Wilten & Sieglanger

Judging by archaeological finds, Wilten could be described as Innsbruck's nucleus. A large number of graves, wall remains, coins, pottery and water channels were unearthed during excavations between Mount Isel and the Olympic Bridge. After the Roman colonisation around the turn of the century, a military base was established in the area that is now Wilten. The Castell Veldidena developed into the settlement of Wilten, which was first documented in 806. Locus Wiltinaa village that provides evidence of the continuous settlement of this area.

After the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD, Tyrol slowly and insidiously came under the control of the Duchy of Bavaria. By 1180, when the Counts of Andechs began to establish the market on the southern bank of the Inn, from which Innsbruck was to emerge, Wilten had already been around for around 1000 years. By this time, however, Christianity and Wilten Abbey were already well established. The Bavarians were only too happy to take over this local administrative centre, both ecclesiastically and politically. With great foresight, Wilten Abbey had many special rights enshrined in treaties in return.

The city of Innsbruck was subsequently dependent on the municipality south of the city in many respects. This began with the energy supply. The Small SillThe canal, which was built in the High Middle Ages, supplied the town with water, which was essential for the town's trades. As the canal flowed through the lands of Wilten Abbey, the abbot had the power of disposal over the right of use until the 16th century, as he did over so many other things. Another special right of the abbey was the right to mill. In the Middle Ages, Innsbruck farmers with grain had to make a pilgrimage to the Wilten mills on the Sill to grind their grain. If medieval towns ran out of bread, there was a risk of unrest and uprisings. As grain was the central element of the diet of the vast majority of society for centuries, this gave the people of Wilten a certain claim to power over Innsbruck. The abbot also lifted the Zehenten a tax that belonged to the church. These financial issues led to constant competition between the monastery and the town, which continued among the population.

Throughout the centuries, Wilten was also important as an ecclesiastical authority. The relationship between the ecclesiastical power in Wilten in the person of the abbot and the secular power in Innsbruck in the person of the sovereign, supported by the Jesuits from the 16th century onwards, was similar to the ongoing dispute between the Pope and the Emperor in the Middle Ages. The town was dependent on the abbot in matters of pastoral care and the mass service. The parish church of St Jakob was merely a branch of Wilten Abbey. Until 1560, Wilten Abbey managed to prevent further monastery settlements in Innsbruck in order to maintain its sphere of influence. It was only during the Reformation that Ferdinand I, a prince from Spain who disregarded many local customs and later Emperor, managed to establish a monastery in the city. At his insistence, the Jesuits came to the court in 1561, followed shortly afterwards by the Franciscans. Masses on high holidays such as Christmas, Easter and baptisms were still celebrated in Wilten. Inns near the monastery were happy to welcome regular visitors from the town on these days.

Wilten was incorporated in 1904 as part of the modernisation of the city of Innsbruck under Mayor Wilhelm Greil. The population had tripled within a few decades. Water and electricity changed people's everyday lives and standard of living, but first had to be financed. Around 1900, Wilten only had one school for over 10,000 inhabitants, while Innsbruck had six for 25,000. The modernisation of the infrastructure would not have been manageable for the municipality. As early as 1905, the first tram ran from Berg Isel to the main railway station.

Wilten and Innsbruck had also grown ever closer together as a result of social and economic developments in the second half of the 19th century. Innsbruckers had businesses in Wilten and vice versa. The Triumphal Gate at the end of Leopoldstraße, which until then had marked the border between Innsbruck and the independent Wilten, had become an absurdity. Foodstuffs such as beer, wine, meat and grain traded between Innsbruck and Wilten had to be cleared through customs. The so-called Akzise was hated by citizens on both sides, as it made daily life unnecessarily expensive. Innsbruck and Wilten had grown ever closer together through their shared history, infrastructure projects and seamless development, and the internal customs duty on basic foodstuffs was increasingly perceived as harassment. The neighbourhood, which is clearly recognisable on archive images Accis-Häuschen after unification and the discontinuation of the Viennese Bazaar a kind of early shopping centre. To celebrate the unification of Wilten and Innsbruck, Johann von Sieberer had the Unification fountain at the railway station, which was removed under the National Socialists to make more room for traffic. Two boundary stones with the coats of arms of Innsbruck and Wilten were also walled into the bay window on the ground floor on the outer wall of the Hotel Goldene Krone in Maximilianstraße still remind us of this.

Much bears witness to this growth and the incorporation of the town at the turn of the century, which was largely driven by Greater German Liberal politicians. In Wilten, the "Helden“ der Tiroler Erhebung von 1809 in Straßennamen wie Andreas-Hofer-Straße, Speckbacherstraße oder Haspingerstraße verewigt. Westlich wuchs die Stadt entlang der Anichstraße bis zur Klinik und dem Westfriedhof in dieser Zeit ebenfalls. Die Gründerzeithäuser sind ebenso sehenswert wie die Südtirolersiedlung nahe dem Südring in der Speckbacherstraße. Ein kurzer Spaziergang von der Anichstraße durch die Kaiser-Josef-Straße, die Speckbacherstraße, die Stafflerstraße bis zur Sonnenburgstraße, besonders die Häuser 17 und 19 sind sehenswert, gibt einen guten Eindruck vom Städtebau zwischen 1880 und 1945.

Today, Wilten is a diverse and lively neighbourhood. Between the Upper village Around Gasthaus Haymon, Wilten West near the cemetery and the Triumphpforte, you will find traditional and new city life in close proximity. Functional housing from the 1960s and 1970s meets baroque town houses. The proximity to the university and hospital in combination with the spacious flats in old buildings make Wilten attractive for students. In quaint pubs such as the Jolly treffen alteingesessene Wiltener auf junges Publikum.

The Sieglanger to the west of the town was a fief of Wilten Abbey, on which a residence was built in the 15th century, today's Mentlberg Castle. Historical maps show the differences between the undeveloped state in 1930 in various stages up to the densified settlement from 1980 onwards. In the 19th century, the area on which the still popularly known Zieglstadl a brickworks stands on the site of the prison. Today's Sieglanger am Inn was a Lower Figge bekannt und unverbaut. Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg folgte eine Verdichtung des Sieglanger. 1964 kam es zum Bau der Autobahn, einer wenig pittoresken Begrenzung des Stadtteils. Seit 1977 verbindet der sehenswerte Sieglangersteg mit 147 m Stützweite über Autobahn und Inn hinweg den Sieglanger für Radfahrer und Fußgänger unkompliziert mit zwei anderen Siedlungen, der ehemaligen Siedlung Neustädter Stürmer am Lohbach und der Höttinger Au.