There was already a bridge over the Sill in the early modern period. This was the beginning of the fortified Fürstenwegwhich led all the way to Ambras Castle. The northern part of this early north-south connection is today's Pradlerstraße. A look at the history of this small area tells the story of Innsbruck's development between the 16th and 20th centuries. Throughout the Middle Ages and early modern times, Pradl was one of many small farming villages that supplied the city of Innsbruck with food. The main features of some of the farms have been preserved to this day.

The lovingly renovated façades are well worth seeing. The northern façade of the house at Pradlerstraße 9 on the corner of Reichenauerstraße shows the Mariahilf-Gnadenmuttera copy of Lukas Cranach's painting of Our Lady of Grace, the original of which hangs in Innsbruck Cathedral. This house was also the birthplace of the writer Rudolf Greinz (1866 - 1942), whose Tyrolean local history novels were so popular with readers that a street was named after him in Pradl during his lifetime. The building at number 13 is a baroque, two-storey farmhouse with typical religious rural paintings by Rafael Thaler (1870 - 1947). Opposite is a farmhouse dating back to 1690 according to the gable inscription. The Tyrolean food company Hörtnagl originates from the Hörtnaglhoftoday house number 20, which dates back to the 16th century.

Built in 1865 and extended in 1913 to include the baroque statue of St Florian, the Florianibrunnencreates a small square in the centre of this composition. If you turn eastwards from here into Egerdachstraße, you come to other farmhouses that once made up the old Pradl. The Stamserhof in Hausnummer 10 und der Lodronische Hof in number 11 date back to the 16th century. In the Lodronischen Hof had the Pradler Bauerntheater its place with pieces like Der letzte Rottenburger oder die Tochter des Geächteten Innsbrucker or stagings of the Tyrolean fight for freedom in 1809 attracted many city dwellers to rural Pradl.

As the city expanded, the farmhouses were gradually surrounded by modern apartment blocks and housing estates. This was accompanied by social tensions between the new workers and the "native" Pradlers. Even before Pradl was united with Innsbruck in 1904, large employers such as the Rhomberg silk spinning mill and the gas works had already settled here. Bakeries, butchers, small shops and restaurants opened. Houses and flats were needed for the employees and workers. Between the junctions of Amthorstraße/Pradlerstraße and Gumppstraße/Pradlerstraße there are some remarkable buildings.

House number 32 was the home and workshop of Rafael Thaler, a restorer and artist who was responsible for many façade paintings and frescoes in the Heimatstil style in and around Innsbruck. The building is decorated with his own works. House number 36 is adorned with a depiction of the wine merchant Benedikt Fritz. House number 38 is a marvellous example of the Heimatstil, which was characteristic of Innsbruck's architecture at the time. The wall painting of this corner house, also by Rafael Thaler, depicts two female figures who Trade und Trade represent. The bon mot underneath was an expression of the owners' new bourgeois, but still conservative, self-image.

„Arbeit ist des Bürgers Zierde,

Segen ist der Mühe Preis,

ehrt den König seine Würde,

ehret uns der Hände Fleiß“

As Pradl grew, a new district centre developed between the farmhouses to the north and the residential buildings to the south of Pradlerstrasse around the landmarks of the Pradl extension, the Leitgebule school and the parish church. The growing population not only needed to be provided with work, but also with education and pastoral care. The Leitgebschule was built between 1907 and 1908 according to plans by Eduard Klingler. It was named after the Innsbruck writer Josef Leitgeb (1897 - 1952), whose stories and poems provide an insight into Austria's turbulent interwar period. At first glance, the bulky and sober cube appears surprisingly light, almost classicist in its details on closer inspection.

Where the Leitgebhalle stands today, there was already a small chapel from the late 17th century, built around the copy of Lukas Cranach's Mother of mercy was built from the house where Rudolf Greinz was born. In the 19th century, this church had become too small to accommodate the many new souls in Pradl. The Pradl church was built between 1905 and 1908. The lion portal is impressive. The round, Romanesque arches that characterise the building are very unusual, as churches of this era were mostly built in the neo-Gothic style. A small Christmas market is held on the square in front of the church every year on the Saturday of the first weekend of Advent.

The Gründerzeit houses, turn-of-the-century tenements and old farmhouses are interspersed with many more recent housing projects. Because of its proximity to the railway station, Pradlerstrasse was a victim of the air war. The bronze signs with the inscription

„Dieses Haus wurde in den Kriegsjahren 1939/45 zerstört und aus Fondsmitteln des Bundesministeriums f. Handel u. Wiederaufbau in den Jahren unter dem Bundeskanzler Ing. Julius Raab wiederhergestellt.“

indicate this destruction and the subsequent reconstruction. In the post-war period, Pradl developed into a typical residential neighbourhood for Innsbruck's middle class.

