page_title: Linz
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Linz / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Blick über Linz von der Franz-Josefs-Warte
context_page_description: Linz is the capital city of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. It is located in the country's northern part, on the Danube 30 kilometres south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846.
  From 1945 to 1955, Linz was divided, with the city north of the Danube occupied by the Soviets and to the south of it by the Americans. In 2009, it was a European Capital of Culture; it is a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Linz is known for its Linzer torte.
context_section_description: The city was founded by the Romans, who called it Lentia. The name Linz was first recorded in AD 799.
  It was a provincial and local government city of the Holy Roman Empire, and an important trading point connecting several routes, on either side of the river Danube from the east to the west and Bohemia and Poland from north to the Balkans and Italy to the south. Being the city where the Habsburg Emperor Friedrich III spent his last years, it was, for a short period of time, the most important city in the empire. It lost its status to Vienna and Prague after the death of the Emperor in 1493.
  One important inhabitant of the city was the age of discovery-era astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, who spent several years of his life in the city teaching mathematics. He discovered, on 15 May 1618, the distance-cubed-over-time-squared—or "third"—law of planetary motion. The local public university, Johannes Kepler University Linz, is named for him.
  Another noted citizen was Anton Bruckner, who spent the years between 1855 and 1868 working as a local composer and organist in the Old Cathedral, Linz. The Brucknerhaus is named after him.
  Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn (an Austrian town near the German border) and moved to Linz during his childhood. Hitler spent most of his youth in the Linz area, from 1898 until 1907, when he left for Vienna. The family lived first in the village of Leonding on the outskirts of town, and then on the Humboldtstrasse in Linz. After elementary education in Leonding, Hitler was enrolled in the Realschule (secondary or high school), as was the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Notorious Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann also spent his youth in Linz. Until the end of his life, Hitler considered Linz to be his hometown, and envisioned extensive architectural schemes for it – including a massive new Fuhrermuseum to house his collection of looted art – wanting it to become the main cultural centre of the Third Reich, and to eclipse Vienna, a city he hated. 
  To make the city economically vibrant, Hitler initiated a major industrialization of Linz shortly before, and during, the Second World War.
  Near the end of World War II, Hitler became enamored of the musical compositions of Anton Bruckner, and, as a result, planned to convert the monastery of St. Florian in Linz – where Bruckner had played the organ, and where he was buried – into a repository of Bruckner's manuscripts. 
  Hitler evicted the monks from the building and personally paid for the restoration of the organ and the institution of a Bruckner study center there. He also paid for the Haas collection of Bruckner's works to be published, and himself purchased material for the proposed library. 
  Additionally, Hitler effected the founding of the Bruckner Symphony Orchestra, which began presenting concerts in Fall 1943. His plan for one of the bell towers in Linz to play a theme from Bruckner's Fourth Symphony never came to pass. In addition to an ordnance depot, Linz had a benzol (oil) plant which was bombed during the Oil Campaign on 16 October 1944. What was once the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp is 20 km (12 miles) east of Linz.
  In 1996, the city council decided to account for its Nazi past. The widespread scientific work, which was implemented by the municipal archives, covered the period prior to 1938 as well as the denazification after 1945.
  Linz became the first city in Austria to deal intensively with its own Nazi past. 
  In May 2001, seven scientific publications, online presentations, and numerous lectures were made public as a result of these efforts. The culture of remembrance extended to the construction of monuments for the victims of National Socialism. