his first wife to Central Europe. Culturally, it was above all his second wife Bianca Maria Sforza who promoted Innsbruck. Not only did the royal wedding take place here, she also resided here for a long time, as the city was closer to her home in Milan than Maximilian's other residences. She brought her entire court with her from the Renaissance metropolis to the German lands north of the Alps. Art and entertainment in all its forms flourished.

Under Maximilian, Innsbruck not only became a cultural centre of the empire, the city also boomed economically. Among other things, Innsbruck was the centre of the postal service in the empire. The Thurn und Taxis family was granted a monopoly on this important service and chose Innsbruck as the centre of their private imperial postal service. Maximilian was able to build on the expertise of the gunsmiths who had already established themselves in the foundries in Hötting under his predecessor Siegmund. The most famous of them was Peter "Löffler“ Laiminger. Die Geschichte der Löfflers ist im Roman Der Meister des siebten Siegels worth reading. The Fuggers maintained an office in Innsbruck. In addition to his love of Tyrolean nature, which was often attributed to him, treasures such as salt from Hall and silver from Schwaz were at least as expensive and useful to him. Maximilian financed his lavish court, his election as king by the electors and the eight-year war against the Republic of Venice by, among other things, mortgaging the country's mineral resources.

Innsbruck's strategically favourable location close to the Italian theatres of war also made the city so interesting for the emperor. Many Tyroleans had to enforce the imperial will on the battlefields instead of tilling the fields at home. This only changed in the last years of his reign. In 1511, Maximilian conceded the Tyroleans in the Tiroler LandlibellIn a kind of constitution, they agreed that they could only be called up as soldiers for the defence of their own country. This document also regulated the levying of special taxes in the event of war.

It is difficult to summarise Maximilian's work in Innsbruck. Proclamations of love from an emperor naturally flatter the popular psyche to this day. His material legacy with its many magnificent buildings reinforces this positive image. He turned Innsbruck into an imperial residence city and pushed ahead with the modernisation of the infrastructure. Thanks to the armoury, Innsbruck became the centre of the armaments industry, the treasury of the empire and grew economically and spatially. The debts he incurred for this and the state assets he pledged to the Fuggers left their mark on Tyrol after his death, at least as much as the strict laws he imposed on the common people. He is said to have left behind 5 million guilders in debt, an amount that his Austrian possessions could earn in 20 years. The outstanding payments ruined many businesses and servants after his death, who were left sitting on the imperial promises. Early modern rulers were not bound by the debts of their predecessors. The agreements with the Fuggers were an exception, as liens were attached to them.

In the legends about the emperor, the hard times are not as present as the Goldene Dachl and the soft facts learnt at school. In 2019, the celebrations to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Innsbruck's most important Habsburg under the motto "Tyrolean at heart, European in spirit". The Viennese were favourably naturalised. Salzburg has Mozart, Innsbruck Maximilian, an emperor that the Tyroleans have adapted to Innsbruck's desired identity as a rugged journeyman who prefers to be in the mountains. Today, his striking face is emblazoned on all kinds of consumer goods, from cheese to ski lifts, the emperor is the inspiration for all kinds of profane things. It is only for political agendas that he is less easy to harness than Andreas Hofer. It is probably easier for the average citizen to identify with a revolutionary landlord than with an emperor.

There is hardly an uncrowned person who had a greater influence on the history of Europe until the 20th century than Jakob Fugger (1459 - 1525). Not only did his lifetime coincide with that of Emperor Maximilian, the fates of the two men were closely linked. The history of Tyrol was also shaped by the most important financial magnate of his time.

Jakob Fugger came from a family of merchants in Augsburg. The arrival of the progenitor of the family was recorded in the Augsburg tax book under "Fucker advenit". In the 15th century, a Fugger trading network of factories gradually developed. The merchants founded factories in Venice, Bolzano, Milan, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Bruges and Antwerp for their textile business. Factories were a multifunctional mix of sales area, financial branch, horse station, warehouse, post and news centre and diplomatic representation. This system had spilled over the Alps from northern Italy. An early form of financial capitalism had emerged in the region between Florence, Venice and Milan. Banking began its triumphal march through Europe here in the late Middle Ages. Merchants who did not want to carry vast amounts of cash with them needed so-called bills of exchange to carry out their transactions. They therefore began to set up branch offices in the major trading cities. Italian financial institutions also had branches in Innsbruck from the High Middle Ages onwards.

Jakob and his brothers also initially traded cotton with the wealthy northern Italian cities in the good family tradition. In Venice, the financial centre of the eastern Mediterranean, Jakob Fugger became acquainted with the art of double-entry bookkeeping and the intricacies of progressive Italian finance. He realised that there was more to be earned from money transactions and loans than from cotton. The monarchs and aristocrats of Europe financed their courts and wars in the Middle Ages through the Tithe. This tax was paid by the peasants within the feudal system. Warfare in particular had become increasingly expensive in the 15th century, fuelled by modern firearms. As a result, the tithe was often no longer sufficient. The legitimisation as God's representative on earth had worked for monarchs up to this point, but around 1500, the sounding coin and interest in the form of financial capitalism slowly but surely began to replace God as the ultimate authority.