Since the 1990s, Pradlerstrasse has suffered the typical fate of city centre districts in Europe. Long-established commercial and retail businesses are no longer being taken over, new shops often open only to close again shortly afterwards. Shopping is no longer done locally, but in the shopping centres on the outskirts of the city or in Sillpark. Traffic from the 1960s onwards also contributed to this. During the Bavarian occupation at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the street was adorned with papules on both sides. The avenue was poorly maintained, especially in the financially straitened interwar period, and fell into noticeable disrepair. When the road was widened in the 1960s, the trees were finally sacrificed to car traffic, which for some years now people have been keen to curb again in order to make the street more attractive.

Innsbruck and its population, like the rest of the Republic of Austria, were trapped in crisis and poverty after the loss of the First World War. It was only after the granting of the League of Nations loan, the end of galloping inflation and the introduction of the schilling as the new currency that new housing and infrastructure projects could be tackled again. In the rapidly growing district of Pradl, from 1926 the PembaurblockThe Renner School and the municipal kindergarten are three pioneering buildings for urban planning.

Jakob Albert (1880 - 1974) and Theodor Prachensky played a key role in the planning and realisation of these projects. The architecture and design of the flats, the school and the kindergarten demonstrated the dawn of a new era in the areas of family, education and child rearing. Whereas a few years earlier, towards the end of the monarchy, the church had played a key role in establishing this infrastructure in Mariahilf, in the First Republic the state and the municipality now took over these tasks.

In the period between the turn of the century and the 1920s, architecture had changed in step with politics and society, at least in Prachensky's eyes. With his architecture, he wanted to symbolically shake off the hierarchical social structure of the monarchy. The Pembaurblock followed the social housing programme of the social democratically governed federal capital Vienna, which was held in low esteem in the conservative-oriented federal states. Unlike a few years later in the Dollfußsiedlung im Westen Innsbrucks, wo einzelne Häuser das traditionelle Landleben, zumindest die Idealvorstellung davon, imitieren sollten, war der Block zweckmäßig im Stil der Neuen Sachlichkeit was planned. If you look at the western side of the building, the difference to the older houses adjoining the block becomes particularly apparent.

The houses between Pembaurstrasse, Amthorstrasse and Pestalozzistrasse housed more than 100 flats, which made the Pembaurblock into one of the largest residential complexes in Innsbruck at the time. Not only the number, but also the quality of the flats was revolutionary. Above all, running water, a bathroom and toilet were not a matter of course in the 1920s. Each unit had a kitchen-living room, a room in the bay window and usually an additional room. While the small flat in the Saggen slaughterhouse block was 54 m², the Pembaur block was 65 m².

Typical of the social housing of the 1920s, the four-storey block was designed in a fortress-like manner around an inner courtyard that was accessible through several entrances. A public footpath ran between the two entrances and crossed the courtyard. The paddling pool and sandpit for the children were lowered and thus separated from the adult world as if in a separate protected zone. The corners of the residential complex look like towers. In keeping with socialist urban planning, shops are housed here today. The Höttinger Breccie, the building material of the old town houses and the Triumphpforte, was intended to give the apartment block a typical Innsbruck flavour. Prachensky would later create a similar design for the apartment block commissioned by the National Socialists. Südtirolersiedlung in Wilten. The façade is accentuated by bay windows, another characteristic that links it to Innsbruck's Gothic historic centre.

To this day, statues are enthroned above the entrances to the inner courtyard to commemorate the revolutionary achievement of mother counselling at the time. Mother counselling was a social initiative launched by the Social Democrats during the First Republic (1918 - 1938). The Viennese doctor and politician Julius Tandler wanted the changed social circumstances after the end of the war to be implemented in the consideration of children, young people, the role of women and the family in politics and people's everyday lives. His credo was: "Wer Kindern Paläste baut, reißt Kerkermauern nieder". The mother counselling centres were to be the starting point for a new style of parenting and for better infant and child health. From the cradle to the grave, the secular state, no longer the church, was to take over the care of its citizens.

You get the best impression of the municipal indoor swimming pool when you approach it from the south. The cuboid individual parts make the building look like a small castle. The pool was built in 1928 according to plans by Fritz Konzert, who was also responsible for the planning of the Municipal steam bath in the Salurnerstraße. In the decades before the construction of the municipal indoor swimming pool, sport had become a concern for more and more people living in the city. While the steam bath in Salurnerstraße near the railway station was designed in a playful Art Nouveau style, Konzert planned the municipal indoor pool in the style of the Neuen Sachlichkeit. Economic conditions also called for a simpler, more favourable approach, so a virtue was made of necessity. This form of architecture is characterised by smooth surfaces without decoration and angular, cube-shaped building elements.

