Prejudice and racism towards immigrants were and are common in Innsbruck, as in all societies. Whether Syrian refugees since 2015 or Turkish guest workers in the 1970s and 80s, the foreign usually generates little well-disposed animosity in the average Tyrolean. Today, Italy may be Innsbruck's favourite travel destination and pizzerias part of everyday gastronomic life, but for a long time our southern neighbours were the most suspiciously eyed population group. What the Viennese Jew and Brick Bohemia were the Tyrolean's Wall's.

The aversion to Italians in Innsbruck can look back on a long tradition. Although Italy did not exist as an independent state, the political landscape was characterised by many small counties, city states and principalities between Lake Garda and Sicily. The individual regions also differed in terms of language and culture. Nevertheless, over time people began to see themselves as Italians. During the Middle Ages and the early modern period, they were mainly resident in Innsbruck as members of the civil service, courtiers, bankers or even wives of various sovereigns. The antipathy between Italians und Germans was mutual. Some were regarded as dishonourable, unreliable, snobbish, vain, morally corrupt and lazy, others as uncivilised, barbaric, uneducated and pigs.

With the wars between 1848 and 1866, hatred of all things Italian reached a new high in the Holy Land Tyrolalthough many Wallsche served in the k.u.k. army and most of the rural population among the Italian-speaking Tyroleans were loyal to the monarchy. The Italians under Garibaldi were regarded as godless rebels and republicans and were castigated from the church pulpits between Kufstein and Riva del Garda in both Italian and German.

The Tyrolean press landscape, which experienced an upswing after liberalisation in 1867, played a major role in the conflict. What today Social Media The newspapers of the time took over the role of the press, which contributed to social division. Conservatives, Catholics, Greater Germans, liberals and socialists each had their own press organs. Loyal readers of these hardly neutral papers lived in their opinion bubble. On the Italian side, the socialist Cesare Battisti (1875 - 1916), who was executed by the Austrian military during the war for high treason on the gallows, stood out. The journalist and politician, who had studied in Vienna and was therefore considered by many to be not just an enemy but a traitor, fuelled the conflict in the newspapers Il Popolo und L'Avvenire repeatedly fired with a sharp pen.

Associations also played a key role in the hardening of the fronts. Not only had the press law been reformed in 1867, but it was now also easier to found associations. This triggered a veritable boom. Sports clubs, gymnastics clubs, theatre groups, shooting clubs and the Innsbrucker Liedertafel often served as a kind of preliminary organisation that took a political stance and also agitated. The club members met in their own pubs and organised regular club evenings, often in public. The student fraternities were particularly politically active and extremist in their opinions. The young men came from the upper middle classes or the aristocracy and were used to buying and carrying weapons. A third of the students in Innsbruck belonged to a fraternity, of which just under half were of German nationalist orientation. Unlike today, it was not uncommon for them to appear in public in their full dress uniform, complete with sabre, beret and ribbon, often armed with a cane and revolver.

It is therefore not surprising that their habitat was a particular flashpoint. One of the biggest political points of contention in the autonomy debate and the desire to join the Kingdom of Italy was a separate Italian university. The loss of Padua meant that Tyroleans of Italian descent no longer had the opportunity to study in their native language at home. Although attending the university was actually only a matter for a small elite, irredentist, anti-Austrian Tyrolean members of parliament from Trentino were able to emotionally charge the issue again and again as a symbol of the desired autonomy and fuelled hatred of Habsburg. The debate as to whether a university in Trieste, the favoured location of the Italian-speaking representatives, Innsbruck, Trento or Rovereto should be targeted, went on for years. Wilhelm Greil was admonished for his incorrect behaviour towards the Italian population by the Imperial-Royal Governor. All language groups within the monarchy were to be treated equally by law from 1867 onwards.  

A look at the statistics shows just how great the fears of German nationalists that Italian students would overrun the country were. Even then, facts were often replaced in the discourse by gut feelings and racially motivated populism. After the incorporation of Pradl and Wilten in 1904, Innsbruck had just over 50,000 inhabitants. The proportion of students was just over 1000 and less than 2%. Of the approximately 3000 people of Italian descent, most of them Welschtiroler from Trentino, only just over 100 were enrolled at the university. The majority of the Wallschen made up labourers, innkeepers, traders and soldiers. Many had been living in and around Innsbruck for a long time. Many settled in Wilten in particular. Soon a small diaspora came together in the somewhat more favourable workers' village on the lower town square. Anton Gutmann sold Italian wines in his winery cooperative Riva in Leopoldstraße 30, and across the street you could eat well and cheaply at the Gasthaus Steneck specialities south of the Brenner. The majority were part of a different everyday culture, but as subjects of the monarchy they spoke excellent German; only a small proportion came from Dalmatia or Trieste and were actually foreign speakers. In keeping with the spirit of the times, they also founded sports clubs such as the Club Ciclistico oder die Unione Ginnasticasocialist-oriented workers' and consumer organisations, music clubs and student fraternities.

Although the students only made up a small proportion of them, they and the demand for an institute with Italian as the language of examination and teaching received above-average attention. Conservative and German nationalist politicians, students and the media saw an Italian university as a threat to Tyrolean Germanness. In addition to the ethnic and racist resentment towards the southern neighbours, Catholics in particular were also afraid of characters such as Cesare Battisti, who, as a socialist, embodied evil incarnate. Mayor Wilhelm Greil capitalised on the general hostility towards Italian-speaking residents and students in a similar populist manner as his Viennese counterpart Karl Lueger did in Vienna with his anti-Semitic propaganda.

After some back and forth, it was decided in September 1904 to establish a provisional law faculty in Innsbruck. This was intended to separate the students without marginalising one of the groups. From the outset, however, the project was not under a favourable star. Nobody wanted to rent the necessary premises to the university. Finally, the enterprising master builder Anton Fritz made a flat available in one of his tenement houses at Liebeneggstraße 8. At the inaugural lecture and the festive evening event in the White Cross Inn On 3 November, celebrities such as Battisti and the future Italian Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi were in attendance. The later the evening, the more exuberant the atmosphere. When shouts of invective such as "Porchi tedeschi“ and „Abbasso Austria" (Note: German pigs and down with Austria), the situation escalated. A mob of German-speaking students armed with sticks, knives and revolvers laid siege to the White cross, in which the Italians, who were also largely armed, entrenched themselves. A troop of Kaiserjäger successfully broke up the first riot. In the process, the painter August Pezzey (1875 - 1904) was accidentally fatally wounded by an overly nervous soldier with a bayonet thrust.

The Innsbrucker Nachrichten appeared after the night-time activities on 4 November under the headline: "German blood has flowed!". The editor present reported 100 to 200 revolver shots fired by the Italians at the "Crowd of German students" who had gathered in front of the White Cross Inn. The nine wounded were listed by name, followed by an astonishingly detailed account of what had happened, including Pezzey's wound. The news of the young man's death unleashed a storm of acts of revenge and violence. As with every riot, the convinced German nationalists were joined by onlookers and rioters who enjoyed going overboard in the anonymity of the crowd without any great political conviction. While the detained Italians in the completely overcrowded prison sang the martial anthem Inno di Garibaldi the city saw serious riots against Italian restaurants and businesses. The premises of the White Cross Inn were completely vandalised except for a portrait of Emperor Franz Josef. Rioters threw stones at the residence of the governor, Palais Trapp, as his wife had Italian roots. The building in Liebeneggstraße, which Anton Fritz had made available to the university, was destroyed, as was the architect's private residence.

