The municipality of Berndorf with 8956 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2023) is located on the edge of the Vienna Woods in the Triesting Valley in Lower Austria. Due to the historical development in the 19th century, it is also called Krupp-Stadt.
Catholic parish church Berndorf st. Margareta
Catholic branch
Church Berndorf Mariä Himmelfahrt
Evangelical parish church Berndorf
Trinity Church
St. Veit an der Triesting Catholic Parish Church
The Lind Chapel
Stadttheater Berndorf
Krupp Mausoleum
Lookout
Station Guglzipf
Krupp City Museum
Werksiedlung Wiedenbrunn
The
Iron Bear in Idagasse
Municipal division
The city consists of the cadastral
municipalities:
Berndorf I (Berndorf City)
Berndorf II (St. Veit
an der Triesting)
Berndorf III (Ödlitz)
Berndorf IV
(Veitsau/Steinhof)
Districts are: Berndorf Stadt, Veitsau
(district), Kolonie (Sdlg.), St. Veit an der Triesting (village),
Steinhof (village), Ödlitz (village)
Finds from the various eras of the Stone Age prove that settlements
were already present in the area.
In the year 1133, a Perin
village is mentioned in the Göttweiger Salbuch, which probably got its
name from a settler named Pero, who settled here with a group around
1070. Also in the annals of Kleinmariazell Abbey in 1136 one can find
the Perendorf foundation estate.
In the course of the following
centuries, Berndorf was often devastated by the Hungarians, later by the
Turks, similar to the other places in the Trieste Valley.
Already
in the 18th century, a metalworking trade settled here, such as the
Neuhirtenberg copper hammer, its successor company, the K. K. priv.
Neuhirtenberger Fabrik metallener Maschinen, already in 1836, in
addition to the hydropower of the Triesting, the first – locally
manufactured – steam engine used in Lower Austria. In the 19th century,
as a result of constant expansion, the metal industry became the main
occupation of the local population. There were about 50 houses with 180
inhabitants around 1844, when the company under Alexander Schoeller and
Hermann Krupp began to produce cutlery with 50 workers. This company
later developed into a global corporation with 6,000 employees under
Arthur Krupp. The entire development of Berndorf was closely connected
with the history of the Krupp family. For example, a private elementary
school and a public bath were built by Arthur Krupp in addition to the
industrial enterprises. For the influx of workers and employees, Krupp
had the districts of Wiedenbrunn and Margareten built at the company's
expense, a total of 260 houses with over 1100 apartments between 1880
and 1918. The neo-Baroque Margaret Church was also built by Krupp. The
urban planner and partially executing architect was Ludwig Baumann.
Berndorf became a market town in 1866 and a town in 1900. At that
time, Berndorf counted about 4,300 inhabitants. The Krupp company
employed 3,500 people from Berndorf and the surrounding area. With the
Landesgesetz of 26 April 1923, Berndorf, St. Veit an der Triesting,
Ödlitz and, until then, each part of the local municipality of
Grillenberg, the village of Veitsau and the Rotte Steinhof merged to
form the municipality of "Groß-Berndorf".
After the Anschluss in
1938, the Arthur Krupp company was incorporated into the German Krupp
Group.
Due to the local industry, Berndorf was also an important
target of the Allied air raids in the later war years of the Second
World War. During the war years, however, the forces of nature did not
stop at Berndorf either, with two times (in 1939 and 1944) the Triesting
caused the strongest floods in its history and caused great damage.
After the end of the war, the metal goods factory was confiscated by
the Soviet army and incorporated into the USIA factories. It was only
handed over to the Austrian state in 1957 and merged with the Vereinigte
Aluminiumwerke Ranshofen (VAW) to form Vereinigte Metallwerke Ranshofen
Berndorf AG (VMW) or Austria Metall AG (AMAG).
Due to financial
problems of the nationalized industry at the beginning of the 1980s,
Berndorf was spun off from the VMW Group again in 1984 and privatized
separately by manager buy-out as Berndorf AG in 1988. In addition, the
smaller SME was created, but it operates in the same division as
Berndorf.
The population development in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries is significantly connected with the development of the Berndorf metal goods factory. At the time of the heyday of this industrial enterprise around 1910, the population had almost quadrupled since the beginning of statistical records in 1869 and reached the historical peak with 12,788 inhabitants. After that, the population gradually decreased, before it reached its lowest level in 1981 with 8,160 people. Since then, the population has been slowly increasing again.
There are 3897 employed people living in the municipality. Of these, 1342 work in the municipality, 2555 commute out. For this purpose, 1913 people from the surrounding area come to Berndorf for work (as of 2011).
There are 5 kindergartens, 3 elementary schools, 2 secondary schools,
a gymnasium, a special education center with a special school and a
music school in Berndorf.
Berndorf Schools
BG/BRG Berndorf
Hallenschule Berndorf, Music and special school
The Medauhof is a
research facility of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.
Road: Berndorf is located on the Hainfelder road B18, which leads
through the Triesting Valley.
Railway: The railway line is the
Südwestbahn (Leobersdorfer Bahn), which used to run from Leobersdorf to
St. Pölten, but since 2004 has ended in Weissenbach an der Triesting.
Cycling: The Triesting Valley cycle path runs through the municipal
area.
Sons and daughters of the municipality
Franz Birner (1920-2009),
politician of the SPÖ
Ernst Höger (1945-2019), politician of the SPÖ
Andreas Pülz (born 1960), Classical archaeologist
Reinhold Schmid
(1902-1980), choir director, composer and pedagogue
Franz Slawik
(1936-1993), school principal, philosopher and former Provincial
Councillor of Lower Austria (SPÖ)
Peter F. Stadler (born 1965),
bioinformatician and chemist