The classicism of the turn of the century was the architecture of a bourgeoisie that had tried to imitate the nobility. After the war, many citizens blamed this aristocracy for the horrors on the battlefields of Europe. Even before the war, sport and the new leisure time had become the expression of a bourgeois self-image vis-à-vis the nobility. In the Republic of Austria, which was proclaimed in 1918, the nobility was banned. Aristocratic virtues such as the muse and an interest in classical antiquity had lost their lustre within a very short space of time. The architects of the post-war period wanted to distinguish themselves from previous generations in terms of appearance, while at the same time maximising the functionality of the buildings. Infrastructure should serve every citizen equally. Until the 1970s, the municipal indoor swimming pool was not only used as a sports facility. Many Innsbruck residents did not have running water in their homes. The indoor swimming pool had a large area with bathtubs where families could indulge in the luxury of personal hygiene.

The architecture of the municipal indoor swimming pool was designed to offer swimmers the opportunity to swim in accordance with the guiding principles of the reform movement "Light, air and sun" allow sunbathing on the flat roof and provide the pool with daylight through the large glass surfaces.

Light, air and sun was the motto of the Lebensreform, a collective movement of alternative lifestyles that began in Germany in the late 19th century in step with the development of social democracy. People wanted to distance themselves from what Max Weber described as the Protestant ethic, industry, time clocks and, in general, rapid technological progress with all its effects on people and the social fabric. People as individuals, not their economic performance, should once again take centre stage. This gave rise to vegetarianism, nudism, garden cities, various esoteric movements and other alternative lifestyles that have survived in one form or another to this day.

Josef Prachensky (1861 - 1931), the father of architect and town planner Theodor Prachensky, was a well-known Innsbruck representative of the Lebensreform and social democracy. He grew up in German-speaking Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a trained book printer, he discovered the labour movement during his wanderings in Vienna during the book printers' strike. After marrying a Tyrolean woman, he settled in Innsbruck, where he worked as an editor for the Social Democratic People's newspaper for Tyrol and Vorarlberg worked. Josef Prachensky supported the Arbeiter-Consum-Vereinwhich Tyrolean labourers' bakery and founded the catering business "Non-alcoholic", which aimed to improve general health in the spirit of the life reform movement and socialism. Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895), the co-author of the Communist Manifesto, had already recognised schnapps and brandy as an evil of the working class in the first half of the 19th century, as the world revolution could hardly be carried out by alcoholics. Prachensky was involved in the founding of the Tyrolean Social Democratic Party in 1890 and, after the First World War, in the founding of the Tyrolean Republican Defence League the left-wing counterpart to the right-wing Heimwehr organisations. One of his particular concerns was the restriction of the church on school education, which was still very high in the 19th and early 20th century, even in the actually liberal Innsbruck, which had to adhere to the national school regulations.

Like many buildings in Pradl, the municipal indoor swimming pool was also a victim of the air raids during the Second World War. After the war, the pool was remodelled. In 1969, a small pool for swimming beginners and a sauna were added. After several refurbishments in the 1980s and 2010s, the municipal indoor pool is now the flagship wellness centre of Innsbrucker Kommunalbetriebe. Various saunas, Kneipp pools and heat chambers attract those seeking relaxation in the new, modernly designed area of the facility, especially at weekends. The basic structure of the building's exterior and the large, light-flooded swimming hall with the competition pool, topped by a gallery, have been preserved in their original style. The listed building offers maximum enjoyment with modern furnishings in the chic style of the 1920s

Innsbrucks einziges bis heute erhaltenes Steinhaus was planned in 1885 by Josef Nigler for the Innsbruck industrialist Alois Epp (1845 - 1896). Where only the listed Villa Epp stands today, there used to be a whole ensemble of buildings. Alois Epp's residence was adjoined by his soap factory and canteen for the workers. In the Wilhelminian era, it was not unusual for the owner of the factory to live close to the production site. The situation was similar at the Weyrer factory, which was built during the same period in what is now Mühlau. The villa in the form of a rough stone block is slightly protected from the road by a tree, the façade to the north is wildly overgrown. The villa looks like the setting for a creepy house. Although the building was badly damaged in an air raid, it was rebuilt 1:1 in the style of a Renaissance palazzo. Even the original material, the tuff stone blocks, were procured from the demolished fortress in Kufstein.

At least as interesting as the building is the history of its owner's family, which is closely linked to 19th century Innsbruck. Alois' father Joseph Epp (1810 - 1878) ran a soap boiling business in Innsbruck, where candles and oil lamps were produced alongside soaps. In 1851, when Alois was six years old, his father was sentenced to several years in prison for counterfeiting money. He wanted to use the sensational crime to reorganise the ailing factory. After completing his schooling in Merano and Innsbruck, Alois went to Stuttgart in 1861 to learn the trade needed to take over his father's soap factory. Back in Tyrol, he began to contribute new ideas to the newly opened soap factory. Together with the cotton spinning mill and the gas works, the company was the main driving force behind the growth of the Pradl district in the 19th century.

The times were just as turbulent as Epp's character and he did not stay in Innsbruck for long. In 1866, he took part in the Italian campaign of the Imperial and Royal Army with the Innsbruck Rifle Company. Army in Cusano, in which the Austrian Empire had to surrender the majority of its Italian possessions despite victorious battles. Epp was wounded in the fighting. After his return from the war, he joined the volunteer fire brigade and was instrumental in establishing the provincial fire brigade association and setting up a fund for injured firefighters. In 1873, Epp published the book "Über Feuerlöschwesen". However, internal disputes led him to withdraw from the association.

In the same year, there was an economic crisis in Europe, the so-called "Gründerkrach", which also severely affected companies in Innsbruck. The Epp´sche Seifenfabrik But even this difficulty was overcome thanks to Epp's innovative creations such as the fragrances König Laurins Rosengarten survive.

In 1885, Epp returned to the ranks of the Floriani disciples, but this time with political backing. In the meantime, he was not only the owner of the soap factory and an important employer in Pradl, but also a member of the Innsbruck municipal council, which was orientated towards Greater Germany. In 1890, the father of six children was appointed chairman of the Deutsch-Tirolischen Feuerwehr was elected. Innsbruck was given a professional fire brigade in 1899 under Wilhelm Greil.

Epp died aged just 51, probably due to his immense workload for the factory, politics and family. The perfumery Nägele&Strubell in der Schlossergasse, geht zurück auf die Parfümerie Epp, die als Handelsniederlassung für die Waren aus der Fabrik diente.

Der Alte Militärfriedhof in Pradl liegt heute inmitten eines ruhigen Wohngebietes zwischen Anzengruberstraße und Resselstraße. Die Anlage des Friedhofs erfolgte 1831 auf Geheiß des kaiserlichen Hofkriegsrates, der Vorgängerorganisation des K.u.K. Kriegsministeriums. Wie auch in den vergangenen Jahrhunderten sollte der Friedhof an den Rand der Stadt verlegt werden, die freie Fläche zwischen Pradl und Amras bot sich an. 1844 wurde die Mauer um den Friedhof errichtet, nachdem zuvor lediglich ein Wall die Gräber schützte. Auch die Kapelle wurde in diesem Jahr errichtet. Während des 1. Weltkriegs wurde der Pradler Friedhof zu klein für die Anzahl der Opfer, weshalb der Militärfriedhof in Amras neu angelegt wurde. Seit 1918 steht der Friedhof im Besitz der Republik Österreich. 1933 wurde die Anlage unter Denkmalschutz gestellt. Die erhaltenen Grabsteine reichen weit in der Zeit zurück.

The significance of the military had changed since the time of Maria Theresa. The military had become a social factor that increased in importance. Military service opened up career opportunities for subjects. The reputation and importance of soldiers and officers among the population was very different to today, where military service is perceived by the majority of people as a burdensome duty. Fulfilling one's patriotic duty in the field was seen as the fulfilment of honour, especially among the minor nobility and the upper middle classes. In the course of the 18th century, young lads from rural areas who fell through the cracks as a result of the law of inheritance, which provided for peasant estates to be passed on undivided, were able to make a career for themselves and earn social prestige.

A glance at the list of armed conflicts that took place between the founding of the Austrian Empire in 1806 and the First World War shows that peace was only a brief interruption to the state of war in each case. Considering that the responsible authority is no longer Hofkriegsrat, sondern Verteidigungsministerium heißt, kann man erahnen, wie sehr sich die Vorstellungen rund um Krieg und Militär seit den beiden Weltkriegen zum Glück gewandelt haben. Wer einen Spaziergang durch den alten Pradler Militärfriedhof unternimmt, entdeckt nicht nur interessant gestaltete Gräber, sondern auch sich durch die Zeit wandelnde Formulierungen für den lange Zeit romantisch verklärten „Heldentod“ für Gott, Kaiser und Vaterland.