August Pezzey, who died in the turmoil and came from a Ladin family, was declared a "German hero" in a national frenzy by politicians and the press. He was given a grave of honour at Innsbruck's West Cemetery. At his funeral, attended by thousands of mourners, Mayor Greil read out a pathetic speech:

"...A gloriously beautiful death was granted to you on the field of honour for the German people... In the fight against impudent acts of violence you breathed your last as a martyr for the German cause..."

Reports from the Fatti di Innsbruck made it into the international press and played a decisive role in the resignation of Austrian Prime Minister Ernest von Koerber. Depending on the medium, the Italians were portrayed as dishonourable bandits or courageous national heroes, the Austrians as pan-Germanist barbarians or bulwarks against the Wallsche seen. On 17 November, just two weeks after the ceremonial opening, the Italian faculty in Innsbruck was dissolved again. The language group was denied its own university within Austria-Hungary until the end of the monarchy in 1918. The long tradition of viewing Italians as dishonourable and lazy was further fuelled by Italy's entry into the war on the side of the Entente. To this day, many Tyroleans keep the negative prejudices against their southern neighbours alive. 

1669 is considered the official founding year of one of the most important institutions in the history of the city of Innsbruck. On 15 October of that year, Emperor Leopold I granted the Tyroleans the privilege of the so‑called “Hall salt surcharge.” This tax levied on the highly sought‑after trading commodity produced in the state-owned saltworks made it possible to finance a university. The foundations for an institution of higher education had thus already been laid. The university emerged from the Latin school that had been founded just over a hundred years earlier by the Jesuits under Ferdinand I. The curriculum at the gymnasium focused on classical humanist education. Latin and Greek were essential core subjects, as they were necessary for participation in intellectual and political discourse. Scholarly books and many other written documents were still composed in Latin during the Early Modern period. Latin was also a prerequisite for holding senior positions in public service. The university brought new opportunities for education to Innsbruck. The first faculty to begin teaching was philosophy; theology, law, and medicine followed shortly thereafter. When Pope Innocent XI gave his blessing to the university in 1677, academic life was already fully underway. Professors and students of many different nationalities populated Innsbruck. The Jesuit order held several professorships, while other professors were appointed by the Diocese of Brixen. This led to tensions within the university, as the Jesuits primarily represented the interests of the territorial prince and the monarch, whereas the professors appointed by the diocese aimed to safeguard the political interests of the bishop. At this early stage of the Enlightenment, the separation of state, church, and scholarship was still far off. Positions, power, money, and influence were at stake—not only within the city itself.

A course of study usually lasted seven years before a graduate was permitted, as a sign of his status as a doctor, to wear a ring. During the first two years, every student was required to devote himself to philosophy before choosing a specialized field. In addition to instruction in the humanities, students participated in church services, theatrical performances, music-making, and practical skills such as fencing and riding, all of which were considered indispensable in the life of an educated young man. 

However, the university was more than merely an educational institution. In 1665, Innsbruck had lost its status as a residence city and thus much of its prestige and splendor. The operation of the university partially compensated for this degradation, as the aristocracy continued to be present in the city in the form of students. Students and professors altered the city’s social fabric. In the first decade following the foundation, nearly fifty different intellectuals from all parts of Europe taught philosophy in Innsbruck to more than 300 students. At social events such as processions, delegations like the Congregation of the Holy Virgin—whose members were drawn from the Jesuit-influenced university—were particularly prominent. Professors appeared in velvet robes of different colors depending on their discipline, while students carried the swords they were permitted to bear. Academics also spoke German differently from the local population, while official matters were usually conducted in Latin in any case. Work hard, play hard applied even then. The strictly supervised student routine in lecture halls and auditoriums was enlivened by a colorful mix of boisterous evening entertainment, excursions into the surroundings of Innsbruck, music-making, church processions, and theatrical performances. Unlike the soberly and modestly dressed inhabitants of Innsbruck, young men from well-to-do families appeared flamboyant and cheeky, in the manner of medieval dandies. They spoke among themselves in a way that must have seemed utterly ridiculous to outsiders.

Despite their social standing, students were often not diligent model pupils but rather young men accustomed to a certain lifestyle and status. Managing these young elites required a separate legal system. To a certain degree, students were subject to university jurisdiction, which was independent of municipal law. Only in cases involving capital punishment did the regional government have to be consulted. This created a diffuse and often contradictory system in which one segment of society was permitted, at least in certain situations, to do what was forbidden to another. Encounters between privileged youths and citizens, servants, and craftsmen did not always proceed smoothly. Upper-class teenagers were accustomed to carrying weapons and using them. Insults to honor could, much like in the military, lead to duels even in student circles. Especially in combination with alcohol, disturbances were not uncommon. Thus, in January 1674, “not only at night did disturbances, rumors, and improper actions occur,” and “students of the university were encountered carrying all sorts of prohibited weapons such as firearms, pistols, blunderbusses, stilettos, sabers, knives …”. Students were also officially forbidden to drink excessively. If this nevertheless occurred in one of Innsbruck’s taverns, the young offender would be reprimanded. If he was unable or unwilling to pay the bill, the aggrieved innkeeper could not bring a complaint before the court, as the excessive serving of alcoholic beverages to students was itself forbidden. To enforce university law, the rectorate maintained its own force. The Scharwache was armed with halberds and tasked with preventing student disturbances as effectively as possible. Six men served armed duty day and night to maintain order. The costs were shared by the city of Innsbruck and the university. There was also a dedicated carcer in which offenders could be detained on bread and water. Deprivation of liberty, fines, and even expulsion from the territory could be imposed by the university.

Throughout its history, the university was also a political institution and always a mirror of the prevailing spirit of the age. From the mid‑18th century onward, it served to educate loyal, Catholic civil servants for the state. The name Leopold‑Franzens University refers to the emperors Leopold and Francis, under whom the university was founded and later re-established. Twice, the university was downgraded to a lyceum or abolished altogether. Emperor Joseph II closed it, as did the Bavarian administration during the Napoleonic Wars. The Jesuit-influenced students and professors were viewed with suspicion and were excluded from the education system. Emperor Francis I, who during the Restoration again adhered more closely to the traditionally Catholic line of the Habsburgs, re-founded the university in 1826. Nevertheless, the university remained under observation even within Metternich’s police state. During the pre‑March period (Vormärz), nationalist and liberal forces were regarded with suspicion. The secret state police were present not only in lecture halls but also within student circles, in order to suppress potentially subversive ideas among young agitators at an early stage. Industrialization and the accompanying new economic, political, and social rules also transformed university life. In keeping with the spirit of the age, the inaugural lecture by the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Prof. Dr. Joachim Suppan (1794–1864), addressed a practical problem in physics so that “a more precise knowledge of the highly important and useful invention of the steam engine might also be achieved for domestic industry, where it has hitherto found no application.” The fact that Suppan, in addition to his degrees in philosophy and mathematics, was also an ordained priest illustrates the influence the Church still exerted on education in the 19th century. How closely the university remained connected to state authority as well as to the Church is shown by Suppan’s concluding admonition to the students to “one day render beneficial service to the fatherland through knowledge and virtue.” The national conflicts of the late Habsburg monarchy were likewise reflected in the university’s history. The 19th century was the age of associations—in the case of the university, student fraternities. In Innsbruck, conflicts between German-speaking and Italian-speaking students repeatedly caused tensions, reaching their climax in the Fatti di Innsbruck. Students with German nationalist leanings continued to play a major role at the university thereafter. Many of these young men had grown up in the Habsburg Empire and had served in the First World War. The ponderous parliamentary Republic of Austria appealed less to many young academics than the new political movements that likewise emerged during this period. Male elites were suddenly no longer among themselves alone. Women and sons of craftsmen had long been barred from studying at the university; now it at least became theoretically possible to advance socially through education. Five years after the founding of the Republic, the university celebrated its first female Doctor of Law. The press reported:

