Landeck is the district capital and traffic junction in the west of Tyrol and is located in the Upper Inn Valley at the confluence of the Sanna and the Inn. The small town of Landeck is the district capital of the district of the same name, the districts are Angedair, Perfuchs, Perfuchsberg, Perjen and Bruggen. The town of Landeck was only created in 1900 through the merger of the towns of Angedair, Perfuchs, Perfuchsberg, Sanna, Perjen and Bruggen.
Late Gothic parish church (1493)
Capuchin Church
Landeck Castle (13th century) with district museum
Museum Galerie
Schloss Landeck, Schlossweg 2, 6500 Landeck. Tel .: +43 (0) 5442 63
202. Local history museum, exhibitions by regional and international
contemporary artists.
Landeck is an important transport hub for rail lines and roads.
By plane
The nearest international airports are
Innsbruck Airport (distance approx. 72 km, 45 minutes drive) and
north of Munich Munich Airport (also "Franz Josef Strauss", distance
approx. 204 km).
By train
The city is on the Arlberg
railway line (Innsbruck - Bludenz).
Landeck-Zams station is
the end point for regional trains from Innsbruck, a stop on the
Arlbergbahn and, as a through station, also a stop for all
international long-distance trains from Vienna, Salzburg, Bregenz
and Zurich.
The train station is between Landeck and Zams and
about 2 kilometers northeast of the center of Landeck. Continue to
the center of Landeck by bus, taxi or on foot.
By street
Landeck is located on the Inntal motorway, which is subject to toll,
or the Arlberg expressway from Landeck. To the north-east of the
city, the Reschenstraße branches off from the motorway at the
Oberinntal junction and through the Landecker Tunnel to the
Reschenpass (181). To the northwest of the city, Silvrettastraße
(186) branches off from the Arlbergschnellstraße into the Paznaun.
Approach from the east (Innsbruck) on the A 12 (Inntalautobahn)
and from the west of Vorarlberg on the S 16 (Arlbergschnellstraße).
The B 315 leads from the Engadin to Landeck.
Toll-free
routes:
From Germany, the toll-free journey is possible via the
Fernpass route (Munich - Garmisch - Imst) and from Imst for around
20 km via the country road (B 171, Tiroler Bundesstraße), which is
busy during the day.
The Landecker bypass tunnel requires a
vignette. If you don't have a vignette for the Austrian motorways,
you should drive through the city of Landeck. Attention: The
official signs to the Reschenpass lead through the tunnel (so
disregard and drive straight ahead towards Zams). There are often
controls at the tunnel.
In 1886, several building remains, burial sites, animal bones and an
iron knife from the Fritzens-Sanzeno culture of the 5th to 1st century
BC were found in Perjen. In 2018, a bronze figure measuring more than 10
cm was discovered that served as an offering, along with a garment clasp
and some iron objects, burnt animal bones and ceramic shards. It was
therefore a burnt offering site where the heads and feet of domestic
animals were sacrificed to the gods. The remains (bones and ashes) were
sacred goods and belonged to the gods. The ceramic remains found served
as containers for food offerings, but could also be used in cult meals.
The linguists Peter Anreiter and Marialuise Haslinger trace the
place names Zams ("river flowing through a wet land") and Angedair
("place where there is a bend") back to a pre-Roman layer. The current
district of the district capital therefore literally means nothing other
than the current place name "Landeck". The district of Perjen, located
on the left bank of the Inn, is interpreted as a settlement "near the
bridge", and Landeck's local mountain Thial as a "place where there is
an alpine hut". This originally meant the area below the mountain peak
used for alpine farming, from which the name then "migrated".
The
oldest Roman road that crossed Tyrol led from Italy through the
Vinschgau over the Reschen Pass to Landeck and reached Augsburg over the
Fernpass, called Augusta Vindelicorum by the Romans. It was completed in
46 and 47 AD under the Roman Emperor Claudius and named Via Claudia
Augusta after him. However, for the entire first millennium, only a mule
track of local importance led over the Arlberg Pass, which was difficult
to navigate. Numerous coins have been preserved from Roman times, which
indicated that there was lively settlement activity even before the
results of the excavations in the town parish church. In any case, there
was a village in the Landeck basin, connected to a rest stop (mansio) on
the Via Claudia Augusta. The first church, a late Roman hall church,
dates from between 430 and 480. It was expanded around 500 to include an
apse with a large priest's bench and a baptismal chapel, of which the
foundations and the early Christian baptismal font have been preserved.
There must therefore have been a relatively large Christian community in
Landeck as early as the 5th century. The priest's bench had space for
5-7 clergymen, which is why it is reasonable to assume that the church
was connected to a monastery, as was the case in Säben, the first
Tyrolean bishop's seat. The local population adopted much of the Roman
way of life and culture: wine and fruit growing, stone building, the art
of mixing mortar and many other achievements.
