St. Martin im Innkreis is a municipality in Ried District, in the

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 ...

n state of

Upper Austria Upper Austria ( ; ; ) is one of the nine States of Austria, states of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg (state), Salzbur ...

Geography

St. Martin lies in the

Innviertel The Innviertel (literally German language, German for "Inn Quarter"; officially called the ; ) is a traditional Austrian region southeast of the Inn (river), Inn river. It forms the western part of the States of Austria, state of Upper Austria a ...

(''Innkreis'') region, situated on the west slope of the Troßkolm forest in the Antiesen valley. It is located about north of the district capital

Ried im Innkreis Ried im Innkreis (Central Bavarian: ''Riad'') is a town in the Austrian state of Upper Austria, approximately west of Linz and north of Salzburg. It is the capital of the district of Ried im Innkreis (district), Ried im Innkreis, and it serves a ...

on the Hausruck Straße highway (B143) near the Ort im Innkreis junction of the Innkreis Autobahn (A8). The municipal area comprises the cadastral communities of Diesseits and Jenseits (literally "On This Side" and "Beyond"), referring to the Antiesen River.

History

The Sankt Martin parish church was first mentioned in a 1084 deed, when the surrounding estates were held by the Bavarian Bishops of Passau. A castle was mentioned in 1150, it burnt down during the

Peasants' War in Upper Austria The Upper Austrian peasant war () of 1626 was a rebellion led by farmers whose goal was to free Upper Austria from Bavarian rule. The motive (found in the of 1625) was an escalation of the Bavarian Electorate's attempt to press the country int ...

in 1626 and was rebuilt in a

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

style. With the whole Innviertel region Sankt Martin belonged to the

Duchy of Bavaria The Duchy of Bavaria () was a frontier region in the southeastern part of the Merovingian kingdom from the sixth through the eighth century. It was settled by Bavarians, Bavarian tribes and ruled by List of rulers of Bavaria, dukes (''duces'') ...

(

Electorate Electorate may refer to: * The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate'' * The dominion of a prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806 * An electoral district ...

from 1623) until it was ceded to the

Archduchy of Austria The Archduchy of Austria (; ) was a major Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, principality of the Holy Roman Empire and the nucleus of the Habsburg monarchy. With its capital at Vienna, the archduchy was centered at the Empire's southeastern periph ...

according to the 1779

Treaty of Teschen The Treaty of Teschen (, ; ) was signed on 13 May 1779 in Teschen, then in Austrian Silesia, between the Austrian Habsburg monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia, which officially ended the War of the Bavarian Succession.Brendan Simms, ''The Strug ...

. After the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

, Sankt Martin was incorporated into the

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ** Austria-Hungary ** Austria ...

crown land of Upper Austria. The present-day municipality was established in 1850. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Oberst

Alois Podhajsky Alois Podhajsky (24 February 1898 – 23 May 1973) was an Austrian soldier and equestrian, riding instructor and Olympic medal-winner in dressage. He was the director of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria and competed at the 193 ...

, director of the

Spanish Riding School The Spanish Riding School () is an Austrian institution based in Vienna, dedicated to the preservation of classical dressage and the training of Lipizzaner horses, whose performances in the Hofburg are also a tourist attraction. The leading hor ...

in Vienna, had most of the

Lipizzan The Lipizzan or Lipizzaner (, , , , , , ) is a European horse breed, breed of riding horse developed in the Habsburg Empire in the sixteenth century. It is of Baroque horse, Baroque type, and is powerful, slow to mature and long-lived; the coa ...

stallions evacuated to St. Martin. His hostess was at that time the Swedish born Countess Gertrud Arco- auf Valley - Wallenberg (1895–1983), alias Gertrud ”Calle” Wallenberg. She has been a member of the Swedish banking dynasty, and cousin of anti-Nazi hero

Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. In ...

. There Oberst Podhajsky met on the seventh of May 1945 with the American General

George S. Patton George Smith Patton Jr. (11 November 1885 – 21 December 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, then the Third Army in France and Germany after the Alli ...

and Robert Porter Patterson, Sr. the United States Under Secretary of War under President Franklin Roosevelt and the United States Secretary of War under President Harry S. Truman. The remaining horses and riders of the school orchestrated an impressive performance in the indoor school of the castle for their foreign guests, whereafter the Americans agreed to place the white stallions under the protection of the United States.

Politics

Seats in the municipal assembly (''Gemeinderat'') as of 2009 local elections: *

Freedom Party of Austria The Freedom Party of Austria (, FPÖ) is a political party in Austria, variously described as far-right, right-wing populist, national-conservative, and Eurosceptic. It has been led by Herbert Kickl since 2021. It is the largest of five part ...

(FPÖ): 7 *

Austrian People's Party The Austrian People's Party ( , ÖVP ) is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Austria. Since January 2025, the party has been led by Christian Stocker (as an acting leader). It is currently the second-largest p ...

(ÖVP): 7 *

Social Democratic Party of Austria The Social Democratic Party of Austria ( , SPÖ) is a social democratic political party in Austria. Founded in 1889 as the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (, SDAPÖ) and later known as the Socialist Party of Austria () from 1945 unt ...

(SPÖ): 5

Notable people

Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley Anton von Padua Alfred Emil Hubert Georg Graf von Arco auf Valley (5 February 1897 – 29 June 1945), commonly known as Anton Arco-Valley, was a German far-right activist, Bavarian nationalist and nobleman. He assassinated socialist Bavari ...

(1897–1945), political activist, assassin of Bavarian premier Kurt Eisner.

References

* Ein Leben für die Lipizzaner Alois Podhajsky, Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, Munich 1960 {{UpperAustria-geo-stub Cities and towns in Ried im Innkreis District