“This coming Saturday, Miss Mitzi Fischer will be awarded the degree of Doctor of Law at the University of Innsbruck. Miss Fischer is a native of Vienna. She also completed her secondary education in Vienna. After her matriculation examination, she pursued the study of law at the University of Innsbruck. The future doctor passed all examinations with distinction and would therefore, according to former custom, have to be promoted sub auspiciis imperatoris. In any case, Miss Fischer is the first woman to earn the doctoral degree in law at the University of Innsbruck.”

The enthusiasm of the young men—some of whom had returned from the fronts of the First World War—was partly directed toward fascist Italy, perceived as modern and dynamic, and later toward National Socialist Germany, both of which upheld traditional role models. With the Anschluss to the German Reich in 1938, the university was renamed once again. After the war, the German Alpine University became once more the Leopold‑Franzens University. The relative calm with which Innsbruck’s students behaved in 1968 was striking, much as it had been in 1848. While students in other European cities were the driving force of change, Innsbruck remained unruffled. In Paris, paving stones were thrown; in Innsbruck, boycotts and sit-ins sufficed. Although there were individual groups in the late 1960s and 1970s—such as the Communist Group Innsbruck, the Committee for Solidarity with Vietnam, the socialist VSStÖ, or the liberal‑Catholic Action within the Austrian National Union of Students—no mass movement emerged. The vast majority of students came from the upper classes and had completed their secondary education at Catholic-oriented grammar schools. Beethoven’s old observation that “as long as the Austrian still has his brown beer and sausages, he will not revolt” proved true. Only a few students could be inspired by solidarity with Vietnam, Mao Zedong, or Fidel Castro. Who would risk their own career in a country dominated by the trinity of the Tiroler Tageszeitung, Bishop Paulus Rusch, and a provincial parliament with an absolute ÖVP majority? Those who nevertheless dared to distribute rebellious leaflets or leftist literature had to reckon with media defamation, reprimands by the rectorate, or even visits from state authorities. Professors were seldom criticized, many of them still exuding in the 20th century the aloofness and unapproachable aura of Early Modern times, or making little effort to conceal their political convictions. More frequently criticized was the inadequate equipment of the modest lecture halls, given the constantly growing number of students. The great transformation of Austrian universities was not fought for but voted for. Under Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, tuition fees were abolished. Education became attainable and conceivable for a larger number of young people. As a result, the number of students at Austrian universities rose from around 50,000 in 1968 to more than 73,000 by 1974.

Despite all adversities and curiosities over the centuries, the University of Innsbruck has, since its earliest days, generally enjoyed an excellent reputation. In the 20th and 21st centuries, faculty and students repeatedly achieved internationally acclaimed research results. Victor Franz Hess was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on cosmic radiation. Quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger was also associated with the University of Innsbruck, though not at the time of his award in 2022. Professors Fritz Pregl, Adolf Windaus, and Hans Fischer likewise received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, though none of them were active in Innsbruck at the time. The university hospital has likewise delivered outstanding achievements in both research and education, as well as in the daily medical care of the city, and is considered one of Innsbruck’s flagship institutions. The university is of great importance to the city not only intellectually and economically. Around 30,000 students populate and shape life between the Nordkette mountain range and the Patscherkofel. 

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. Radical liberals and nationalists in particular even questioned the omnipotence of the church.

In March 1848, this socially and politically highly explosive mixture erupted in riots in many European cities. In Innsbruck, students and professors celebrated the newly enacted freedom of the press with a torchlight procession. On the whole, however, the revolution proceeded calmly in the leisurely Tyrol. 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 revolution 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, workers, liberal-nationalist-minded citizens, republicans, supporters of a constitutional monarchy and Catholic conservatives disagreed on social issues such as freedom of the press, they shared a dislike of the Italian independence movement that had spread from Piedmont and Milan to northern Italy. Innsbruck students and marksmen marched to Trentino with the support of the k.k. The Innsbruck students and riflemen moved into Trentino to nip the unrest and uprisings in the bud. Well-known members of this corps were Father Haspinger, who had already fought with Andreas Hofer in 1809, and Adolf Pichler. Johann Nepomuk Mahl-Schedl, wealthy owner of Büchsenhausen Castle, even equipped his own company with which he marched across the Brenner Pass to secure the border.

The city of Innsbruck, as the political and economic centre of the multinational crown land of Tyrol and home to many Italian speakers, also became the arena of 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. A quarrel between a German-speaking craftsman and an Italian-speaking Ladin got so heated that it almost led to a pogrom against the numerous businesses and restaurants owned by Italian-speaking Tyroleans.

The relative tranquillity of Innsbruck suited the imperial house, which was under pressure. When things did not stop boiling in Vienna even after March, Emperor Ferdinand fled to Tyrol in May. 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 June, a young Franz Josef, not yet emperor at the time, also stayed at the Hofburg on his way back from the battlefields of northern Italy instead of travelling directly to Vienna. Innsbruck was once again the royal seat, if only for one summer. While blood was flowing in Vienna, Milan and Budapest, the imperial family enjoyed life in the Tyrolean countryside. Ferdinand, Franz Karl, his wife Sophie and Franz Josef received guests from foreign royal courts and were chauffeured in four-in-hand carriages to the region's excursion destinations such as Weiherburg Castle, Stefansbrücke Bridge, Kranebitten and high up to Heiligwasser. A little later, however, the cosy atmosphere came to an end. Under gentle pressure, Ferdinand, who was no longer considered fit for office, passed the torch of regency to 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.

Thanks to the census-based majority voting system, the Greater German liberal faction prevailed within the city government, in which merchants, tradesmen, industrialists and innkeepers set the tone. On 2 June 1848, the first edition of the liberal and Greater German-minded Innsbrucker Zeitungfrom which the above article on the emperor's arrival in Innsbruck is taken. Conservatives, on the other hand, read the Volksblatt for Tyrol and Vorarlberg. Moderate readers who favoured a constitutional monarchy preferred to consume the Bothen for Tyrol and Vorarlberg. However, the freedom of the press soon came to an end. The previously abolished censorship was reintroduced in parts. Newspaper publishers had to undergo some harassment by the authorities. Newspapers were not allowed to write against the state 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 officially 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. Land rents, tithes and roboters were thus 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 the farmers had to pay one third of the relief themselves. They could pay off this amount in instalments over a period of twenty years.