Numerous field
names can be attributed to the Roman period: the “Fasche” near Weiher
Böden refers to long strips of meadow, “Quadratsch” refers to a square
plot of land. “Gampen” means space in front of the alpine hut,
“Kristille” stands for a small hill. “Gasill” is derived from a small
house in an area that was clearly only cleared by the Romans, “Katlaun”
is a large farm, “Galpeins” a hill covered with spruce trees, “Liget” is
fertile soil. The district of Perfuchs originally referred to the
floodplain on the Inn and Sanna and was only transferred to the entire
area much later. “Riefe” is still used today for a landslide or debris
flow, “Ronggala” is the site of a small clearing.
In the 6th century, the Landeck area was rather sparsely populated,
when the Franks gradually began to extend their rule over the entire
Alpine region. It was also they who, in the following 250 years, aligned
the original cultural and, above all, political orientation of the Alps
from the south to the north. Bavarians had been advancing into the Inn
Valley since the 8th century and ultimately initiated extensive
colonization. Bruggen is the Bavarian equivalent of Perjen, "Burschl" is
reminiscent of a fortified complex, with the help of which traffic from
the Oberinntal to the Stanzertal was controlled. "Gasti" is a steep
path, "Gramlach" is the place where flax is processed. The "Klais" was a
movable enclosure for horses and sheep, the "Kreuzbühel" a hill on which
a cross stands. The "Stampfle" is a place where there is a stampf mill,
the "Urtl" is the area where the court verdict was executed. Bavaria was
divided into Gaue and counties as central offices of the State
Administration for the judiciary, public security and economy. Partly
already mentioned in the 8th century, its mostly natural borders are
still partly preserved today in the modern administrative districts. It
is unclear to which Gau the Landecker Raum originally belonged. Probably
from the 10th century the Guelphs owned the county, but have given parts
to families such as the Counts of Eppan-Ulten, the Barons of Wanga and
the Counts of Eschenlohe. Four high courts were formed in the fragmented
county: Hörtenberg (Telfs), Petersberg (Silz), Imst and Landeck.
However, while Imst is mentioned in a document as early as 763, there
was no municipality with the name Landeck for a long time. The
settlement was sharply divided by the Inn into the localities of
Perfuchs and Angedair.
In 1150, "the free people" (free peasants)
from Zams, Stanzertal (= St. Anton), Fließ and Prutz were mentioned as
witnesses in a Marienberg document. Until the middle of the 13th
century, the Landeck area, with the area of the courts of Imst and
Petersberg, apparently belonged to the domain of the Counts of Ulten.
After their extinction in 1248, this rule came to the Counts of Tyrol.
After the death of Count Albert III, the area was divided between his
sons-in-law in 1254 at "landeke" at the Prien Bridge. Meinhard II.
however, the territories were reunited in 1263, as a result of which the
judicial district of Landeck was created. Where the seat of the court
was located is not clearly clarified, since in documents of 1289 and
1297, respectively, the judge was named both as "iudex de Landeck" and
as "iudex de Zams". Expenditures on construction work on Landeck Castle
indicate that the final decision in favor of Landeck was made in 1296.
The court itself is called for the first time in 1282. This was composed
of three very old, already existing, independent thing communities
Stanzertal, Zams and Fließ. For each of these districts, called thirds,
there was originally a separate Dingstätte, a meeting place for general
court or municipal meetings. For the largest municipality, called Zwotel
or "Zweite Part", this was located in Perfuchs: it included the entire
Stanzer Valley from Perfuchs and Stanz to the Arlberg including Kaisers,
but also the Paznaun towns of Kappl including Langesthei.
The
Fließer Dingstätte was responsible for Fließ, Fließerberg, Piller and
Hochgallmig, those of Zams for Zams and Zammerberg with Falterschein,
Saurs, Schönwies and Angedair. Although Perfuchs and Angedair thus
belonged to different communities and were politically and economically
separated, they nevertheless formed a common church community Landeck.
In 1270, the Bishop Henry of Chur granted a letter of indulgence to the
"Ecclesia" in Angedair. However, Landeck was under the jurisdiction of
the parish in Zams, which in turn originally had its mother parish in
Stanz, the oldest in the area, significantly dedicated to the Apostle
Prince Peter.
Traffic and trade were controlled by the three
castles of the valley basin (Landeck Castle, Schrofenstein Castle,
Kronburg). In 1380 Duke Leopold III allowed Hans von Starkenberg to
build the Kronburg Castle on the rocky spur 3 km east of Zams. In 1423,
after a failed uprising against Duke Frederick IV, it fell into his
hands. His successor Archduke Siegmund mortgaged the castle in 1485. The
future Emperor Maximilian I redeemed it in 1502 and sold it to the
Fieger family.
