Alland is a
market town
A market town is a Human settlement, settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular marketplace, market; this distinguished it from a village or ...
in the district of
Baden
Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine.
History
The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden ...
in the
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n state of
Lower Austria
Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt ...
.
Geography
It is located in the
Industrieviertel
(; en, Industrial Quarter), or , is the southeastern quarter of the four quarters of Lower Austria (the northeast state of the 9 states in Austria). It is bordered on the north by Vienna and the , to the west by the , and to the south and east ...
region of Lower Austria, about southwest of the Austrian capital
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
. Alland is situated in a valley of the
Vienna Woods
The Vienna Woods (german: Wienerwald) are forested highlands that form the northeastern foothills of the Northern Limestone Alps in the states of Lower Austria and Vienna. The and range of hills is heavily wooded and a popular recreation area ...
(''Wienerwald'') mountain range and recreation area. The municipal area comprises the village of
Mayerling
Mayerling is a small village (pop. 200) in Lower Austria belonging to the municipality of Alland in the district of Baden. It is situated on the Schwechat river, in the Wienerwald (''Vienna woods''), southwest of Vienna. From 1550, it was in t ...
with its hunting lodge, today a
Carmelite
, image =
, caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites
, abbreviation = OCarm
, formation = Late 12th century
, founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel
, founding_location = Mount Car ...
monastery.
The present-day municipality was formed in 1972 by the merger of Alland and Raisenmarkt comprising the
cadastral communities of Alland, Glashütten, Groisbach, Innerer Kaltenbergerforst and Äußerer Kaltenbergerforst, Mayerling, Pöllerhof, Raisenmarkt, Rohrbach, Schwechatbach, Weissenweg, and Windhaag. It is the largest municipality in Baden District by area.
History
Archaeological excavations of
Linear Pottery
The Linear Pottery culture (LBK) is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic period, flourishing . Derived from the German ''Linearbandkeramik'', it is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Inc ...
artifacts indicate that the valley had been settled since the
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several part ...
era. A first church in Alland was erected in the 8th century.

In 1002 King
Henry II of Germany
Henry II (german: Heinrich II; it, Enrico II; 6 May 973 – 13 July 1024), also known as Saint Henry the Exuberant, Obl. S. B., was Holy Roman Emperor ("Romanorum Imperator") from 1014. He died without an heir in 1024, and was the last ruler ...
enfeoffed large estates around Alland (derived from ''
Adel'', aristocratic land) up to the
Triesting
The Triesting is a river of Lower Austria, in the southeastern part of the Vienna Woods. Its drainage basin is .
The Triesing has a length of . It discharges into the smaller Schwechat at Achau and is part of the catchment area of the River Danub ...
River to the
Babenberg
The House of Babenberg was a noble dynasty of Austrian Dukes and Margraves. Originally from Bamberg in the Duchy of Franconia (present-day Bavaria), the Babenbergs ruled the imperial Margraviate of Austria from its creation in 976 AD until it ...
margrave
Henry I of Austria
Henry I (german: Heinrich, died 23 June 1018), known as Henry the Strong (german: Heinrich der Starke), was the Margrave of Austria from 994 to his death in 1018. He was a member of the House of Babenberg.Lingelbach 1913, p. 89.
Biography
Henry ...
. The Sts George and Margareta parish church was first mentioned in 1123. In 1133 Margrave
Leopold III founded nearby
Heiligenkreuz Abbey
Heiligenkreuz Abbey (german: Stift Heiligenkreuz; en, Abbey of the Holy Cross) is a Cistercian monastery in the village of Heiligenkreuz in the southern part of the Vienna woods, c. 13 km north-west of Baden in Lower Austria. It is the ol ...
.
Alland remained a possession of the Babenberg rulers after their march was elevated to the
Duchy of Austria and the place where the last male heir
Frederick I of Austria, son of
Gertrude of Babenberg, was born in 1249. Frederick however was not able to assert his claims; he and his friend
Conradin of Hohenstaufen were beheaded by order of King
Charles I of Naples
Charles I (early 1226/12277 January 1285), commonly called Charles of Anjou, was a member of the royal Capetian dynasty and the founder of the second House of Anjou. He was Count of Provence (1246–85) and Forcalquier (1246–48, 1256–85) i ...
in 1268. The Babenberg hereditary lands were taken over by King
Ottokar II of Bohemia
Ottokar II ( cs, Přemysl Otakar II.; , in Městec Králové, Bohemia – 26 August 1278, in Dürnkrut, Lower Austria), the Iron and Golden King, was a member of the Přemyslid dynasty who reigned as King of Bohemia from 1253 until his d ...
and seized by the
Habsburg king
Rudolf I of Germany
Rudolf I (1 May 1218 – 15 July 1291) was the first King of Germany from the House of Habsburg. The first of the count-kings of Germany, he reigned from 1273 until his death.
