50 years for Salzburg

“Demolished beauty” and rescued landscape

In his series to mark 50 years of "Salzburg Krone", long-time editor-in-chief Hans Peter Hasenöhrl recalls plans in the 1970s to build a satellite city in Hellbrunner Allee in the middle of Salzburg.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Andreas Tröster)

The "Salzburg Krone" is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Long-time editor-in-chief Hans Peter Hasenöhrl looks back on moving stories in his series. Part 1, 1974-1984: Crazy projects threaten the city. The new "Salzburg Krone" accompanies Herbert Fux from the citizens' list in the fight against destruction.

TIME TRAVEL 
Governor Hans Lechner's wife hurls a champagne bottle against the rock of the Mönchsberg with all her might. She thus gives the starting signal for the construction of the city center garages. The ÖVP wins 47.2 percent of the vote in the regional elections. Annemarie Pröll wins gold in the World Cup downhill. Giorgio Strehler stages the "Magic Flute". Owners of a telephone line in the city are delighted that for the first time they can reach the numbers they want themselves without the operator. The underground cable car on the Kitzsteinhorn brings the first passengers to the glacier.

BEGINNINGS 
In the Riedenburg district in 1974, employees of the Salzburg edition of the "Krone" newspaper, which has just started, splash in the waves of the Almkanal during their lunch break. The prince archbishops built the river structure in 1137. On its banks is the house with the creaky wooden stairs that houses the editorial office. The occasional shrill cries of the exasperated secretary can be heard from the windows: the post line used to send the photos to Vienna, which are mounted on a roller and previously developed in the darkroom, has broken down. The monstrous chest-high fax machine sends the manuscripts written on typewriters to the print shop in the Pressehaus. When the technology gets too much, the machine stops the process with a paper jam. During the night, a truck transports the printed copies from Vienna to Salzburg and occasionally the friendly neighbor Gustav Zeilinger appears in the editorial office: the founder of the Association of Independents (VdU), the forerunner of the Freedom Party, has once again been woken from his sleep by the delivery.

CONCURRENCE 
Hans Dichand sends his local boss Hans Peter Hasenöhrl to the Salzach for a week to explore the media situation. In addition to the "Salzburger Nachrichten", there is also the national "Salzburger Volksblatt", the red "Tagblatt" and the ÖVP "Volkszeitung". It would therefore only work with a massive expansion, he tells the publisher, as has been successfully practiced in Upper Austria and Styria. And perhaps one day with its own printing plant.

TV PLANS 
Hans Dichand's strategic plans are ahead of their time: he has the idea of broadcasting a "TV-Austria" as the first private terrestrial program from the Bavarian television mast on Högl near Freilassing (and from the Hungarian transmitter near Ödenburg for Vienna). The project fails due to the game of the powerful. From 1980, Dichand is able to broadcast the "Adria-TV-Krone-News" for vacationers between Lignano and Jesolo via an Italian private broadcaster.

DESTRUCTION
A tall man in an ultra-long leather coat, a face as if modeled by a make-up artist for the role of a villain, pushes open the front door in Sinnhubstraße more and more often. Herbert Fux reports on crazy plans: building on Hellbrunner Allee with 12,000 apartments, a satellite city, construction of a southern expressway through the middle of the Moos landscape area. The "Krone" gives him space. Historian Hans Sedelmayr writes the famous manifesto "The Demolished Beauty", 20,000 protest in writing and in 1977 actor Herbert Fux and master baker Richard Hörl enter the municipal council for the citizens' list. In 1982, the group achieved six seats and implemented the Grassland Declaration, the perpetual protection of the global landscape. An achievement of the century.

PACKELEI 
Incredible pacts between the parties come to light: black buildings in the Moos and on the Mönchsberg are sanctioned in a 50:50 ratio depending on the political color red/black. At the cemetery, the magistrate expropriates the land from farmers and has part of it rededicated, but nobody is buried there: influential senate councillors mortar up their private residences. A narrow SPÖ/ÖVP majority converts the idyllic Schleinlacke bathing paradise in Gneis into building land: Two large villas are built. The citizens remain locked out.

A GAME OF MILLIONS 
In 1975, ÖVP provincial parliament president Hans Zyla founds WEB, promising high returns and low risk with his house share certificates. Zyla thus lays the foundation for the first major financial crash in the country. An acting Salzburg public prosecutor becomes his legal advisor - he flees to Germany after the scandal breaks and takes up citizenship there. This makes extradition impossible.

CHANGE 
The "Krone" will shatter this strange idyll with independent, courageous and non-partisan reporting. Salzburg will change massively. Some political careers will end abruptly - occasionally in prison. Because it is a misconception that once you reach a certain social altitude, you are in absolute safety in this country.