In 1228, the family "von Schrofenstein" was first
mentioned in a document; probably the fortress already existed at that
time. It belonged to the Archbishopric of Chur, the Herr von
Schrofenstein were ministerials of the local bishops. They vigorously
opposed the aspirations of Meinhard II to limit the powers of the
nobility. When a war broke out in 1312 between the Counts of Montfort
and King Henry of Bohemia, the ruler of Tyrol, the Schrofensteins were
crushed between the fronts. The Arlberg Castle was destroyed and
Schrofenstein was badly affected. In 1406, the plant was severely
damaged again when the Appenzellers invaded. in 1546 the Lords of
Schrofenstein died out and the Bishop of Chur rewarded the Lords of
Trautson with the fortress. in 1775 the castle passed to the lords of
Auersperg and began to fall into disrepair, so that in 1807 the
representative of this family left the castle. in 1810, Schrofenstein
was sold to farmers, who took both the inventory and building materials
from the castle and it fell into ruin within three decades.
Landeck Castle was first mentioned in a document at the end of the 13th
century and established itself as a court seat. in 1304 there is also an
annotation of a castle chapel dedicated to St. It was dedicated to
Stephen. in 1368 the fortification was conquered by the Bavarians, but
in the Peace of Schärding it was returned to Tyrol in 1369. Until the
end of the 15th century, Landeck Castle fell into disrepair. It was only
under the judges Roland and Sigmund von Schrofenstein that comprehensive
construction and renovation measures were carried out: the kennel
complex was renewed, the chapel was frescoed and a corridor hall was
built. In addition to his judicial duties, the head of the court was
initially also responsible for an extensive administrative area – tax,
military affairs, public works in the field of roads and fortifications.
Im 14. In the nineteenth century, these two offices were separated, the
nurse appointed by the prince of the country was now responsible for the
administrative agendas and also had to take care of the salary of the
judge.
Since the 13th century, trade traffic has increased
significantly over the Reschen, as well as over the transport routes
from the Engadin. However, it was mainly Prutz and Zams that benefited
from the significant trade traffic between the Italian and German cities
as rod stations, but not Landeck: because the path had flowed over and
the trams ran to the bridge at Zams, and thus only touched Landeck on
the sidelines, because the traffic heading west also ran over Stanz and
Grins. The increasing traffic towards the west since the 13th century
can also be attributed to the salt cargoes of the Haller Saline.
Probably around 1300 they wanted to shorten the way significantly and
took the bridge over the Inn to Perfuchs below Landeck Castle and from
there to Bruggen to the Arlberg. In 1315, the municipalities of the
Landeck court complained that Conrad of Prienne would demand a much too
high toll on the road he had laid on the Arlberg. Grins vigorously
resisted attempts to move the road into the depths of the Stanzer Valley
and received confirmation in 1330 that the connection had to pass
through this place. However, already in the years 1343 and 1347 there is
talk about the construction of a path to the "Arl" "by the water" (=
Bruggen). With the acquisition of Tyrol by the Habsburgs in 1363, the
connection to the west experienced a further upswing, which found
expression with the construction of the St. Christoph Hospice by
Heinrich vom Kempten (Foundelkind) in 1386. On October 23, 1414, Pope
John XXIII arrived. in Landeck and from there moved on to Arlberg to
Constance for the Council. Supported by the prince Frederick with the
empty bag, he was deposed at the council and Frederick was ostracized by
the emperor. Nevertheless, the peasants and burghers, in contrast to the
nobles, considered themselves their prince of the land, whereby the
landeckers in particular, fancifully decorated in the legend, are said
to have stood out favorably. Friedrich supported the pursuit of
ecclesiastical independence, Landeck received his own chaplain for his
church in 1430. His successor Archduke Sigmund promoted the construction
of a new church, a magnificent church, which was inaugurated in 1493 –
Prutz and Zams were thus finally surpassed.
As early as 1406, the
Appenzellers, in their fight against the "power of the princes" and the
Prince Abbot of St. Gallen, were pushing forward with impetuous raids
into the neighboring regions: in the south they moved into the Linth
plain, in the west into Thurgau, and in the east under Ital Reding as
far as Vorarlberg and Tyrol. For two years they spread terror among the
princes and enthusiasm and hopes for freedom among farmers and country
people, including many in western Tyrol, where people also began to
dream of a free peasant republic: "Peace to the huts, destruction to the
strongholds." They stormed the Altenburg, burned down Ladis, destroyed
Laudeck Castle, and besieged Wiesberg. The Landeck Bridge was overrun by
the Swiss, and a Tyrolean force was also defeated at Stams. On January
13, 1408, however, they suffered a devastating defeat at Bregenz, which
cost them their reputation of invincibility. The Appenzellers withdrew
to their homeland, but it was not until 1412 that the Oberlanders again
swore loyalty to the governor of Laudegg and the sovereign.
