The Mühlviertel () is an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n region belonging to the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Upper Austria Upper Austria ( ; ; ) is one of the nine States of Austria, states of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg (state), Salzbur ...

: it is one of four "quarters" of Upper Austria, the others being

Hausruckviertel The Hausruckviertel is one of the four traditional "quarters" () of the Austrian province of Upper Austria Upper Austria ( ; ; ) is one of the nine States of Austria, states of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and th ...

Traunviertel The Traunviertel is an Austrian region belonging to the state of Upper Austria. It is one of four "quarters" of Upper Austria and its name refers to the river Traun which passes through the area. Region The district includes the Linz-Land, St ...

, and

Innviertel The Innviertel (literally German language, German for "Inn Quarter"; officially called the ; ) is a traditional Austrian region southeast of the Inn (river), Inn river. It forms the western part of the States of Austria, state of Upper Austria a ...

. It is named after the three rivers ', ', and '.

Region

The Mühlviertel consists of the four Upper Austrian districts that lie north of the river

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

Rohrbach Rohrbach or Röhrbach may refer to: Places Municipalities in Switzerland *Rohrbach, Switzerland, in the canton of Bern Municipalities in Germany *Rohrbach, Bavaria, in the district of Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria *Rohrbach, Birkenfeld, in the district o ...

Urfahr-Umgebung Bezirk Urfahr-Umgebung () is a Districts of Austria, district of the States of Austria, state of Upper Austria in Austria. It is named after Urfahr, a former city, today a borough of Linz, seat of the district's administration (''Bezirkshauptman ...

Freistadt Freistadt (, ) is a small Austrian town in the state of Upper Austria in the region Mühlviertel. With a population of approximately 7,500 residents, it is a trade centre for local villages. Freistadt is the economic centre of a district of the sa ...

and Perg. The parts of the state capital

Linz Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...

that lie north of the Danube also belong to the Mühlviertel. Geologically it is a part of the

Bohemian Massif The Bohemian Massif ( or ''Český masiv'', or ''Böhmisches Massiv'') is a geomorphological province in Central Europe. It is a large massif stretching over most of the Czech Republic, eastern Germany, southern Poland and northern Austria. Th ...

. Major towns include

, Bad Leonfelden,

and Perg.

History

The region was the site of a notorious

war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in which hundreds of starving Soviet POWs escaped from nearby

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 f ...

and were pursued and murdered around Mühlviertel. The SS referred to the event as the Mühlviertler Hasenjagd ("Mühlviertel rabbit hunt"). During the

Allied occupation of Austria An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are call ...

after World War II, the Mühlviertel belonged to the Soviet occupation zone, and the rest of Upper Austria belonged to the American occupation zone.

External links

* Geography of Upper Austria {{UpperAustria-geo-stub