Kapuzinerberg is a hill on the eastern bank of the

Salzach The Salzach (Austrian: �saltsax ) is a river in Austria and Germany. It is in length and is a right tributary of the Inn (river), Inn, which eventually joins the Danube. Its drainage basin of comprises large parts of the Northern Limeston ...

river in the city of Salzburg in

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 ...

, which rises to an elevation of . It is located to the north of Salzburg's historic city centre, and forms part of the city's UNESCO World Heritage Site.

History

The Kapuzinerberg is the location of a Capucines

cloister A cloister (from Latin , "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open Arcade (architecture), arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cat ...

built in 1599–1605 on the site of a medieval fortress, the "Trompeterschlössl". Earliest human settlements on the eastern slope of Kapuzinerberg date back to the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

period. Big prehistoric settlements on mountain date back to 1100 B.C. On the way of the Linzergasse to the monastery are standing 13 oratories with the way of the cross, which were built up between 1736 and 1744, a memorial place for

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

and the old Paschinger Schlössl, known as the former house of

Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig ( ; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian writer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular writers in the world. Zweig was raised in V ...

. The different old artillery bastions from 1629, which are distributed around the mountain, the military tower of the Felixpforte and the long military walls with their small fortified towers (''Auslug'') also were built in the time of the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

, and are majority are kept well. On the crest of the mountain, attainable with a drawbridge, there stands the Franziskischlössl. Today it is a small restaurant. Adolf Hitler wanted to establish a gigantic ''Gauburg'', a stadium and a festival house on that mountain. The end of the war forestalled it however and the Kapuzinerberg is still free of intensive land development.

The cloister

The cloister was established by bishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau as a stronghold against the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. In 1602, the friars consecrated the first church built on the foundation of a medieval tower. The church inherited a set of 15th century wooden reliefs. Gradually expanding, the cloister reached its present shape around 1690. For centuries, the friars were independent of the local

archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

, subordinate only to the Pope. In 1800 and 1809–10 the cloister was occupied and desecrated by the French troops; in 1813 by the

Bavarians Bavarians are a Germans, German ethnographic group native to Bavaria, a state in Germany. The group's dialect or speech is known as Bavarian language, Bavarian, native to Altbayern ("Old Bavaria"), roughly the territory of the historic Electo ...

. After the ''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

'' of 1938 the monks were evicted again, to make way for a

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

forum, but the project did not materialize. The friars returned in 1942, initially sharing the premises with refugees and prisoners.

Recreation

The mountain is, with its wooded areas, the green lung of Salzburg and offers to the visitors delightful walking possibilities along the many hiking trails, particularly along the ''Basteiweg'', which runs along the fortification walls in the south and the east of the mountain. Also noteworthy are the various views on the historic

Altstadt ''Altstadt'' () is the German language word for "old town", and generally refers to the historical town or city centre within the old town or city wall, in contrast to younger suburbs outside. '' Neustadt'' (new town), the logical opposite of ...

of Salzburg. The Kapuzinerberg is attainable from the Imbergstiege, from a stone lane beginning in the Franziskuspforte (Linzergasse) or on a footpath behind the Imberg shopping centre in the Fürbergstrasse. Biological features of the mountain are different rare alpine plants and animals in the cold, inaccessible north rocks ( alpine auricula and alpine rhododendron, for example). The

common raven The common raven or northern raven (''Corvus corax'') is a large all-black passerine bird. It is the most widely distributed of all Corvidae, corvids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. There are 11 accepted subspecies with little variatio ...

breeds in the rocks.

Literature in german language

* Reinhard Medicus: Der Imberg, heute auch Kapuzinerberg genannt, in Natur- und Kulturgeschichte. In: Der Gardist - Jahresschrift der Bürgergarde der Stadt Salzburg, 26. Jahrgang, Salzburg 2006 * Reinhard Medicus: Die einstigen Stadttore der Linzergasse und die Nordfelsen des Kapuzinerberges In: Bastei - Zeitschrift des Stadtvereines Salzburg für die Erhaltung und Pflege von Bauten, Kultur und Gesellschaft, 54. Jahrgang 4. Folge, S.10-16, Salzburg 2005 * Reinhard Medicus: Der Kalvarienberg und die Mozart-Gedenkstätte auf dem Kapuzinerberg In: Bastei - Zeitschrift des Stadtvereines Salzburg, 55. Jahrgang 2. Folge, S. 14–20, Salzburg 2006 * Reinhard Medicus: Die Wehrbauten Paris Lodrons am Kapuzinerberg, 1. Teil und 2. Teil In: Bastei - Zeitschrift des Stadtvereines Salzburg, 58. Jahrgang 1. Folge, S. 11-17 und 2. Folge. Salzburg 2008 * Reinhard Medicus: Gutshöfe und Steinbrüche am Kapuzinerberg In: Bastei - Zeitschrift des Stadtvereines Salzburg, 58. Jahrgang 4. Folge, Salzburg 2008 * Reinhard Medicus: Der Imberg und sein Wasser In: Bastei - Zeitschrift des Stadtvereines Salzburg, 59. Jahrgang 1. Folge, Salzburg 2008 * Reinhard Medicus: Der Kapuzinerberg als Erholungsraum In: Bastei - Zeitschrift des Stadtvereines Salzburg, 60. Jahrgang 3. Folge, S. 11–17, Salzburg 2010

References

External links