Like many other courts, the Landeck court was often mortgaged to
noblemen, for example to Oswald von Schrofenstein in 1488 (see the late
Gothic Schrofenstein altar and the sign of the Dead in the parish
church). From 1549 to 1705 the court was pledged to the Gienger family
(see also the Renaissance death sign in the parish church).
In
1623, Landeck finally became ecclesiastically independent of Zams and
was elevated to an independent curacy: the parish of "Landegg" consisted
of Angedair, Perfuchs, Perfuchsberg and Bruggen. At the same time,
Landeck became a focal point of the witch trials in Tyrol, to which
several women fell victim – they were burned in the "Urtl". In addition,
the plague raged in Landeck in the years 1633-1636. The many dead were
buried in the Burschl in Perfuchs and subsequently a small church was
built in honor of Saints Sebastian, Rochus and Pirmin. Village
regulations for Angedair (1638) and Perfuchs with Bruggen (1641) mainly
regulated agricultural issues.
Since in many farms the yield was
not enough to be able to provide for a family, from the end of the
Thirty Years' War (1648) to the opening of the Arlberg Railway in 1884 –
as in the surrounding villages – adult men had to go to Germany and
Switzerland as seasonal workers, and school-age girls and boys had to
move to southern Germany as so-called Swabian children.
In 1703,
the Landsturm of the courts of Landeck, Pfunds and Nauders was able to
defeat the Bavarian and French invaders at the Pontlatzer Bridge during
the War of the Spanish Succession and captured them at the Landecker and
Zammer Bridge. The thanks of the emperor consisted in the delivery of a
silver honorary cup. After this event, however, these courts also sent
representatives to Vienna, where they demanded that the jurisdiction
should finally again lie directly with the sovereign and thus the noble
court rule should be replaced. In addition, the population must have a
say in the appointment of judges and nurses. The extraordinarily high
transfer fee of 16,500 guilders was interpreted by the residents of the
court, although the appointment of the nurse or judge has since been
made by the government, but on the basis of a three-way proposal by the
judicial communities. To determine the proposal, all male local
residents gathered in their community and cast their votes. As a result,
a committee was sent to Landeck Castle, where all the votes were counted
and a list was drawn up, which was then sent to the emperor in Vienna.
Furthermore, two fairs have been held in Angedair since then, which
increased the self-confidence of the population to such an extent that
in 1721 a citizens' book was created, which in and of itself was allowed
only to markets and cities. From 1815 the inhabitants of the village
officially called themselves citizens.
In the 18th century, the
duties of nurse and judge were performed by a single person, but in
addition, a clerk and a cultivar administrator also worked. Court
communities further away from Landeck had their own writers, but they
had to send their current records to the Landeck law firm. As a resident
of a free court, the subjects were allowed to hunt chamois and other
game for payment of a tax.
In 1754, state district offices were
established throughout Tyrol as supervisory bodies for the court
offices, the Landeck court was subordinated to the Oberinntal district
office in Imst. in 1797, Landeck Castle was abandoned as a court seat
and from 1840 it was moved to the Gerburg residence in Perfuchs. This
property was long owned by the Stöckl family, who provided a number of
judges and caretakers in the 18th century.
From the second half
of the 18th century, the name Landeck began to prevail for the
previously independent places Perfuchs and Angedair, so that in 1811/12
there is already mention of "Landeck" as a place name in official
documents. Around 1800, Landeck had a prestressing station to the
Arlberg and Vinschgau, was the seat of the caretaker and a forestry and
toll office. There were two doctors, a surgeon, as well as numerous
craftsmen. On August 5, 1809, a battle against the Bavarians again took
place at the Pontlatzer Bridge south of Landeck. As a result of the
Tyrolean freedom struggle, the Bavarians wanted to send a larger
contingent of troops across the Reschen to the Vinschgau. At the
Pontlatzer Bridge, however, this army was lured into an ambush and
almost completely wiped out.
in 1824, the Arlbergstraße was
completed, as a result of which Landeck also received a postal station
in addition to the district court, the tax and crop administration, the
waggon office and the forestry office. In 1836, about 100,000 quintals
of cargo passed through Landeck, to which about 4,000–5,000 quintals of
salt were added. The statistician Johann Jakob Staffler praises Landeck
in his description of the country in the middle of the 19th century,
although Angedair had only 637 and Perfuchs only 846 inhabitants.
Although the town was still neither a market nor a city, Landeck was
admitted to the Curia of Markets and Cities in 1861. in 1868, the
formation of district headquarters took place as the first instance of
political administration. Landeck became the district capital, although
officially there was still no village of this name.