The after-effects can still be felt today. The descendants of the then successful farmers enjoy the fruits of prosperity through inherited land ownership, which can be traced back to the land relief of 1848, as well as political influence through land sales for housing construction, leases and public sector redemptions for infrastructure projects. The land-owning nobles of the past had to resign themselves to the ignominy of pursuing middle-class labour. The transition from birthright to privileged status within society was often successful thanks to financial means, networks and education. Many of Innsbruck's academic dynasties began in the decades after 1848.

Das bis dato unbekannte Phänomen der Freizeit kam, wenn auch für den größten Teil nur spärlich, auf und begünstigte gemeinsam mit frei verfügbarem Einkommen einer größeren Anzahl an Menschen Hobbies. Zivile Organisationen und Vereine, vom Lesezirkel über Sängerbünde, Feuerwehren und Sportvereine, gründeten sich. Auch im Stadtbild manifestierte sich das Revolutionsjahr. Parks wie der Englische Garten beim Schloss Ambras oder der Hofgarten waren nicht mehr exklusiv der Aristokratie vorbehalten, sondern dienten den Bürgern als Naherholungsgebiete vom beengten Dasein. In St. Nikolaus entstand der Waltherpark als kleine Ruheoase. Einen Stock höher eröffnete im Schloss Büchsenhausen Tirols erste Schwimm- und Badeanstalt, wenig später folgte ein weiteres Bad in Dreiheiligen. Ausflugsgasthöfe rund um Innsbruck florierten. Neben den gehobenen Restaurants und Hotels entstand eine Szene aus Gastwirtschaften, in denen sich auch Arbeiter und Angestellte gemütliche Abende bei Theater, Musik und Tanz leisten konnten.

The period between the French Revolution and the Battle of Königgrätz in 1866 was a markedly warlike one. Many of the political attitudes and animosities toward other groups, as well as the European nationalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—which would also shape the history of Innsbruck—had their roots in the conflicts of this era. The monarchies of Europe, led by the Catholic Habsburgs, declared war on the French Republic. Although revolutionary Paris was far away and there was as yet no comprehensive press system for the dissemination of news, the godlessness of the murderers of Marie Antoinette was effectively propagated through pamphlets and church pulpits. Fear spread that the revolutionary slogan “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” and its underlying principles might take hold across Europe. A young general named Napoleon Bonaparte advanced across the Alps with his Italian army during the Coalition Wars and encountered Austrian troops there. This was not merely a struggle over territory and power, but a clash of systems. The Grande Armée of revolutionary France faced the forces of the conservative and Catholic Habsburgs.

Tyrolean marksmen were actively involved in the fighting to defend the country's borders against the invading French. The men were used to handling weapons and were considered skilled marksmen. The historian Ludwig Denk put it this way in an essay in 1860:

"...The Tyrolean's main passion is shooting. Early on, the father takes his son hunting. It is not uncommon to see boys running around with loaded rifles, climbing high mountains and shooting birds or squirrels..."

The strength of companies such as the Höttingen Riflemen, founded in 1796, did not lie in open field battles but in guerrilla warfare. Moreover, they had a secret weapon on their side against what was then the most advanced and modern army in the world: the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Since 1719, Jesuit missionaries had travelled even into the most remote side valleys, successfully establishing devotion to the Sacred Heart as a unifying element in the struggle against pagan practices and Protestantism. Now, faced with the godless revolutionary French, it seemed only logical that the Sacred Heart would watch protectively over the Tyrolean warriors of God. In desperate situations, the Tyrolean troops renewed their covenant with the Sacred Heart—which had already been employed as a spiritual weapon against external enemies in 1703—to seek protection and support. Against all odds, the riflemen were successful in their defensive struggle. It was the abbot of Stams Abbey who proposed to the provincial estates that henceforth “the Feast of the Divine Heart of Jesus should be celebrated annually with a solemn church service, should Tyrol be delivered from the impending danger of the enemy.” Each year, the Sacred Heart celebrations were announced and discussed with great pomp in the press. Especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they constituted an explosive mixture of popular superstition, Catholicism, and national resentment directed against all things French and Italian. Countless soldiers continued to place their trust in the Sacred Heart even amid the technologised warfare of the First World War, carrying images of this symbol with them through the hail of shells. Alongside Cranach’s Madonna of Mercy, depictions of the Sacred Heart remain to this day among the most popular Christian motifs in Tyrol and adorn the façades of countless buildings. Habsburg Tyrol emerged from the turmoil of war enlarged—albeit without notable success on the battlefields, and probably not without invoking the Sacred Heart. In the final throes of the Holy Roman Empire, shortly before its dissolution in 1803, the archiepiscopal territory of Trentino became part of the crown land. The provincial capital, however, had shrunk. Fallen soldiers and war-related economic hardships led to a decline in Innsbruck’s population from a little over 9,500 around 1750 to approximately 8,800.

After the Napoleonic Wars, Tyrol’s borders remained largely peaceful for around thirty years. This changed with the Italian Risorgimento, the national movement led by Sardinia‑Piedmont and France. In 1848, 1859, and 1866, the so-called Italian Wars of Unification took place. Over the course of the nineteenth century—at the latest since 1848—a veritable nationalist fervour swept through young men of the upper classes across Europe. Volunteer armies sprang up everywhere. Students and academics organised themselves in fraternities; gymnasts and riflemen alike sought to prove their newfound love of nation on the battlefield, supporting official armies against whatever enemy they faced. During this period, Innsbruck served as an important supply hub as a garrison town. Following the Congress of Vienna, the Tyrolean Jäger Corps became the Imperial and Royal Tyrolean Kaiserjäger Regiment, an elite unit deployed in these conflicts. Volunteer units such as the Innsbruck Academics or the Stubai Riflemen also fought in Italy. Thousands fell in combat against a coalition consisting of the archenemy France, the godless Garibaldians in their red shirts, and the threat posed by the Kingdom of Italy, which was being formed at Austria’s expense under the leadership of the Francophile House of Savoy from Piedmont. Media outlets inflamed public sentiment away from the front lines. The Innsbrucker Zeitung preached loyalty to the emperor and a Greater German‑Tyrolean nationalism in its articles, railed against Italians and Frenchmen, and praised the courage of Tyrolean soldiers.

“The strong occupation of the heights at the exit of the Valsugana near Primolano and Le Tezze has often given the Innsbruck Academics I and the Stubai riflemen cause to undertake voluntary excursions against Le Tezze, Fonzago, and Fastro, as well as to the right bank of the Brenta and the heights opposite the small camps of the Sette Comuni… On the 19th, the Stubai riflemen had already struck down several enemies when they ventured down for the first time, creeping up on them…”

The most famous battle of the Wars of Unification took place at Solferino in 1859 near Lake Garda. Appalled by the bloodshed, Henry Dunant decided to found the Red Cross. Writer Joseph Roth described the events on the opening pages of his classic novel Radetzky March:

"In the battle of Solferino, he (note: Lieutenant Trotta) commanded a platoon as an infantry lieutenant. The battle had been going on for half an hour. Three paces in front of him he saw the white backs of his soldiers. The first row of his platoon was kneeling, the second was standing. Everyone was cheerful and certain of victory. They had eaten copiously and drunk brandy at the expense and in honour of the emperor, who had been in the field since yesterday. Here and there one fell out of line."