The military cemetery in Amras is a little-noticed monument to the most important chapters of 20th century European history in the Innsbruck cityscape. The cemetery was established in 1917 during the First World War, when there were too many war victims for the Old Pradl Military Cemetery. As was customary at all times, the cemetery was laid out as far away from the city centre as possible. At that time, Amras was still an independent municipality and not part of Innsbruck. 5,680 soldiers and war victims of many nations are buried here, many of whom died in military hospitals. The location of the military cemetery was also practical, as since 1911 the Conrad barracks with a military hospital just a few minutes' walk to the south. Most Tyrolean men know this building from the military muster, often the first encounter outside of school with the state authorities in a young man's life.

The different parts of the complex are particularly interesting. The eastern entrance to the military cemetery is decorated with a wrought-iron emblem of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy with the coats of arms of Hungary and Austria, the two parts of the Dual Monarchy, even though the motto is Indivisibiliter et InseperabiliterThe term "indivisible and inseparable" has no longer applied since the end of the war. Behind it, the Italian section of the cemetery welcomes visitors with a large stone monument by the Italian sculptor Natale Tommasi.

As a Trentino, Tommasi had still been a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the war, but after the war he became an Italian. He worked as a restorer and architect in several parts of the Habsburg Empire, such as Trieste and Pula, before moving to Innsbruck in 1898, where he also designed the main post office in Maximilianstraße. He was honoured for his work by the Pope as well as being awarded the Austrian Franz-Joseph-Orden honoured. Tommasi's biography is one of many that suffered a caesura during the political turmoil of the First World War and the collapse of the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This part of the Amras military cemetery can also be read in this sense. Innsbruck was occupied by troops of the victorious Kingdom of Italy after the First World War. In Italian, German and Latin, the memorial designed by Tommasi commemorates the 618 Italians, 178 Austrians and 2 French victims of the fighting between 1914 and 1918 as well as the 20 Italian victims of the Second World War who lie in this part of the cemetery. The crown and the Savoy knot on the monument symbolise the rule of the Italian royal family. For centuries, it was the Habsburgs who had left their mark on large parts of Italy, but now the tables had turned.

The Tyrolean section of the cemetery adjoins the Italian section to the west. In addition to fallen soldiers from the First World War, there are also graves of honour from the Napoleonic Wars of 1796-97 and 1799, many of which have come a long way. When the local war cemetery in Stams, a town 40 km west of Innsbruck, had to make way for the newly built motorway in 1983, the graves were moved to Innsbruck. The following year, 175 years after the Tyrolean uprising of 1809, a new altar was consecrated next to these graves. Most of the wrought-iron crosses were probably mass-produced at the time, but today they look like small works of art. It is interesting to see how many nations men from back then fought for the Austrian monarchy in the war of defence against Napoleon. Unknown soldiers also found their final resting place here.

At the back is the men's pieta "Monument to the unnamed buried" by sculptor Eduard Föderl (1909 - 1974) is a controversial work of art. During the Austrofascist era, this stone composition was created to commemorate the fallen of the First World War. It symbolises heroic suffering and sacrifice during the war by placing the heroic death of a soldier for the fatherland on a par with the death of Jesus on the cross. It was intended as a gift from the city of Vienna to Budapest. At the time, both Austria and Hungary modelled themselves on Mussolini's fascist Italy, where many similarly designed war memorials still stand in public spaces today. The handover failed in 1938 due to the National Socialist takeover. In 1953, the monument was moved to Innsbruck after no place could be found for it in Soviet-occupied Vienna. Around the year 2000, the Männerpieta was moved to the building yard and restored. In 2023, the statue, which is controversial due to its symbolism of heroic death for the fatherland, was re-erected at the military cemetery.

Im westlichsten Teil der Anlage befinden sich der muslimische und sowjetische Soldatenfriedhof. Die Gräber der bosnisch-herzegowinischen Soldaten, die für die K.u.K. Monarchie im Ersten Weltkrieg kämpften, werden von kleinen, nach Osten hin orientierten Steinkegeln mit einem Fez verziert. Der russische Teil des Friedhofs wurde 1949 angelegt. Er erinnert an die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, die im Arbeitslager KZ Reichenau ihr Leben verloren. Im Zentrum befindet sich ein mit einem Stern verzierter Obelisk. Die Pflege sowjetischer Kriegsdenkmäler wurde nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg als Pflicht der Republik Österreich als Teil der Unabhängigkeit Österreichs als Bedingung der Sowjetunion festgelegt und gilt bis heute.