With the
construction of the Arlberg Railway, Landeck was connected to the
international railway network. the Innsbruck-Landeck section was opened
in 1883, and the entire line was completed in September 1884. This laid
an important foundation for the development of the westernmost Tyrolean
district as a tourism stronghold. The railway not only provided jobs for
many railway workers (800), which were necessary for operation before
the electrification of the line, but also provided the basis for the
tourist development of the district and also brought a boost to
industrialization:
Around the turn of the century, a large
textile factory with hundreds of workers was built in the district of
Bruggen and a carbide factory in Angedair, which occupied a very large
area. With the construction of the elementary school and the securing of
the water supply, the great population growth was taken into account.
In 1900, the long overdue step was taken: the previously independent
communities of Perfuchs (Landeck to the left of the Inn with the current
districts of Perfuchs, Perfuchsberg, Bruggen and Perjen) and Angedair
(Landeck to the right of the Inn) were united to form the new community
of Landeck. This was elevated to market town status in 1904, and the
town was elevated to city status in 1923.
The interwar period
brought a significant improvement in the city's infrastructure with the
construction of the public school (now the New Middle School,
inaugurated in 1928), which was designed by the famous architect Clemens
Holzmeister, the construction of the sports field (1935) and a large
swimming pool in Perjen (1925), the opening of the cinema of the
Catholic Workers' Association with frescoes by the well-known painter
Erich Torggler (1928), the opening of a ski jump on the tram (1934) and
the construction of a barracks (inaugurated in 1937).
However,
this caused the municipal budget to get completely out of control, and
in the 1930s the municipality was ultimately unable to service its
debts. Politically, there were fierce disputes between the dominant
Christian Socials and the Social Democrats, who were able to rely on the
many railway workers and the workers of the two large factories. From
the beginning of the 1930s, the National Socialists experienced a strong
upswing, with active agitators in the form of Edmund Christoph and
Heinrich Zechmann. Because the Social Democrats, German Nationalists and
National Socialists paralyzed the municipal and city councils by
leaving, local council elections were held on April 30, 1933 (the last
democratic elections in the First Republic for the whole of Austria),
which ended with a landslide victory for the NSDAP. The party became the
strongest party with 37.61%, and only the drawing of lots saved Landeck
from having a National Socialist mayor for the time being.
The
economic situation in the "corporate state" did not improve. The
hospitality industry was hit hard by the 1,000-mark ban, farmers
struggled with massively reduced prices, tradespeople with massive drops
in sales, and the two large industrial companies reacted to the weak
demand with major job cuts and short-time work. Financially, the
municipality had lost all room for maneuver due to the large investments
in infrastructure and was placed under the supervision of the Tyrolean
state government. In a failure to recognize the true nature of National
Socialism, the "Anschluss" was enthusiastically welcomed by large parts
of the population. The Führer principle was also consistently
implemented at the local level: the mayor had dictatorial powers and
ultimately had to take no account of the advisory board, which only
advised him. The new rulers very quickly managed to eliminate the
oppressive unemployment. The true background to this "success" - massive
rearmament and unrestrained debt policy, which was ultimately to be
financed by the victims of the aggressive foreign and war policy - was
not clear to most people.
During the Nazi era, Jewish citizens
such as Edmund Gansl, who had run a fashion store, were expelled and the
neighboring municipality of Zams was incorporated. The change in the
names of a number of streets and squares was intended to clearly express
the break with the past. The National Socialists built a number of
social housing projects and large South Tyrolean settlements in both
Landeck and Zams. Under the mayor Hermann Bursian, who came from the
"Old Reich", a rabidly anti-church policy was pursued from autumn 1939.
He moved the town hall to the parish and also took legal action against
the Capuchin monastery in Perjen. Numerous plots of land were
expropriated for the expansion of the barracks, and Bursian also mulled
over plans for an extremely generous cemetery expansion. Air raid
shelters were built throughout the valley, mainly by hundreds of
prisoners of war. Large camps in which opponents of the war were held
were located on the barracks grounds, in the Perfuchsberger Au and in
Perjen (the latter for Russians).
After the war, one of the largest camps for displaced persons in
Tyrol was located on the barracks site for a few months.
A town
hall for the municipal administration was built on the Schenten estate
and the parish was returned to the church. In the immediate vicinity of
the town hall, the district headquarters for the Red Cross, the health
and employment office, the forestry inspection and the Chamber of
Agriculture for the entire district, the tax office for West Tyrol and
the district gendarmerie command were built next to each other on
Innstrasse, closed off by the district administration built before the
First World War at the beginning of Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse. The town
experienced very strong growth in the 1950s and 1960s, when numerous
large residential complexes were built, especially on the “Öd” in
Angedair.