The year 1866 proved particularly devastating for the Austrian Empire. In Italy, Venetia and Lombardy were lost. In the north, the Habsburg army suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Königgrätz. After this brief “brotherly war,” Prussia assumed leadership of the German Confederation—the successor to the Holy Roman Empire—from the Habsburgs. The Austrian Empire’s reorientation toward the east meant that Innsbruck definitively became a city on the western periphery of the realm. This development was accompanied by a revival of the national idea, especially prevalent among Innsbruck’s liberal upper bourgeoisie. Support for the so‑called Greater German solution—advocating a shared statehood with the German Empire instead of the Austro‑Hungarian Monarchy—was particularly strong in the city. The extent to which this German Question divided Innsbruck became evident more than thirty years later, when the city council proposed naming a street after the “Iron Chancellor” Bismarck, who had borne primary responsibility for the war between Austria and Prussia. While conservative loyalists to the emperor reacted with outrage, the Greater German liberals around Mayor Wilhelm Greil were enthusiastic. After the Second World War, the lost Battle of Königgrätz served Austrian arguments portraying Austria as the first victim of National Socialism, as the country had already been excluded from a pan‑German state in 1866. With the Tummelplatz, the Pradl Military Cemetery, and the Kaiserjäger Museum on Bergisel, the city still possesses several sites of memory commemorating these bloody conflicts, in which many Innsbruck residents marched off to war and never returned.

It was almost not Gavrilo Princip, but a student from Innsbruck who changed the fate of the world. It was thanks to chance that the 20-year-old Serb was stopped in 1913 because he bragged to a waitress that he was planning to assassinate the heir to the throne. It was only when the world-changing shooting in Sarajevo actually took place that an article about it appeared in the media. After the actual assassination of Franz Ferdinand on 28 June, it was impossible to foresee what impact the First World War that broke out as a result would have on the world and people's everyday lives. However, two days after the assassination of the Habsburg in Sarajevo, the Innsbrucker Nachrichten already prophetic: "We have reached a turning point - perhaps the "turning point" - in the fortunes of this empire".

Enthusiasm for the war in 1914 was also high in Innsbruck. From the "Gott, Kaiser und VaterlandDriven by the "spirit of the times", most people unanimously welcomed the attack on Serbia. Politicians, the clergy and the press joined in the general rejoicing. In addition to the imperial appeal "To my peoples", which appeared in all the media of the empire, the Innsbrucker Nachrichten On 29 July, the day after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, the media published an article about the capture of Belgrade by Prince Eugene in 1717. The tone in the media was celebratory, although not entirely without foreboding of what was to come.

"The Emperor's appeal to his people will be deeply felt. The internal strife has been silenced and the speculations of our enemies about unrest and similar things have been miserably put to shame. Above all, the Germans stand by the Emperor and the Empire in their old and well-tried loyalty: this time, too, they are ready to stand up for dynasty and fatherland with their blood. We are facing difficult days; no one can even guess what fate will bring us, what it will bring to Europe, what it will bring to the world. We can only trust with our old Emperor in our strength and in God and cherish the confidence that, if we find unity and stick together, we must be granted victory, for we did not want war and our cause is that of justice!"

Theologians such as Joseph Seeber (1856 - 1919) and Anton Müllner alias Bruder Willram (1870 - 1919) who, with her sermons and writings such as "Das blutige Jahr" elevated the war to a crusade against France and Italy.

Many Innsbruckers volunteered for the campaign against Serbia, which was thought to be a matter of a few weeks or months. Such a large number of volunteers came from outside the city to join the military commissions that Innsbruck was almost bursting at the seams. Nobody could have guessed how different things would turn out. Even after the first battles in distant Galicia, it was clear that it would not be a matter of months. Kaiserjäger and other Tyrolean troops were literally burnt out. Poor equipment, a lack of supplies and the catastrophic leadership of the high command under Konrad von Hötzendorf led to the deaths of thousands or to captivity, where hunger, abuse and forced labour awaited them.

In 1915, the Kingdom of Italy entered the war on the side of France and England. This meant that the front went right through what was then Tyrol. From the Ortler in the west across northern Lake Garda to the Sextener Dolomiten the battles of the mountain war took place. Innsbruck was not directly affected by the fighting. However, the war could at least be heard as far as the provincial capital, as was reported in the newspaper of 7 July 1915:

„Bald nach Beginn der Feindseligkeiten der Italiener konnte man in der Gegend der Serlesspitze deutlich Kanonendonner wahrnehmen, der von einem der Kampfplätze im Süden Tirols kam, wahrscheinlich von der Vielgereuter Hochebene. In den letzten Tagen ist nun in Innsbruck selbst und im Nordosten der Stadt unzweifelhaft der Schall von Geschützdonner festgestellt worden, einzelne starke Schläge, die dumpf, nicht rollend und tönend über den Brenner herüberklangen. Eine Täuschung ist ausgeschlossen. In Innsbruck selbst ist der Donner der Kanonen schwerer festzustellen, weil hier der Lärm zu groß ist, es wurde aber doch einmal abends ungefähr um 9 Uhr, als einigermaßen Ruhe herrschte, dieser unzweifelhafte von unseren Mörsern herrührender Donner gehört.“

Until the transfer of regular troops from the Eastern Front to the Tyrolean borders, the national defence depended on the Standschützen, a troop made up of men under 21, over 42 or unfit for regular military service. The casualty figures were correspondingly high.

Although the front was relatively far away from Innsbruck, the war also penetrated civilian life. Due to the mass mobilisation of a large part of the working male population, many businesses came to a complete standstill. Shelves in shops remained empty, public transport came to a standstill, craftsmen and labourers were missing everywhere. There was often a shortage of coal and firewood. Hunger and cold became bitter enemies of women, children, the wounded and those unfit for war in the city. This experience of the total involvement of society as a whole was new to the people. Barracks were erected in the Höttinger Au to house prisoners of war. Transports of wounded brought such a large number of horribly injured people that many civilian buildings such as the university library, which was currently under construction, or Ambras Castle were converted into military hospitals. The Pradl military cemetery was established to cope with the large number of fallen soldiers. A predecessor to tram line 3 was set up to transport the wounded from the railway station to the new garrison hospital, today's Conrad barracks in Pradl. The companies that were still able to produce were subordinated to the war economy. However, the longer the war lasted, the fewer there were. By the winter of 1917, Innsbruck's economy had almost completely collapsed.