The Pradler cemetery, the largest in the city, and the crematorium are located to the north of the military cemetery. The complex was planned by Eduard Klingler in 1912. The funeral parlour and crematorium are enthroned like a small castle in front of Kaufmannstraße. The building looks as if it has been transported to Innsbruck from a Charles Dickens novel set in Victorian England. The entrance area was designed in the style of the time with neoclassical columns. Inside there is a depiction of Jesus being taken down from the cross. The peaceful manner of the mural is very different from the other baroque depictions common in Innsbruck, in which the suffering on the cross for Christianity is expressed.

Integrated into the cemetery wall on the south side opposite, the crypt chapel commemorates the fallen soldiers who were laid to rest here until 1917. It was designed by Theodor Prachensky. The interior of the chapel is a small work of art. The dark blue mosaic with gold bears the inscription: Gewidmet dem Andenken an die in diesem Friedhof beerdigten Opfer des Weltkriegs. An den Wänden finden sich Namenslisten, getrennt nach den Jahren ihres Dahinscheidens. Die Namen serbischen, rumänischen und montenegrinischen Gefallenen, also den Soldaten, die nicht Teil der k.u.k. Armee waren, wurden gesondert auf eigenen Tafeln vermerkt. Die Tafel auf der Außenmauer nach Süden hin zur Wiesengasse wird von einem Eichelkranz, einem Symbol des Großdeutschtums, geschmückt. Der Text darauf lautet:

„Vergesset nie, dass die Freiheit eurer Heimat nicht ein Geschenk des Himmels allein ist, sondern immer wieder mit schweren Blutopfern eurer Väter, Großväter und Ahnen gegen frevelhaften Zugriff fremder Machthaber verteidigt werden musste.“

The crematorium south of the military cemetery was only opened in Innsbruck in the noughties of this millennium. When the Enlightenment took hold of Europe's elites like a second Renaissance in the 18th and 19th centuries, more and more people began to question burial in the ground. It became fashionable to be cremated after death according to the ancient model. It was not only seen as sensible, space-saving and hygienic, but also had a touch of modernity about it. However, the Catholic Church did not approve of this unchristian, pagan, almost pagan type of burial for a very long time. In Innsbruck, it would be several centuries before it was possible to consign one's mortal remains to the flames.

If you turn into Philippine-Welser-Straße from the west, the large blocks of flats make it hard to believe that this was the original village of Amras. To this day, real Amras locals mockingly call the residents of the modern complexes "Zuagroaste“, „Blöckler" or "Stiegenhäusler". After a few metres, however, you can already see the farmhouses that characterise Amras as a rural village in the city. The street is named after Philippine Welser, the wife of Ferdinand II, who is still popular with the population today. The princess would have been delighted with the lush gardens in front of the Amras farmhouses, some of which look like small castles.

The façades and bay windows are decorated with Catholic motifs in the style of rural Baroque, which are embedded in rural Tyrolean life. The lavishly renovated farmhouses give an idea of how the modern farmers of Amras earned their living less from time-consuming field labour and more from the sale and management of real estate, which was granted to them by the 1848 land relief and has increased in value over the centuries. Particularly worth seeing are house numbers 85, 88 and 101. The recurring depiction of the "Amraser Gnadenmutter", a local variation on the veneration of the Madonna. According to legend, the Mother of mercy a child who had fallen out of a window. The princely parents then donated an image of the Mother of mercywhich has a special place in the folklore of the region and is a popular motif for Amras farmhouses. It is an example of legendary figures that combine with Christianity to form a particularly pious mixture.

The fresco above the entrance to the Amras parish church shows the Mother of mercy next to a Tyrolean marksman and a woman in traditional Tyrolean costume. The Amras parish church can be seen in the background. The depiction of the church from itself onto itself is a particular expression of Tyrolean popular piety that can be seen on several places of worship in the region. The depiction is intended to emphasise the image of the Holy Land Tyrol which is based on the covenant with the Sacred Heart of Jesus of 1796.

Another facade decoration worth seeing can be found on the church's warrior chapel. The depiction of the Last Judgement with saints, angels and devils leading the good citizens to paradise after their earthly life, while the bad ones are dragged into the pit of hell, is a wonderful example of the religious imagination of the Baroque Counter-Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Ambras Castle is the highlight of Renaissance culture in Innsbruck. Already in the early Middle Ages, a fortification stood on the site of today's Ambras Castle. The Counts of Andechs had built a castle, which was destroyed in 1133 during a feud between Otto II of Andechs and Duke Henry the Proud was destroyed by Bavaria. A new castle was built on its ruins in the 13th century, which had little in common with today's castle. It served as a defence structure above the Inn Valley.