Rudolf's election marked the end of the Great Interregnum whic ...
in 1276. The parish was incorporated into Heiligenkreuz Abbey at the behest of
Pope Urban VI
Pope Urban VI ( la, Urbanus VI; it, Urbano VI; c. 1318 – 15 October 1389), born Bartolomeo Prignano (), was head of the Catholic Church from 8 April 1378 to his death in October 1389. He was the most recent pope to be elected from outside the ...
in 1386.
Held by the Lords of
Kottingbrunn from 1507, the lands were devastated by
Ottoman forces during the 1529
Siege of Vienna Sieges of Vienna may refer to:
* Siege of Vienna (1239)
* Siege of Vienna (1276)
* Siege of Vienna (1287)
* Siege of Vienna (1477), unsuccessful Hungarian attempt during the Austro–Hungarian War.
*Siege of Vienna (1485), Hungarian victory during ...
and again in the course of the
Battle of Vienna
The Battle of Vienna; pl, odsiecz wiedeńska, lit=Relief of Vienna or ''bitwa pod Wiedniem''; ota, Beç Ḳalʿası Muḥāṣarası, lit=siege of Beç; tr, İkinci Viyana Kuşatması, lit=second siege of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mo ...
in 1683. The Mayerling hunting lodge, a Heiligenkreuz possession since 1550, was acquired by Archduke
Rudolf of Austria, the heir to the
Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
crown, in 1886. Three years later it saw the
Mayerling Incident occur, when Rudolf and his beloved killed themselves here. Immediately afterwards Rudolf's father Emperor
Franz Joseph
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until hi ...
ordered the conversion of the hunting lodge into a monastery which he committed to Carmelite nuns to pray for his son's salvation.
Since the ''
fin de siècle
() is a French term meaning "end of century,” a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom "turn of the century" and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without context, ...
'', Alland has been converted to a tourist resort and a spa town that is a favorite of the nearby Vienna residents. After the ''
Anschluss
The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the Nazi Germany, German Reich on 13 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Ger ...
'' annexation of Austria by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, the Mayerling monastery was dissolved, the nuns expelled, and the premises turned into a
forced labour camp in connection with the construction of the nearby ''
Reichsautobahn
The ''Reichsautobahn'' system was the beginning of the German autobahns under Nazi Germany. There had been previous plans for controlled-access highways in Germany under the Weimar Republic, and two had been constructed, but work had yet to st ...
''. In the late days of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
the Alland area saw heavy fighting between the
I SS Panzer Corps
The I SS Panzer Corps (german: I.SS-Panzerkorps) was a German armoured corps of the Waffen-SS. It saw action on both the Western and Eastern Fronts during World War II.
Formation and training
The corps was raised on 26 July 1943 in Berlin- ...
under the command of General
Josef Dietrich
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich (28 May 1892 – 21 April 1966) was a German politician and SS commander during the Nazi era. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928 and was elected to the Reichstag (Weimar Republic), Reichstag of the Weimar Republic in 1930. Pr ...
and
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...
forces of the
6th Guards Tank Army
The 6th Guards Order of Red Banner Tank Army was a tank army of the Soviet Union's Red Army, first formed in January 1944 as the 6th Tank Army,Glantz (Companion), p. 66. and disbanded in Ukraine in the 1990s after the dissolution of the Soviet Un ...
under Marshal
Fyodor Tolbukhin
Fyodor Ivanovich Tolbukhin (russian: Фёдор Ива́нович Толбу́хин; 16 June 1894 – 17 October 1949) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Early life and military career
Tolbukhin was born into ...
from 4 to 22 April 1945.
After the war, the demolished Mayerling monastery was restored to the Carmelites and the destroyed buildings were reconstructed. In the 1950s and 60s Alland regained its status as a popular destination for daytrippers and commuters from and to Vienna. The municipality was elevated to a market town in 2002.
Politics

Seats in the municipal assembly (''Gemeinderat'') as of 2010 elections:
*
Austrian People's Party
The Austrian People's Party (german: Österreichische Volkspartei , ÖVP ) is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Austria.
Since December 2021, the party has been led provisionally by Karl Nehammer. It is curr ...
(ÖVP): 13
*
Social Democratic Party of Austria
The Social Democratic Party of Austria (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs , SPÖ), founded and known as the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (german: link=no, Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs, SDAPÖ) unti ...
(SPÖ): 6
*
Freedom Party of Austria
The Freedom Party of Austria (german: Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Austria. It was led by Norbert Hofer from September 2019 to 1 June 2021.Staff (1 June 2021"Au ...
(FPÖ): 1
*ALL (
Independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independe ...
): 1
Notable people
*
Frederick I, Margrave of Baden (1249-1268).
*
Leopold von Schrötter (1837–1908), internist and laryngologist, opened the Alland lung clinic in 1898.
References
External links
{{authority control
Cities and towns in Baden District, Austria