As the war drew to a close, so did the front. In February 1918, the Italian air force managed to drop three bombs on Innsbruck. In this winter, which was known as Hunger winter When the war went down in European history, the shortages also made themselves felt. In the final years of the war, food was supplied via ration coupons. 500 g of meat, 60 g of butter and 2 kg of potatoes were the basic diet per person - per week, mind you. Archive photos show the long queues of desperate and hungry people outside the food shops. There were repeated protests and strikes. Politicians, trade unionists, workers and war returnees saw their chance for change. Under the motto Peace, bread and the right to vote a wide variety of parties united in resistance to the war. At this time, most people were already aware that the war was lost and what fate awaited Tyrol, as this article from 6 October 1918 shows:

 „Aeußere und innere Feinde würfeln heute um das Land Andreas Hofers. Der letzte Wurf ist noch grausamer; schändlicher ist noch nie ein freies Land geschachert worden. Das Blut unserer Väter, Söhne und Brüder ist umsonst geflossen, wenn dieser schändliche Plan Wirklichkeit werden soll. Der letzte Wurf ist noch nicht getan. Darum auf Tiroler, zum Tiroler Volkstag in Brixen am 13. Oktober 1918 (nächsten Sonntag). Deutscher Boden muß deutsch bleiben, Tiroler Boden muß tirolisch bleiben. Tiroler entscheidet selbst über Eure Zukunft!“

On 4 November, Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy finally agreed an armistice. This gave the Allies the right to occupy areas of the monarchy. The very next day, Bavarian troops entered Innsbruck. Austria's ally Germany was still at war with Italy and was afraid that the front could be moved closer to the German Reich in North Tyrol. Fortunately for Innsbruck and the surrounding area, however, Germany also surrendered a week later on 11 November. This meant that the major battles between regular armies did not take place.

Nevertheless, Innsbruck was in danger. Huge columns of military vehicles, trains full of soldiers and thousands of emaciated soldiers making their way home from the front on foot passed through the city. Those who could, jumped on one of the overcrowded trains or a car to leave the Brenner Pass behind them to get home. In November 1918, more than 270 soldiers lost their lives during these daring manoeuvres or had to be admitted to one of the city's military hospitals. The city not only had to keep its own citizens in check and guarantee rations, but also protect itself from looting. In order to maintain public order, the Tyrolean National Council formed a People's Army on 5 November made up of schoolchildren, students, workers and citizens. On 23 November 1918, Italian troops occupied the city and the surrounding area. Mayor Greil's appeasement to the people of Innsbruck to surrender the city without rioting was successful. 5000 men had to find shelter in the starving and miserable city. Schools were turned into barracks. Although there were isolated riots, hunger riots and looting, there were no armed clashes with the occupying troops or even a Bolshevik revolution as in Munich.

Over 1200 Innsbruck residents lost their lives on the battlefields and in military hospitals, over 600 were wounded. Memorials to the First World War and its victims can be found in Innsbruck, particularly at churches and cemeteries. The Kaiserjägermuseum on Mount Isel displays uniforms, weapons and pictures of the battle. Streets in Innsbruck are dedicated to the two theologians Anton Müllner and Josef Seeber. A street was also named after the commander-in-chief of the Imperial and Royal Army on the Southern Front, Archduke Eugene. There is a memorial to the unsuccessful commander in front of the Hofgarten. The eastern part of the Amras military cemetery commemorates the Italian occupation.

In addition to hunger, political polarisation characterised people's lives in the 1920s and 1930s. Although the collapse of the monarchy had brought about a republic, the two major popular parties, the Social Democrats and the Christian Socials, were as hostile to each other as two scorpions. Both parties set up paramilitary blocs to back up their political agenda with violence on the streets if necessary. The Republican Defence League on the side of the Social Democrats and various Christian-social or even monarchist-orientated Home defenceFor the sake of simplicity, the different groups will be summarised under this collective term, were like civil war parties. Many politicians and functionaries on both sides had fought at the front during the war and were correspondingly militarised. The Tiroler Heimatwehr was able to rely on better infrastructure and a political network in rural Tyrol thanks to the support of the Catholic Church. On 12 November 1928, the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Republic, 18,000 members of the Austrian armed forces marched through the city on the First All-Austrian Homeland March to underline their superiority on the highest holiday of the domestic social democracies. The Styrian troops were quartered in Wilten Abbey, among other places.  

From 1930, the NSDAP also became increasingly present in the public sphere. It was able to gain supporters, particularly among students and young, disillusioned workers. By 1932, the party already had 2,500 members in Innsbruck. There were repeated violent clashes between the opposing political groups. The so-called Höttinger Saalschlacht Hötting was not yet part of Innsbruck at that time. The community was mainly inhabited by labourers. In this red National Socialists planned a rally in the Tyrolean bastion at the Gasthof Golden Beara meeting place for the Social Democrats. This provocation ended in a fight that resulted in over 30 people being injured and one death from a stab wound on the National Socialist side. The riots spread throughout the city, with the injured even clashing in the hospital. Only with the help of the gendarmerie and the army was it possible to separate the opponents.

After years of civil war-like conditions, the Christian Socialists under Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß (1892 - 1934) prevailed in 1933 and eliminated parliament. There was no significant fighting in Innsbruck. On 15 March, the party house of the Social Democratic Labour Party Tyrol im Hotel Sonne The Republican Protection League leader Gustav Kuprian was arrested for high treason and the individual groups disarmed. Dollfuß's goal was to establish the so-called Austrian corporative statea one-party state without opposition, curtailing elementary rights such as freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. In Tyrol in 1933, the Tiroler Wochenzeitung was newly founded to function as a party organ. The entire state apparatus was to be organised along the lines of Mussolini's fascism in Italy under the Vaterländischen Front united: Anti-socialist, authoritarian, conservative in its view of society, anti-democratic, anti-Semitic and militarised. The Innsbruck municipal council was reduced from 40 to 28 members. Instead of free elections, they were appointed by the provincial governor, which meant that only conservative councillors were represented.

Dollfuß war in Tirol überaus populär, wie Aufnahmen des vollen Platzes vor der Hofburg während einer seiner Ansprachen aus dem Jahr 1933 zeigen. Seine Politik war das, was der Habsburgermonarchie am nächsten kam. Sein politischer Kurs wurde von der katholischen Kirche unterstützt, die es sogar in die Maiverfassung von 1934 schaffte: „Im Namen Gottes, des Allmächtigen, von dem alles Recht ausgeht, erhält das österreichische Volk für seinen christlichen, deutschen Bundesstaat auf ständischer Grundlage diese Verfassung.“ Die Bindung an die Kirche verschaffte der Regierung Zugriff auf Infrastruktur, Presseorgane und Vorfeldorganisationen. Gegen die verhassten Sozialisten ging die Patriotic Front with their paramilitary units. They did not shy away from repression and acts of violence against life and limb and the facilities of political opponents. Socialists, social democrats, trade unionists and communists were repeatedly arrested. In 1934, members of the Heimwehr destroyed the monument to the Social Democrat Martin Rapoldi in Kranebitten. The press was politically controlled and censored. The articles glorified the idyllic rural life. Families with many children were supported financially. The segregation of the sexes in schools and the reorganisation of the curriculum for girls, combined with pre-military training for boys, was in the interests of a large part of the population. The traditionally orientated cultural policy, with which Austria presented itself as the better Germany under the anti-clerical National Socialist leadership appealed to the conservative part of society. As early as 1931, some Tyrolean mayors had joined forces to have the entry ban for the Habsburgs lifted, so the unspoken long-term goal of reinstalling the monarchy by the Christian Socials enjoyed broad support.