The Tyrolean Prince Siegmund had the castle remodelled for his wife Katharina of Saxony. His successor Maximilian pledged the castle to Wilhelm Schurff (1484 - 1556), the brother of his truchsess.

Under Maximilian's great-grandson Ferdinand II, the castle was remodelled by court architect Lucchese into Ambras Castle in its current appearance. Innsbruck was to be in no way inferior to the princely courts of northern Italy that served as models in the Renaissance period. From 1564 onwards, Ferdinand had the high castle, the Spanischen Saal and a palace garden. Together with his wife Philippine Welser, Ferdinand used the new complex as a residential palace. Lavish parties were celebrated here. Aristocratic guests, often travelling through from the German lands to Italy, enjoyed his hospitality at Ambras Castle to the full. At great expense to himself and his guests, he organised lavish parties at Ambras Castle. Mottoparties with costumes and feasts in the spirit of the Renaissance. At the Bacchanalien the members had to empty huge cups of wine in one go to imitate the participants in the ancient symposia. The Bacchusgrotte opposite the high castle is a reminder of this. The garden, including the imposing waterfall, was also laid out as the court's own hunting ground under Ferdinand. The prince and his guests were able to go hunting in Ambras Castle right outside the front door. Lustjagd which was usually crowned with success thanks to the uneven distribution of chances in the rather manageable garden.

The nobility had the privilege of hunting at the discretion of the sovereign. After the change in the law under Maximilian I around 1500, hunting had become a kind of sport. Hunting deer and chamois was mostly reserved for the high aristocracy. The lesser nobility were allowed to hunt rabbits, roe deer and other smaller animals. The terms "big game" and "small game" originate from this custom.

Ferdinand housed his extensive art collection in the Lower Castle. The portraits, paintings, weapons, armour, musical instruments and scientific research objects were considered to be one of the largest collections in Europe in the 16th century. In the spirit of the late Renaissance, Ferdinand wanted to do justice to the universal claim to knowledge. His collection also bears witness to the influence that Jesuit scholars had at court and in education. Wunderkammer Ferdinand's collection provides an insight into his passion for research and collecting. Together with the art collection of the French King Francis I, from which the Louvre was to emerge, the papal collections and the collections publicly displayed in Florence on the Piazza della Signoria With its many works of art on display, some of which can be admired today in the Uffizi Gallery, Ferdinand's art collection was one of the first exhibitions that could be described as a museum. Ambras Castle was probably unique in terms of the scope and diversity of its artefacts.

The castle park in its current form of an English landscape garden was laid out in the 19th century. A stroll through the extensive grounds, laid out at different levels with bridges, waterfalls, a pond and peacocks, is very beautiful all year round.

In 1859, the castle underwent another renovation, during which parts were unfortunately treated rather carelessly. Walls, rooms and frescoes were lost forever.

Ambras Castle has been open to the public as a museum since 1880. Today it is managed by the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. The garden and museum are examples of the opening up of estates formerly reserved for the nobility. The violent revolution may not have taken place in Tyrol in 1848, but the bourgeois revolution took place in leisure behaviour. Places such as the Hofgarten and Ambras Castle, and later Mount Isel, were among the favourite destinations of Innsbruck residents for excursions and walks.

The last major remodelling work was carried out in 1922 and 1976.

The highlights of a visit to Ambras Castle are the armoury and the still extensive collection of paintings, the inner courtyard, the magnificent Spanische Saal, Philippine Welser's bathroom and the richly decorated St Nicholas Chapel from the 19th century. One of the many different themed tours of the palace with an expert guide or audio guide is highly recommended.

In the middle of the forest just above Ambras Castle lies the Tummelplatz burial and memorial site, which is well worth seeing and commemorates fallen soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars to the Second World War. The crosses and gravestones, some of which are of different ages and artistic designs, tell visitors the fates and stories of soldiers from different eras. The forest clearing takes its name from the horses of Ambras Castle, which were ridden here in front of the gates of the complex.

When the Napoleonic Wars raged in Tyrol from 1796 to 1815, the empty Ambras Castle was converted into a military hospital. Many of the deceased were buried on Tummelplatz. Ambras Castle also served as a hospital for the wounded during the wars of 1848, 1859 and 1866. Soldiers and five nurses who died at Ambras Castle were buried on Tummelplatz until 1856. The soldiers came from all the crown lands of the Habsburg Empire.

All kinds of eerie stories about the military cemetery were soon doing the rounds among the people of Innsbruck. After an apparition of the Virgin Mary and a miraculous healing, the cemetery became a place of pilgrimage. Today, the site is a valuable memorial for relatives of war victims who were buried far away on the battlefields of the world wars.