Jakob Fugger's relationship with the House of Habsburg, and in particular with Tyrol, began to intensify in 1487. The Tyrolean sovereign Siegmund was defeated in a military conflict with the Republic of Venice. In order to pay his debt of 100,000 guilders to the Mediterranean power, he borrowed money from the Fuggers. In return, he issued promissory notes, which he covered by pledging the Schwaz silver mine to his lenders. Schwaz was the largest silver mine in the world before the development of the American silver mines. The Fuggers sold the Schwaz silver to the Hall mint, which they also operated, and in turn lent these coins to Duke Siegmund. A special kind of cycle was born.

However, this was not the end of the Fuggers' political influence on world politics. When the Tyrolean estates deposed Siegmund in 1490 due to his disastrous business behaviour, Maximilian I succeeded him as Prince of Tyrol. Fugger was clever enough to back the new sovereign. The word credit, which goes back to the Latin credereThe choice shows that he believed in Maximilian. Fugger believed in a powerful Maximilian as his best asset. He financed Maximilian's election as Holy Roman Emperor in 1493, thereby securing his influence and elevation to the nobility. It was also Fugger who sponsored the double wedding in Vienna, Maximilian's masterpiece of marriage policy, which made Hungary part of the Habsburg Empire. When Maximilian died in 1519, Fugger repeated this and used his financial power to have Maximilian's grandson Charles V elected emperor. A loan of 540,000 guilders went from the Fuggers to the Habsburgs to pay for advertising and bribes. In return, Charles V granted Fugger rights to mines in Spain and South America, where slaves worked under inhumane conditions to keep this wheel of exploitation and corruption turning

The Fuggers granted the Habsburgs an estimated two million guilders in loans between 1487 and 1525 alone. One florin was equivalent to 60 crowns. A day labourer earned around 6 crowns at that time. This sum could have been used to employ almost 55,000 people a day for a year. A large part of this debt was paid off with rights of use to Tyrolean assets and increased taxes. It is estimated that at the time of his death, Fugger's financial empire handled around 50% of the Tyrolean state budget and 10% of the Tyrolean state's assets. Heiligen Römischen Reiches possessed. His officials managed mines in Tyrol, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Spain, financed trading expeditions throughout the then known world and numerous wars in Europe. Some historians consider Jakob Fugger to be the richest man in world history. How high his fortune was is difficult to convert to today's standards. When the FAZ made an attempt in 2016, it came up with 300 billion dollars. Like Maximilian I, Jakob Fugger was both a man of power and an educated, devout Catholic. Corruption, exploitation, the financing of wars and, out of fear of God and purgatory, the FuggereiThe idea of founding the world's first social housing estate in Augsburg was not out of the question.

In Innsbruck, the Palais Fugger-Taxis and a small alley between Maria-Theresien-Straße and Landhausplatz commemorate the Fuggers. No reference is made to the way in which the merchant dynasty became wealthy.

In the 15th century, the first early form of industrialisation began to develop in Innsbruck. Bell and weapon founders such as the Löfflers set up factories in Hötting, Mühlau and Dreiheiligen, which were among the leading factories of their time. Although entrepreneurs were not of noble blood, they often had more capital at their disposal than the aristocracy. The old hierarchies still existed, but were beginning to become at least somewhat fragile. Industry not only changed the rules of the social game with the influx of new workers and their families, it also had an impact on the appearance of Innsbruck. Unlike the farmers, the labourers were not the subjects of any master. They brought new fashions with them and dressed differently. Capital from outside came into the city. Houses and churches were built for the newly arrived subjects. The large workshops changed the smell and sound of the city. The smelting works were loud, the smoke from the furnaces polluted the air.

The second wave of industrialisation came late in Innsbruck compared to other European regions. The Small craftThe town's former craft businesses, which were organised in guilds, came under pressure from the achievements of modern goods production. In St. Nikolaus, Wilten, Mühlau and Pradl, modern factories were built along the Mühlbach stream and the Sill Canal. Many innovative company founders came from outside Innsbruck. Peter Walde, who moved to Innsbruck from Lusatia, founded his company in 1777 in what is now Innstrasse 23, producing products made from fat, such as tallow candles and soaps. Eight generations later, Walde is still one of the oldest family businesses in Austria. Today, you can buy the result of centuries of tradition in soap and candle form in the listed headquarters with its Gothic vaults. In 1838, the spinning machine arrived via the Dornbirn company Herrburger & Rhomberg over the Arlberg to Pradl. H&R had acquired a plot of land on the Sillgründe. Thanks to the river's water power, the site was ideal for the heavy machinery used in the textile industry. In addition to the traditional sheep's wool, cotton was now also processed.