On 25 July 1934, the banned National Socialists attempted a coup in Vienna, in which Dollfuß was killed. There was also an attempted coup in Innsbruck. A policeman was shot dead in Herrengasse when a group of National Socialists attempted to take control of the city. Hitler, who had not ordered the attacks, distanced himself, and the Austrian groups of the banned party were restricted as a result. In Innsbruck, the "Verfügung des Regierungskommissärs der Landeshauptstadt Tirols“ der Platz vor dem Tiroler Landestheater als Dollfußplatz led. Dollfuß had met with the Tyrolean Heimwehr leader Richard Steidle at a rally here two weeks before his death. Steidle himself had been the victim of political violence on several occasions. In 1932, he was attacked on the tram after the Höttinger Saalschlacht, and the following year he was the victim of an assassination attempt in front of his house in Leopoldstraße. After the NSDAP seized power, he was sent to Buchenhausen concentration camp, where he died in 1940.

Dollfuß' successor as Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg (1897 - 1977) was a Tyrolean by birth and a member of the Innsbruck student fraternity Austria. He ran a law firm in Innsbruck for a long time. In 1930, he founded a paramilitary unit called Ostmärkische Sturmscharenwhich formed the counterweight of the Christian Socials to the radical Heimwehr groups. After the February Uprising in 1934, as Minister of Justice in the Dollfuß cabinet, he was jointly responsible for the execution of several Social Democrats.

However, Austrofascism was unable to turn the tide in the 1930s, especially economically. The economic crisis, which also hit Austria in 1931 and fuelled the radical, populist policies of the NSDAP, hit hard. State investment in major infrastructure projects came to a standstill. The unemployment rate in 1933 was 25%. The restriction of social welfare, which was introduced at the beginning of the First Republick was introduced had dramatic effects. The long-term unemployed were excluded from receiving social benefits as "Discontinued" excluded. Poverty caused the crime rate to rise, and robberies, muggings and thefts became more frequent.

As in previous decades, the housing situation was a particular problem. Despite the city's efforts to create modern living space, many Innsbruck residents still lived in shacks. Bathrooms or one bedroom per person were the exception. Since the great growth of Innsbruck from the 1880s onwards, the housing situation was precarious for many people. The railways, industrialisation, refugees from the German-speaking regions of Italy and the economic crisis had pushed Innsbruck to the brink of the possible. After Vienna, Innsbruck had the second highest number of residents per house. Rents for housing were so high that workers often slept in stages in order to share the costs. Although new blocks of flats and homeless shelters were built, especially in Pradl, such as the workers' hostel in Amthorstraße in 1907, the hostel in Hunoldstraße and the Pembaurblock, this was not enough to deal with the situation. Out of this need and despair, several shanty towns and settlements emerged on the outskirts of the city, founded by the marginalised, the desperate and those left behind who found no place in the system. In the prisoner-of-war camp in the Höttinger Au, people took up residence in the barracks after they had been invalided out. The best known and most notorious to this day was the Bocksiedlung on the site of today's Reichenau. From 1930, several families settled in barracks and caravans between the airport, which was located there at the time, and the barracks of the Reichenau concentration camp. The legend of its origins speaks of Otto and Josefa Rauth as the founders, whose caravan was stranded here. Rauth was not only economically poor, but also morally poor as an avowed communist in Tyrolean terms. His raft, the Noah's Ark, which he wanted to use to reach the Soviet Union via the Inn and Danube, anchored in front of Gasthof Sandwirt.

Gradually, an area emerged on the edge of both the town and society, which was run by the unofficial mayor of the estate, Johann Bock (1900 - 1975), like an independent commune. He regulated the agendas in his sphere of influence in a rough and ready manner.

The Bockala had a terrible reputation among the good citizens of the city. And despite all the historical smoothing and nostalgia, probably not without good reason. As helpful and supportive as the often eccentric residents of the estate could be among themselves, physical violence and petty crime were commonplace. Excessive alcohol consumption was common practice. The streets were unpaved. There was no running water, sewage system or sanitary facilities, nor was there a regular electricity supply. Even the supply of drinking water was precarious for a long time, which brought with it the constant risk of epidemics.

Viele, nicht aber alle Bewohner waren arbeitslos oder kriminell. Es waren vielfach Menschen, die durch das System fielen, die sich in der Bocksiedlung niederließen. Das falsche Parteibuch zu haben konnte genügen, um im Innsbruck der 1930er keinen Wohnraum ergattern zu können. Karl Jaworak, der 1924 ein Attentat auf Bundeskanzler Ignaz Seipel verübte, lebte nach seiner Haft und Deportation in ein Konzentrationslager während des NS-Regimes ab 1958 an der Adresse Reichenau 5a.

The furnishings of the Bocksiedlung dwellings were just as heterogeneous as the inhabitants. There were caravans and circus wagons, wooden barracks, corrugated iron huts, brick and concrete houses. The Bocksiedlung also had no fixed boundaries. Bockala In Innsbruck, being a citizen was a social status that largely originated in the imagination of the population.

Within the settlement, the houses and carriages built were rented out and sold. With the toleration of the city of Innsbruck, inherited values were created. The residents cultivated self-sufficient gardens and kept livestock, and dogs and cats were also on the menu in meagre times.

The air raids of the Second World War exacerbated the housing situation in Innsbruck and left the Bocksiedlung grow. At its peak, there are said to have been around 50 accommodations. The barracks of the Reichenau concentration camp were also used as sleeping quarters after the last imprisoned National Socialists held there were transferred or released, although the concentration camp was not part of the Bocksiedlung in the narrower sense.

The beginning of the end was the 1964 Olympic Games and a fire in the settlement a year earlier. Malicious tongues claim that this was set to speed up the eviction. In 1967, Mayor Alois Lugger and Johann Bock negotiated the next steps and compensation from the municipality for the eviction, reportedly in an alcohol-fuelled atmosphere. In 1976, the last quarters were evacuated due to hygienic deficiencies.

Many former residents of the Bocksiedlung were relocated to municipal flats in Pradl, the Reichenau and in the O-Village quartered here. The customs of the Bocksiedlung lived on for a number of years, which accounts for the poor reputation of the urban apartment blocks in these neighbourhoods to this day.

A reappraisal of what many historians call the Austrofascism has hardly ever happened in Austria. In the church of St Jakob im Defereggen in East Tyrol or in the parish church of Fritzens, for example, pictures of Dollfuß as the protector of the Catholic Church can still be seen, more or less without comment. In many respects, the legacy of the divided situation of the interwar period extends to the present day. To this day, there are red and black motorists' clubs, sports associations, rescue organisations and alpine associations whose roots go back to this period.

The history of the Bocksiedlung was compiled in many interviews and painstaking detail work by the city archives for the book "Bocksiedlung. A piece of Innsbruck" of the city archive.

