Hinterbrühl
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Hinterbrühl () is a town in the district of
Mödling Mödling () is the capital of the Austrian Mödling (district), district of the same name located approximately 14 km south of Vienna. Mödling lies in Lower Austria's industrial zone (Industrieviertel). The Mödlingbach, a brook which rises ...
in the
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n state of
Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt P ...
. It is home to the Seegrotte, a system of caves including Europe's largest underground lake. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, a satellite camp of
Mauthausen Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regu ...
concentration camp was opened inside the caverns, producing parts for the
He 162 The Heinkel He 162 ''Volksjäger'' ( German, "People's Fighter") was a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe in World War II. Developed under the Emergency Fighter Program, it was designed and built quickl ...
''Spatz'' jet fighter.


History

Hinterbrühl was settled as early as 6,000 years ago. Like neighboring areas, Hinterbrühl suffered mightily under the two Turkish sieges of 1529 and 1683. Since a majority of the population was killed, the area was inhabited by settlers who moved north from Styria after 1683. From 1883 to March 31, 1932,
Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram or ''Mödling and Hinterbrühl Local Railway'' (German: ''Lokalbahn Mödling–Hinterbrühl'') was an electric tramway in Austria, running 4.5 km (2.8 mi) from Mödling to Hinterbrühl, in the southwest ...
, the first electric streetcar in continental Europe, linked Hinterbrühl to Mödling railway station. Today, only the Bahnplatz remains of this historic achievement. On August 4, 1943 a satellite camp of Mauthausen concentration camp was built in the city. The prisoners there built parts, sub-assemblies and
BMW 003 The BMW 003 (full RLM designation 109-003) is an early axial turbojet engine produced by BMW AG in Germany during World War II. The 003 and the Junkers Jumo 004 were the only German turbojet engines to reach production during World War II. W ...
''turbojet'' engines for the
He 162 The Heinkel He 162 ''Volksjäger'' ( German, "People's Fighter") was a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe in World War II. Developed under the Emergency Fighter Program, it was designed and built quickl ...
''Spatz'' (sparrow) jet fighter in a hastily converted underground factory during late autumn and spring 1945. The 162, created for the
Emergency Fighter Program The Emergency Fighter Program () was the program that resulted from a decision taken on July 3, 1944 by the Luftwaffe regarding the German aircraft manufacturing companies during the last year of the Third Reich. This project was one of the ...
and the winner of the ''Volksjäger'' ("People's Fighter") aviation design competition, was an extremely lightweight, cheap and fast plane that could be discarded if it suffered any damage. Hinterbrühl was just part of a vast crash production program where dozens of factories of varying sizes would make parts for the jet, then send them to sites like Hinterbrühl for final assembly and transshipment to flight test centers — or even directly to airbases, such was the desperate last-minute nature of the enterprise. In the last days of the war in 1945, the inmates of other camps had to make a 200 km-long march to the concentration camp Mauthausen in Hinterbrühl. Virtually none of them survived. Fifty-one inmates were killed, even before the march, by gasoline injections or strangled by SS-officers. In 1988 a monument was erected above the Subterranean Lake to honor the 51 victims of this massacre. From 1964, the
SOS Children's Villages SOS Children's Villages is an independent, non-governmental, nonprofit international development organization headquartered in Innsbruck, Austria. The organization provides humanitarian and developmental assistance to children in need and protect ...
in Hinterbrühl was led by Austrian pediatrician
Hans Asperger Johann Friedrich Karl Asperger (, ; 18 February 1906 – 21 October 1980) was an Austrian psychiatrist. He is remembered for his pioneering studies of autism, specifically in children. His name was given to Asperger syndrome, a form of autism ...
.


Population


Seegrotte

The Hinterbrühl Seegrotte (Lake Grotto) is a large underground lake located in Hinterbrühl. This grotto is an important historic site. It used to be open to the public for tours. The grotto is actually an old
gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...
mine. By the end of 1800 it was used to make red and white plaster. In 1912 a blast released millions of gallons of water and flooded the lower caverns of the mine, creating the largest underground lake in Europe. In the 1930s a team of cave explorers found the lake and finally managed to open the grotto for the public. The upper (non-flooded) tunnels of the same old mine were reused by
Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
authorities as an aircraft-manufacturing facility which used forced labor.


Holdrichsmühle

Holdrichsmühle, an old mill, is a hotel in Hinterbrühl that was featured on the 24g Austrian definitive stamp of 1945 (SG936). Holdrichsmühle was a regular subject for postcards from the late 1890s onwards. Many of these cards claim an association with the composer Franz Schubert, and there have been various plaques and internal features in support of these claims. Early postcards claim that Schubert wrote
Die schöne Müllerin ' (,"The Fair Maid of the Mill", Op. 25, D. 795), is a song cycle by Franz Schubert from 1823 based on 20 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the first of Schubert's two seminal cycles (preceding ''Winterreise'')'','' and a pinnacle of ''Lied'' re ...
here, later cards claim that it was Der Lindenbaum (from
Winterreise ''Winterreise'' (, ''Winter Journey'') is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert ( D. 911, published as Op. 89 in 1828), a setting of 24 poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two song cycles on Müller' ...
). There is no documentary evidence to support these claims, though there is a claim in Deutsch's ''Schubert: Memoirs by his friends''Otto Erich Deutsch (ed): Schubert: Memoirs by his friends, Macmillan, New York, 1958 made by Hermann Rollett in 1897 that he had seen Franz Schubert at Holdrichsmühle around 1825 or 1826, when Rollett was aged seven.


Notable people

* Karl Motesiczky


References


External links


Official Homepage HinterbrühlMore information on Hinterbrühl
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hinterbrühl Cities and towns in Mödling District