Provincial vocational school / Tyrolean vocational school
Mandelsbergerstrasse 16
Worth knowing
After the Wilten district had continued to grow since the end of the 1920s and had expanded to the west, the city had to follow suit with its infrastructure. During the construction of the Mandelsbergerblocks architect Theodor Prachensky had planned a kindergarten, but it was never realised. Ten years later, a primary school was to be built directly opposite this residential complex.
Immediately after the National Socialists came to power, Wilhelm Stigler (1903 - 1976), an SS member from the very beginning and loyal party member, was commissioned with the planning. The talented Stigler had won the tender for the construction of the Theresienkirche on the Hungerburg with his architectural office in Saggen. In 1940, he was also entrusted with the planning for the Messerschmitt housing estate in Kematen and projects for the South Tyrolean Optanten. After the war, he was given further major projects of all kinds in Tyrol to plan, after having to endure almost two years in prison as part of the denazification process.
In keeping with the style of the time, Stigler planned a double primary school in which boys and girls would be taught in one building but in separate halves. He had no luck with this project either. This time it was the war that led to a halt in construction, as the funds were used elsewhere. The project was halted at the latest after the air raids on Innsbruck.
After the war, the French occupying forces used the half-finished building as troop accommodation. Only at the end of the occupation in 1956 was it used as a school building after brief renovation and adaptation, although not as a primary school. To this day, the former Mandelsbergerstraße provincial vocational school, now the Tyrolean vocational school, is an important training centre for apprentices from various sectors.
This is reflected in the architecture. Behind the arcades in the entrance area, a mural 22 metres long and six metres high shines in vibrant colours. Tyrol is represented by castles and a mountain panorama, Innsbruck by city and church towers, the cathedral and St Anne's Column. Above all, however, the picture depicts some of the typical professions of the 1950s. The gender roles depicted are particularly interesting. Blacksmith, electrician and painter are juxtaposed with photographer and seamstress. The mosaic on the right-hand wall of the house shows the path from apprentice to master builder, who lets a city symbolising Innsbruck grow towards the mountain peak and the sun.
Fritz Berger (1916 - 2002) and Emmerich Kerle (1916 - 2010), who were responsible for the design of these pictures as part of the post-1949 Art on the building left behind many works in public spaces in Tyrol.
The small park in front of the school, which is now densely overgrown with trees, is home to the statue erected in 1962 May flute player by Josef Bachlechner (1921 - 1979). In Greek mythology, the flute symbolised the longing for the past. The barefoot boy with his May whistleThe "Tyrolean Tradition", an instrument handmade by Tyrolean farmers and shepherds, represents the need of the majority of survivors of the horrors of the Second World War for an intact past and idealised Tyrolean tradition.
Art in architecture: the post-war period in Innsbruck
After the end of the war, US troops controlled the occupied Tyrol for two months. France, the victorious power, then took over the administration. Initially hostile towards the occupying power - yet another war had been lost - the scepticism of the people of Innsbruck gradually faded. Innsbruck was lucky to have the French under Emile Bethouart as the occupying power, as they were very lenient towards the former enemy and were friendly and open-minded towards the Tyrolean culture and population.
The soldiers were particularly popular with children because of the chocolates and sweets they handed out. Many people got jobs within the French administration. Many a Tyrolean saw dark-skinned people for the first time thanks to the soldiers in uniform. On Emile Bethouart footbridgeThe memorial plaque on the river Inn, which connects St. Nikolaus and the city centre, is a good expression of the relationship between the occupation and the population:
"Arrived as a winner.
Remained as a protector.
Returned home as a friend."
The supply situation was very poor, especially in the city in the immediate post-war period. Many Innsbruck residents travelled to the surrounding villages to hoard. Those who had money paid sometimes utopian prices to the farmers, those who didn't had to beg for food. The situation only changed somewhat with the introduction of food ration stamps.
The housing situation was at least as bad. An estimated 30,000 Innsbruck residents were homeless, living in cramped conditions with relatives or in shanty towns such as the former labour camp in Reichenau, in the swampy Höttinger Au or the Bocksiedlung. There are few reminders of the disastrous state Innsbruck was in after the air raids of the last years of the war in the first years after the war. Tens of thousands of citizens helped to clear rubble and debris from the streets. Maria-Theresien-Straße, Museumstraße, the Bahnhofsviertel, Wilten and Pradlerstraße would probably have been much more attractive if the holes in the streetscape had not had to be quickly filled in order to create living space for the many homeless and returnees as quickly as possible.
Although many of the buildings erected from the 1950s onwards are not very attractive architecturally, they do house interesting works of art. From 1949 there was a project in Austria Art on the building. In the case of buildings realised by the state, 2% of the total expenditure was to flow into artistic design. The implementation of the building law and thus also the administration of the budgets was then, as now, the responsibility of the federal states. Artists were to be financially supported through these public commissions. The idea first emerged in 1919 during the Weimar Republic and was continued by the National Socialists from 1934.
Austria took up art in architecture after the war to design public spaces as part of the reconstruction programme. The Tyrolean artists entrusted with designing the artworks were selected in competitions. The best known of these is probably Max Weiler, perhaps the most prominent artist in Tyrol in the post-war period, who was responsible for the frescoes in the Theresienkirche on the Hungerburg in Innsbruck, among other things. Other prominent names include Helmut Rehm (1911 - 1991), Walter Honeder (1906 - 2006), Fritz Berger (1916 - 2002) and Emmerich Kerle (1916 - 2010).