In the town center, the municipality bought the
“Goldener Adler” hotel, subsequently demolished it and built the town
square on its site. The strong population growth in the Perjen district
was also taken into account with the construction of a primary school;
the grammar school was also located in this district. Under the
long-serving mayor Anton Braun, the central fire station mentioned above
was built, as well as a modern retirement home, extensive construction
work was carried out on the Angedair primary school and the student
dormitory, and the reconstruction of the Gerber, Burschl and Perjener
bridges was started.
In the 1970s, the traffic load for the city
became unbearable due to its location at a junction in north-south and
west-east traffic, when the avalanche of metal moved through the city at
walking pace, especially during the peak holiday season. The
construction of a tunnel north of the city (Perjentunnel 1986), through
which traffic was diverted towards Arlberg, brought significant relief.
Since 2000, traffic heading south has been passing the city through the
Landeck tunnel and no longer touches the Landeck municipal area at all.
Of course, this traffic relief has affected Landeck's role as a central
location, because for a considerable number of the district's residents,
the distance to the competing district capital Imst has been
significantly reduced. Thanks to the bypasses, inner-city traffic could
now be completely redirected and the central Malserstrasse made more
attractive.
Under Reinhold Greuter, the first directly elected
mayor of the town of Landeck, the town hall was built in Schenten, a
large underground car park was built and a pedestrian bridge created a
new connection between Perfuchs and Angedair. Since the textile factory
in Bruggen gave up a large part of its production facilities, the
Lantech innovation center was built there for 27 service companies. In
1998, the commercial academy (installed in Perjen in 1990) and
commercial school were established in the immediate vicinity, and in
2003 a higher school for business professions was added.
While the mayor of the ÖVP was the mayor of the city until 1998,
Engelbert Stenico of the SPÖ, who died on November 18, 2012, has been in
office since that year. Above all, Stenico had made a name for himself
nationally with his intensive commitment to social issues and was
committed to the establishment of an asylum seeker's home in Kaifenau,
which has housed around 70 people since then. However, the type of
construction of the Vienna Woods area in the city center was
particularly criticized by many residents. In the mayoral elections on
3. In March 2013, the ÖVP candidate, Wolfgang Jörg, prevailed again.
In autumn 2014, the six-semester Bachelor's degree program in
"Economics, Health and Sports Tourism" started in Landeck-Bruggen in
cooperation with the University of Innsbruck and UMIT. The students,
currently (June 2022) 179, are being prepared for leading, planning,
analyzing and consulting activities in companies in the tourism and
leisure industry. The "Master's degree in Sustainable Regional and
Destination Development" started in autumn 2019. Only the
practice-oriented electives for the currently (June 2022) 74 students
are offered in Landeck, 80% of the courses take place in Hall at UMIT
and at the University of Innsbruck.
The Donau Chemie carbide
plant in the middle of Landeck is considered a Seveso III plant that has
stored dangerous and explosive substances. According to the guidelines
adopted by the Tyrolean State Parliament in November 2014, security
zones must be set up around such businesses, which would have resulted
in massive restrictions for the residents in Landeck. However, the
protection zone was eventually restricted to the Donau Chemie site, the
railway embankment and part of a neighbouring property. The plant had to
invest 500,000 euros for protection against chlorine gas.
In
2015, the municipal council unanimously opposed participation in the
planned Sanna power plant.
In the municipal council elections of
28 February 2016, the ÖVP won an absolute majority, Wolfgang Jörg
achieved the highest ever achieved in Landeck with 78.78% in the mayoral
direct election. The Social Democrats suffered a heavy defeat and
received the lowest share of votes of the Second Republic.
On
September 10, 2016, a mudslide occurred in the neighboring municipality
of Grins due to a hailstorm. Due to the mudflow of the Mühl- and
Lattenbach, the Sanna was dammed up, which led to flooding in the area
of Grins and Landeck. A civil protection alarm had to be triggered
because a huge surge of water as a result of the backwater of the Sanna
could no longer be ruled out. The Sanna had been completely drained by
the natural event on Landecker municipal area. More than 400
firefighters were involved in the rescue and clean-up work. Scree from
the moors had been piled up along the Sanna at a height of up to five
meters.
In 2017 and 2018, the Angedair Elementary School was
renovated and revitalized. The existing building was retained and
adapted to the new school requirements. The part of the building with
the movement room was demolished and the resulting gap was closed by an
extension up to the eaves height. As a new extension, a gymnasium was
built on the courtyard side, which was sunk into the grounds by one
storey.