Just like 400 years earlier, the Second Industrial Revolution changed the city forever. Neighbourhoods such as Mühlau, Pradl and Wilten grew rapidly. The factories were often located in the centre of residential areas. Over 20 factories used the Sill Canal around 1900, and the noise and exhaust fumes from the engines were hell for the neighbours, as a newspaper article from 1912 shows:

„Entrüstung ruft bei den Bewohnern des nächst dem Hauptbahnhofe gelegenen Stadtteiles der seit einiger Zeit in der hibler´schen Feigenkaffeefabrik aufgestellte Explosionsmotor hervor. Der Lärm, welchen diese Maschine fast den ganzen Tag ununterbrochen verbreitet, stört die ganz Umgebung in der empfindlichsten Weise und muß die umliegenden Wohnungen entwerten. In den am Bahnhofplatze liegenden Hotels sind die früher so gesuchten und beliebten Gartenzimmer kaum mehr zu vermieten. Noch schlimmer als der ruhestörende Lärm aber ist der Qualm und Gestank der neuen Maschine…“

Many members of the lesser nobility also invested the money from the 1848 land relief in industry and business. The increasing demand for labour was met by former farmhands and farmers without land. While the new wealthy entrepreneurial class had villas built in Wilten, Pradl and Saggen and middle-class employees lived in apartment buildings in the same neighbourhoods, the workers were housed in workers' hostels and mass accommodation. Some worked in businesses such as the gas works, the quarry or in one of the factories, while others consumed the wealth. Shifts of 12 hours in cramped, noisy and sooty conditions demanded everything from the workers. Child labour was not banned until the 1840s. Women earned only a fraction of what men were paid. Workers often lived in tenements built by their employers and were at their mercy due to the lack of labour laws. There was neither social security nor unemployment insurance. Those who were unable to work had to rely on the welfare organisations of their home town. It should be noted that this everyday life of the labourers, which we find terrifying, was no different from the working conditions in the villages, but developed from them. Child labour, inequality and precarious working conditions were also the norm in agriculture.

However, industrialisation did not only affect everyday material life. Innsbruck experienced the kind of gentrification that can be observed today in trendy urban neighbourhoods such as Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. The change from the rural life of the village to the city involved more than just a change of location. In one of his texts, the Innsbruck writer Josef Leitgeb tells us how people experienced the urbanisation of what was once a rural area:

„…viel fremdes, billig gekleidetes Volk, in wachsenden Wohnblocks zusammengedrängt, morgens, mittags und abends die Straßen füllend, wenn es zur Arbeit ging oder von ihr kam, aus Werkstätten, Läden, Fabriken, vom Bahndienst, die Gesichter oft blaß und vorzeitig alternd, in Haltung, Sprache und Kleidung nichts Persönliches mehr, sondern ein Allgemeines, massenhaft Wiederholtes und Wiederholbares: städtischer Arbeitsmensch. Bahnhof und Gaswerk erschienen als Kern dieser neuen, unsäglich fremden Landschaft.“

For many Innsbruck residents, the revolutionary year of 1848 and the new economic circumstances led to bourgeoisie. There were always stories of people who rose through the ranks with hard work, luck, talent and a little financial start-up aid. Well-known Innsbruck examples outside the hotel and catering industry that still exist today are the Tyrolean stained glass business, the Hörtnagl grocery store and the Walde soap factory. Successful entrepreneurs took over the former role of the aristocratic landlords. Together with the numerous academics, they formed a new class that also gained more and more political influence. Beda Weber wrote about this in 1851:

„Their social circles are without constraint, and there is a distinctly metropolitan flavour that is not so easy to find elsewhere in Tyrol."

The workers also became bourgeois. While the landlord in the countryside was still master of the private lives of his farmhands and maidservants and was able to determine their lifestyle up to and including sexuality via the release for marriage, the labourers were now at least somewhat freer individually. They were poorly paid, but at least they now received their own wages instead of board and lodging and were able to organise their private affairs for themselves without the landlord's guardianship.

Innsbruck is not a traditional working-class city. Nevertheless, Tyrol never saw the formation of a significant labour movement as in Vienna. Innsbruck has always been predominantly a commercial and university city. Although there were social democrats and a handful of communists, the number of workers was always too small to really make a difference. May Day marches are only attended by the majority of people for cheap schnitzel and free beer. There are hardly any other memorials to industrialisation and the achievements of the working class. In St.-Nikolaus-Gasse and in many tenement houses in Wilten and Pradl, a few houses have been preserved that give an impression of the everyday life of Innsbruck's working class.