In total, there are six very differently designed chapels from different periods on Tummelplatz. At the eastern entrance is the chapel designed by Clemens Holzmeister and built under the direction of Theodor Prachensky in 1922. Kaiserschützenkapelle the visitor. The Tyrolean artist Alfons Walde designed the wall painting, which depicts two emperor marksmen on a large scale. The special thing about the Kaiserschützenkapelle, however, is a relic of the last emperor from the House of Habsburg. Karl von Habsburg was buried in Madeira in 2004, more than 80 years after his death, at the instigation of the Emperor Karl Prayer League was beatified under the presidency of the Archbishop of Vienna. The relic, a splinter of an imperial finger bone, was transferred to the Kaiserschützenkapelle in 2017 in the presence of Charles' last grandson and representatives of the Kaiserschützenbund, the Musikkapelle Wilten, the Tiroler Schützen and many high-ranking Tyrolean and Innsbruck politicians.

The most striking building is the Chapel of the Crosswhich was financed by donations in 1897. On 11 October of the year it was built, the Innsbrucker Nachrichten zu lesen:

„Auf der dem Tummelplatz zugekehrten Stirnseite ist der Eingang der Kapelle in gothischem Spitzbogen. Eine über dem Portale angebrachten Marmortafel verkündet die Widmung der Kapelle zur frommen Erinnerung an die in den Freiheitskämpfen von 1797 und 1809 gefallenen und hier begrabenen Krieger. Den oberen Teil des Giebels schmückt ein Rundfenster in Form eines Dreipasses. Überkrönt ist die ganze Stirnseite von einem als Thürmchen für 2 hellklingende Glöcklein verwendeten Dachreiter, der einen stilgerechten Abschluss bildet. … Im Schiffe der Kapelle ist an der Wand der Westseite neben dem Fenster eine Votivtafel aus Marmor in die Mauer eingelassen, deren Inschrift an das furchtbare Schicksal erinnert, welches beim Brande eines Wohltätigkeitsbazarss in Paris am 4. Mai 1897 die Herzogin Charlotte Augusta von Alencon ereilte.“

Die Fassade wurde während des Ersten Weltkriegs 1917 von Anton Kirchner gestaltet und zeigt Soldaten der Italienfront, die einen Holzsarg ziehen. Die Mater Dolorosa mit dem Leichnam Christi im Arm, bekniet von Schützen und Soldaten wacht über der gespenstischen Szene. Darunter findet sich ein martialisches Gedicht Anton Müllers (1870 – 1939), besser bekannt als Bruder Willram, der während des Ersten Weltkriegs mit seinen Schriften und Predigten zu Antisemitismus, Kriegshetze und Propaganda beitrug. Er verband die Erhebung von 1809, Tiroler Heldenmut, Kaisertreue und Katholizismus zu einem Bild, dem die Schlachten des industrialisierten Kriegs zwischen 1914 und 1918 wohl nicht entsprachen. Die erste Strophe lautet:

„Das war in herrlicher Väterzeit,

Da der Ahne sich dem Tod geweiht,

Als Opfer feindlicher Schergen,

Nun färbte der Enkel in seinem Blut,

den Staub der Väter mit heiliger Glut,

Auf unseren ewigen Bergen.“

Bei der Renovierung der Kapelle 1969 kam das Gemälde „Der auferstandene Heiland überwindet den Tod“ Anton Plattners im Innenraum hinzu. Neben diesen beiden Hauptkapellen stehen am Tummelplatz die Sokopfkapellewhich Lourdeskapelle, die Antoniuskapelle und die Josephkapelle. Studentenverbindungen, Berufsinnungen und Vereine erinnern mit Denkmälern am Tummelplatz ihren gefallenen Mitgliedern.

However, the Tummelplatz is more than just a national memorial. It serves as an international memorial site for war victims and as a memorial for the preservation of peace. The various monuments show how much the perspective on war and peace has changed since the times of the First World War, when a population influenced by propaganda was in favour of peace. Gott, Kaiser und Vaterland das eigene Leben am Feld der Ehre hinzugeben bereit war. Es bleibt zu hoffen, dass falsch verstandener Patriotismus auf Kreuzesinschriften wie „Dem Vaterland hab und Leben hinzugeben sind wir bereit" will forever be a thing of the past. Events are held at Christmas and other public holidays to commemorate the fallen. Thanks to its elevated position, the Tummelplatz also offers a fantastic view over Innsbruck with the Nordkette mountain range in the background.