Mayor Jörg surprisingly announced his resignation on May
31, 2020. He cited the conviction by the State Administrative Court for
the illegal employment of asylum seekers at Venet Bergbahnen AG in 2015
as the trigger. During the corona crisis from March 2020, the Landeck
district was the Austrian hotspot, the state government had to impose a
quarantine on the Paznaun Valley with the tourism stronghold of Ischgl
and the winter sports resort of St. Anton from March 13 to April 22. The
city municipality's budget estimate for 2021 was completely dominated by
the corona crisis: revenues of 29.4 million euros were offset by
expenses of 32.6 million euros, which meant that a departure of 1.6
million euros was to be expected after the liquidation of reserves,
which made the newly elected mayor Herbert Mayer speak of a precarious
situation: "There is a fire on the roof. (...) The water is up to our
necks.“ However, this draft budget was supposed to prove to be too
pessimistic, the final loss was 480,700 euros.
Due to several
rockfalls on the federal highway south of Landeck, construction work for
the 772 m long Schlossgalerie was started in the spring of 2020. At the
beginning of June there was another big rock fall, costs of 700,000
euros were estimated for the clearing of the quartz phyllite between the
roadway and the Inn alone, the municipality of Landeck accounted for
142,000 euros. In total, the costs amounted to 35 million euros. The
roadblock caused massive losses for trade in the district capital. Only
on the 11th. In December 2021, traffic could be resumed in one lane, but
the detour via the southern bypass through the Landecker Tunnel was
still necessary for the journey from Landeck to the Upper Court. From
September 2022, the conversion to a traffic light control took place.
The tunnel was opened on October 6, 2022.
At the end of 2021, the
Greens and the FPÖ announced that they would no longer contest the
municipal council elections in the district capital on February 27,
2022. For the first time since 1919, the SPÖ refrained from drawing up a
Social Democratic party list and initiated the list "Zukunft Landeck –
sozialdemokratisch und parteifrei.“ The ÖVP narrowly retained a majority
of 10:9 in the municipal council. As a mayoral candidate, Mathias
Niederbacher ran against the incumbent mayor Herbert Meyer of the ÖVP.
The incumbent prevailed with 55.06%.
There were critical voices
in the spring of 2022 due to the planned culling of 56 trees in the
Burschl; a review confirmed the poor condition of the forest, after
which the work was carried out in September. Immediately afterwards,
reforestation was carried out with a drought-resistant flora, 30 oaks,
lindens and bird cherries.
In October 2022, it was announced that
Linz-Textil will close its Landeck site in March 2023 due to high energy
costs. A social plan was announced for the 70 employees of the most
modern cotton spinning mill in Europe, where 1,800 tons of yarns were
produced annually.
On 28.10.2022, the TirolWest tourism
Association, the smallest in the state of Tyrol, opened its new service
center for the towns of Landeck, Zams, Fließ, Tobadill, Grins and Stanz
at the entrance of Malserstraße.
The celebrations on the occasion
of "100 years of the City of Landeck" were celebrated in a worthy
setting: on July 7, 2023, there was a large parade of the Landeck clubs,
in which 750 people took part. The ceremony took place after a
state-customary reception on July 8 in the city hall.
Since 2018,
negative reports about Venet Bergbahnen AG have been accumulating. The
three shareholders agreed on a 2.5 mill. € heavy investment package,
which was very controversial politically. However, the company's
continued survival could only be secured in the summer of 2020 with a
strong financial injection. The West tourist Board, the municipalities
of Zams and Landeck made it possible to continue the operation, with the
district capital accounting for 330,000 euros (instead of 495,000) after
a successful complaint from the SPÖ to the municipal department of the
district administration because the financial cushion for future
business departures was not approved. The loss of operations in the
2021/22 season amounted to a total of € 600,000, of which the
municipality had to cover € 294,000, i.e. 129,000 more than originally
planned in the financial cushion. The Venetbob, which was only put into
operation in 2019, an investment of 1.4 million, has been discontinued.
In November 2022, the owners had to pay another 1.5 mill. €, of which
766,000 by the city of Landeck, which took out a loan repayable for ten
years for this purpose. € 837,000 covered the lack of corona aid from
the federal government, € 300,000 was used to secure liquidity for
winter operations, € 411,000 was allocated to the investment package
decided in 2018. Due to a defect in the control system and a lack of
spare parts, the Venet gondola lift could not be put into operation in
the winter season 2022/23. The disposal of the company in the amount of
EUR 440,000 had to be covered by the three shareholders again, the city
of Landeck accounted for EUR 180,000. The south-facing chairlift was not
put into operation in the summer of 2023. On July 14, 2023, the planning
office Klenkhart & Partner Consulting presented three possible variants
to the local councils of Landeck and Zams: complete dismantling, partial
dismantling of lifts or new construction of a circular or commuter
train. On August 4, 2023, the shuttle train to the Krahberg had to stop
operating due to a technical defect in the signal control. Although the
cable car was able to resume operation on August 17, it had to be
stopped again on September 1 after new problems. In order to secure
liquidity, a grant of the order of EUR 660,000 has recently been
requested. In addition, a further grant of 900,000 euros was required to
secure the reduced winter operation (Rifenal and Weinbergbahn). The
subsidy for the winter operation 2023/24 was approved unanimously by the
municipal council of Zams, but only by a 10:9 majority in Landeck
(against the SPÖ). The winter operation had to be stopped at the end of
February 2024, the railway operation will also not be possible in the
summer.