The artists' biographies were not only characterised by the Innsbruck trade school (note: today's HTL Trenkwalderstraße) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna as a common denominator, but also by the shared experience of National Socialism. Fritz Berger had lost his right arm and one eye during the war and had to learn to work with his left hand. Emmerich Kerle was taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna by Josef Müllner, among others, an artist who had made his mark on art history with busts of Adolf Hitler, Siegfried from the Nibelungen saga and the Karl Lueger monument in Vienna, which remains controversial to this day. Kerle served in Finland as a war painter.
Wie ein großer Teil der Tiroler Bevölkerung wollten auch Politiker, Beamte und die Künstler nach den harten und leidvollen Kriegsjahren Ruhe und Frieden, um Gras über das Geschehen der letzten Jahrzehnte wachsen zu lassen. Das Befreiungsdenkmal am Platz vor dem ehemaligen Gauhaus am heutigen Landhausplatz war dafür nicht ideal.
Die im Rahmen von Kunst am Bau entstandenen Werke reflektieren diese Haltung. Märchen, Sagen, religiöse Symbole waren beliebte Motive, die auf den Sgraffitos, Mosaiken, Wandbildern und Statuen verewigt wurden. Noch 1955 betrachtete sich jeder zweite Österreicher als Deutscher. Die Kunst sollte ein neues Bewusstsein und Bild des typisch österreichischen schaffen. Die unterschiedlich ausgeführten Motive zeigen Freizeitaktivitäten, Kleidungsstile und Vorstellungen der sozialen Ordnung und gesellschaftlichen Normen der Nachkriegszeit. Frauen wurden häufig in Tracht und Dirndl, Männer in Lederhosen dargestellt. Geschlechterrollen wurden in der Kunst verarbeitet. Fleißig arbeitende Väter, brave Ehefrauen, die sich um Haus und Herd kümmerten und Kinder, die in der Schule eifrig lernen waren das Idealbild bis weit in die 1970er Jahre.
The problem with this strategy of suppression was that no one took responsibility for what had happened, even if there was great enthusiasm and support for National Socialism, especially at the beginning. Shame about what had happened since 1938 and during the years of Austrian politics was mixed with the fear of being treated as a war culprit by the occupying powers USA, Great Britain, France and the USSR in a similar way to 1918. A climate arose in which no one, neither those involved nor the following generation, spoke about what had happened. Trauma and shame prevented people from coming to terms with the past for a long time. There was hardly a family that did not have at least one member with a less than glorious history between 1933 and 1945.
Der Mythos von Österreich als erstem Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, der erst mit der Affäre Waldheim in den 1980er Jahren langsam zu bröckeln begann, war geboren. Polizisten, Lehrer, Richter – sie alle wurden trotz ihrer politischen Gesinnung an ihrem Platz gelassen. Die Gesellschaft brauchte sie, um am Laufen zu bleiben.
One example with a strong connection to Innsbruck is the life of the doctor Burghard Breitner (1884-1956). He grew up in Mattsee in a well-to-do middle-class household. Villa Breitner was home to a museum dedicated to the German nationalist poet Josef Viktor Scheffel, whom his father greatly admired. After leaving grammar school, Breitner decided against a career in literature in favour of studying medicine. He then decided to do his military service and began his career as a doctor. In 1912/13 he served as a military doctor in the Balkan War. In 1914, he was sent to the Eastern Front, where he was taken prisoner of war by the Russians. It was not until 1920 that he was recognised as a hero and "Angel of Siberia" returned to Austria from the prison camp. In 1932, he began his career at the University of Innsbruck. In 1938, Breitner was faced with the problem that, due to his paternal grandmother's Jewish background, he had to take the "Great Aryan proof" could not provide. However, thanks to his good relationship with the Rector of Innsbruck University and important National Socialists, he was ultimately able to continue working at the university hospital. During the Nazi regime, Breitner was responsible for forced sterilisations and "Voluntary emasculation", even though he probably did not personally carry out any of the operations. After the war, he managed to wriggle through the denazification process with some difficulty. In 1951, he was nominated as a candidate for the federal presidential election by the VDU, a political organisation for former National Socialists. Breitner became Rector of the University of Innsbruck in 1952. After his death, the city of Innsbruck dedicated a grave of honour to him at Innsbruck West Cemetery. In Reichenau, a street is dedicated to him in the immediate vicinity of the site of the former concentration camp.
To this day, National Socialism and the post-war period are hardly a topic in Innsbruck's cityscape. A bronze plaque unveiled in 1972 at the former headquarters of the Gestapo in Herrengasse, Landhausplatz and a memorial in Reichenau on the site of the former labour camp are three of the sparsely populated places of remembrance, whereby Landhausplatz, with the exception of the menorah as a memorial to the November pogroms, is hardly perceived as such.
Wer den Tiroler Kunstkataster durchforstet und aufmerksam durch die Stadt geht, findet viele der noch heute sichtbaren Kunstwerke auf Häusern in Pradl und Wilten. Besonders schöne Beispiele finden sich an den Fassaden in der Pacherstraße, der Hunoldstraße, der Ing.-Thommenstraße, am Innrain, der Landesberufsschule Mandelsbergerstraße oder im Innenhof zwischen Landhausplatz und Maria-Theresienstraße