Rohrbrunn () is a village in

Burgenland Burgenland (; ; ; Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian: ''Burgnland''; Slovene language, Slovene: ''Gradiščanska''; ) is the easternmost and least populous Bundesland (Austria), state of Austria. It consists of two statutory city (Austria), statut ...

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 ...

. It is part of the municipality of Deutsch Kaltenbrunn in the district of Jennersdorf. Rohrbrunn is located near the border of

Styria Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...

by the river Lafnitz.

History

Rohrbrunn was part of the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

until the

Treaty of Trianon The Treaty of Trianon (; ; ; ), often referred to in Hungary as the Peace Dictate of Trianon or Dictate of Trianon, was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace Conference. It was signed on the one side by Hungary ...

in 1920. It belonged to

Vas county Vas (, ; ; or ; ) is an administrative county (Counties of Hungary, comitatus or ''vármegye'') of Hungary. It was also one of the counties of the former Kingdom of Hungary. It is part of the Centrope Project. Geography Vas County lies in weste ...

. The small village has been inhabited by ethnic Germans since its establishment in the Middle Ages. According to the Roman Catholic ecclesiastic administration Rohrbrunn always belonged to the nearby

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of Deutsch Kaltenbrunn. "Nádkuth" was given to

Ferenc Batthyány Ferenc Batthyány de Németújvár (, ; 28 October 1497 – 28 November 1566) was a Hungarian magnate and general, member of the prestigious House of Batthyány. He served as Ban of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia from 1522 to 1526 and, as a par ...

in 1524. The ownership of the noble

Batthyány The House of Batthyány () is an ancient and distinguished Hungarian noble magnate family. The Head of the family bears the title Prince (Fürst) of Batthyány-Strattmann, while other members of this family bear the title Count/Countess ( Graf ...

family lasted about 350 years. In 1605 the army of Stephen Bocskay destroyed almost the whole village. In 1851 Elek Fényes recorded that Rohrbrunn was populated by 428 people (almost exclusively Roman Catholic Germans). There was a toll-house in the village due to its proximity to the border of

. The Batthyánys remained the main landowners. The peasants earned their livelihood from growing wheat, tobacco, hemp and fruits or making a small amount of win

Alois Brunner Alois Brunner (8 April 1912 – December 2001 or 2010) was an Austrian officer who held the rank of (captain) during World War II. Brunner played a significant role in the implementation of the Holocaust through rounding up and deporting Jews in ...

, one of the most infamous Austrian Nazi

war criminal 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 ...

s, was born in Nádkút in 1912. In World War I a total of 31 men perished.

Name

In 18th and 19th century sources both the traditional German and Hungarian names of the village are mentioned. Rohrbrunn and Nádkút have the same meaning: "reed-well" which refers to the marshes of the Lafnitz valley. The German name was recorded in 1427 as ''Rohrprunn''

The Hungarian name was recorded as ''Nádkuth'' in 1524. The German version became the sole official name of the village after 1920.

Population

Notable people from Rohrbrunn

Born in Rohrbrunn

n Nazi war criminals, Nazi war criminal (1912–2001) {{authority control Cities and towns in Jennersdorf District