The abundance of churches, chapels, crucifixes, statues, and paintings in public spaces strikes many visitors to Innsbruck from other countries as unusual. Not only places of worship, but also many private houses are decorated with depictions of Jesus, Mary, saints, and biblical scenes. For centuries, the Christian faith and its institutions shaped everyday life throughout Europe, and Innsbruck—as a residence city of the strictly Catholic Habsburgs and the capital of the self-proclaimed Holy Land of Tyrol—was particularly richly endowed with ecclesiastical buildings. In terms of number and scale relative to the conditions of earlier times, churches appear as gigantic features in the cityscape. In the 16th century, Innsbruck, with its approximately 5,000 inhabitants, possessed several churches whose splendor and size surpassed every other building, including the palaces of the aristocracy. Wilten Abbey was a vast complex in the midst of a small farming village that had developed around it.

The spatial dimensions of these places of worship reflect their importance within the political and social structure. For many inhabitants of Innsbruck, the Church was not only a moral authority but also a secular landowner. The Bishop of Brixen was formally equal in rank to the territorial prince. Peasants worked on the bishop’s estates just as they did on those of a secular ruler. The clergy exercised both taxation and judicial authority over their subjects, and ecclesiastical landowners were often regarded as particularly demanding. At the same time, it was also the clergy in Innsbruck who were largely responsible for social welfare, healthcare, care for the poor and orphans, food distribution, and education. The Church’s influence extended into the material world in a way comparable to how the modern state operates today through tax offices, police, schools, and employment services. What democracy, parliament, and the market economy represent for us today, bishops, the Bible, Christian devotional literature, and parish priests represented for people of earlier centuries: a reality that maintained order.

It would be incorrect to believe that all clergymen were cynical power-hungry figures who exploited their uneducated subjects. The majority of both clergy and nobility were devout and God-fearing, albeit in a manner that is difficult to comprehend from today’s perspective. It was not the case that every superstition was blindly accepted or that people were arbitrarily executed based on anonymous accusations. In the early modern period, violations of religion and morals were tried before secular courts and punished severely. Charges were brought under the term heresy, which encompassed a wide range of offenses. Sodomy—meaning any sexual act not serving reproduction—sorcery, witchcraft, and blasphemy, in short any deviation from the correct faith, could be punished by burning. The act of burning was intended both to purify the condemned and to destroy them and their sinful behavior completely, thereby removing evil from the community. For a long time, the Church regulated everyday social life down to the smallest details. Church bells structured people’s daily schedules. Their sound called people to work or worship, or informed the community of a death through tolling. People were able to distinguish individual bell signals and their meanings. Sundays and holidays structured time. Fasting days regulated diet. Family life, sexuality, and individual behavior were expected to conform to Church-prescribed morality. For many people, salvation in the afterlife was more important than happiness on earth, which was seen as predetermined by the course of time and divine will. Purgatory, the Last Judgment, and the torments of hell were real and served to frighten and discipline even adults.

While parts of the Innsbruck bourgeoisie were at least gently awakened by Enlightenment ideas after the Napoleonic Wars, the majority of the population remained committed to a mixture of conservative Catholicism and superstitious popular piety. Religiosity was not necessarily a matter of origin or social class, as repeatedly demonstrated by social, media, and political conflicts along the fault line between liberals and conservatives. Although freedom of religion was legally enshrined in the December Constitution of 1867, the state and religion remained closely linked. The Wahrmund Affair, which originated at the University of Innsbruck in the early 20th century and spread throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was just one of many examples of the influence the Church exercised well into the 1970s. Shortly before the First World War, this political crisis, which would affect the entire monarchy, began in Innsbruck. Ludwig Wahrmund (1861–1932) was Professor of Canon Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Innsbruck. Originally selected by the Tyrolean governor to strengthen Catholicism at what was considered an overly liberal university, Wahrmund was a proponent of enlightened theology. Unlike conservative representatives in the clergy and politics, reform Catholics viewed the Pope as a spiritual leader but not as a secular authority. In Wahrmund’s view, students should reduce the gap and tensions between Church and modernity rather than cement them. Since 1848, divisions between liberal-national, socialist, conservative, and reform-oriented Catholic interest groups and parties had deepened. Greater German nationalist-minded Innsbruck citizens oriented themselves toward the modern Prussian state under Chancellor Bismarck, who sought to curtail the influence of the Church or subordinate it to the state. One of the fiercest fault lines ran through the education and higher education system, centered on the question of how the supernatural practices and views of the Church—still influential in universities—could be reconciled with modern science. Liberal and Catholic students despised one another and repeatedly clashed. Until 1906, Wahrmund was a member of the Leo Society, which aimed to promote science on a Catholic basis, before becoming chairman of the Innsbruck local branch of the Association for Free Schools, which advocated complete de-clericalization of the education system. He evolved from a reform Catholic into an advocate of a complete separation of Church and state. His lectures repeatedly attracted the attention of the authorities. Fueled by the media, the culture war between liberal German nationalists, conservatives, Christian Socials, and Social Democrats found an ideal projection surface in the person of Ludwig Wahrmund. What followed were riots, strikes, brawls between student fraternities of different political orientations, and mutual defamation among politicians. The “Away from Rome” movement of the German radical Georg Ritter von Schönerer (1842–1921) collided on the stage of the University of Innsbruck with the political Catholicism of the Christian Socials. German nationalist academics were supported by the likewise anti-clerical Social Democrats and by Mayor Greil, while the Tyrolean provincial government sided with the conservatives. The Wahrmund Affair reached the Imperial Council as a culture-war debate. For the Christian Socials, it was a “struggle of liberal-minded Jewry against Christianity,” in which “Zionists, German culture warriors, Czech and Ruthenian radicals” presented themselves as an “international coalition,” a “liberal ring of Jewish radicalism and radical Slavic movements.” Wahrmund, on the other hand, in the generally heated atmosphere, referred to Catholic students as “traitors and parasites.” When Wahrmund had one of his speeches printed in 1908, in which he questioned God, Christian morality, and Catholic veneration of saints, he was charged with blasphemy. After further, sometimes violent assemblies on both conservative and anti-clerical sides, student riots, and strikes, university operations even had to be suspended temporarily. Wahrmund was first placed on leave and later transferred to the German University in Prague. Even in the First Republic, the connection between Church and state remained strong. Ignaz Seipel, a Christian Social politician known as the “Iron Prelate,” rose in the 1920s to the highest office of the state. Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss viewed his corporative state as a construct based on Catholicism and as a bulwark against socialism. After the Second World War, Church and politics in Tyrol were still closely linked in the persons of Bishop Rusch and Chancellor Wallnöfer. Only then did a serious separation begin. Faith and the Church still have a fixed place in the everyday life of Innsbruck’s residents, even if often unnoticed. Church withdrawals in recent decades have dented official membership numbers, and leisure events are better attended than Sunday Mass. Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church still owns extensive land in and around Innsbruck, including outside the walls of monasteries and educational institutions. Numerous schools in and around Innsbruck are also influenced by conservative forces and the Church. And anyone who enjoys a public holiday, taps Easter eggs together, or lights a candle on a Christmas tree does not need to be Christian to act—disguised as tradition—in the name of Jesus.