On April 25, 2024, a major decision was made: the
municipal councils of Zams (unanimously), Landeck 15:4) and the
TirolWest Tourism Association approved the Pletzer Group's entry into
the Venet Bergbahnen. As of May 1, the Pletzer Group will become the new
majority owner with 80%, Landeck and Zams will each hold 8%, and the TVB
4%. Any future disposals will be borne by the Pletzer Group, which has
issued a guarantee of continued ownership for 20 years. The old owners
will have to bear the legacy liabilities up to April 30, between 1.1 and
1.3 million. They will also contribute €10.5 million to the necessary
investments (4 Landeck, 4 Zams, 2 TVB).
In 2022/24 alone, the
three owners had injected more than €4 million into the ailing business,
in addition to misguided investments such as the Venetbob with €1.47
million, which had to be discontinued in 2022 after only three years of
operation.
Landeck is located on a bend in the Inn, which here takes in the Sanna coming from the west from the Stanzer Valley. The Upper Inn Valley forms a basin here, in which Zams is also located to the east of Landeck. Landeck is the westernmost town in Tyrol.
To the north of the town rise the peaks of the Lechtal Alps, part of
the Northern Limestone Alps. The highest mountain is the Parseierspitze
at 3036 m, consisting of chert and colorful aptych limestone. Dolomite
rock predominates, characterized by a diverse, often small-scale
changing rock structure predominantly made of sedimentary rocks, which
leads to a very varied landscape with brittle, highly fragmented,
rubble-rich and closely spaced mountains. The valleys are narrow and
deeply cut; the Larsenn and Starkenbach valleys and the Zammer Loch are
among the wildest limestone alpine gorges.
The crystalline
Landeck quartz phyllite, which is prone to plastic deformation, adjoins
the limestone Alps, separated by a fault zone about 50 m wide.
Geomechanically, it represents a buffer zone between the limestone Alps
and the Silvretta massif. Here, the strongly foliated quartz phyllonite,
the more stable gneiss phyllonite and slate gneiss are in the
foreground. In this zone, compressions occurred in the north-south
direction, but also lateral displacements in the east-west direction.
The Landeck quartz phyllite was gradually phyllitonized and began to
deform plastically. The interface between the limestone Alps and the
quartz phyllite is seismically active; epicenters of small earthquakes
have repeatedly occurred in the Landeck basin. The rock is easily
weathered, the abundance of mica promotes mechanical decay, the
penetration of water and thus frost cracking. In this area, the mountain
shapes are rounded, the soils facilitate the formation of a continuous
plant cover: these include, for example, the Strengener mountain farms
such as the fields of Grins and Stanz and the farms on the Pitztal part
of the Venetberg. However, torrent cracks also form easily, e.g. the
Thialgraben near Landeck, the Dawingraben or the area above the
Zappenhof near Tobadill. The Venet mountain range, with its low mountain
character, is part of this quartz phyllite zone. Due to its surface,
which has been rounded by glaciers during the Ice Age, there is no
strong rock structure, so it provides a good basis for alpine and forest
soil.
The part of the Central Alps in the Landeck area is
assigned to the Samnaun group with Furgler, Hexenkopf and Vesulspitze as
well as the Ötztal Alps, the largest mass elevation in the Eastern Alps.
The two mountain ranges are separated by the Inn, which only broke
through the quartz phyllite south of Landeck after the Ice Age - before
the Ice Age, the Inn Valley ran over the Piller. Although Eastern Alpine
nappes dominate everywhere, Penninic nappes with Graubünden slate are
evident in the area of the Lower Engadin Window between Giarsun in the
Engadin and Prutz.
According to the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics,
the climate in Landeck in the period 1997-2010 was characterized by the
following regularities:
1) An annual average temperature of 8.8
°C. The highest value was reached in July at 18.0 °C, and the lowest in
January at −1.5 °C.
2) Annual precipitation is low at 814 mm due
to the shielding provided by the Northern Limestone Alps; the maximum is
in summer (August 120 mm and an average of 13.2 days with
precipitation), the minimum in April with 41 mm. There were an average
of 107.9 days of precipitation per year and 112.4 cm of snow.
3)
There were 1606.4 days of sunshine, 191.5 of which were in August.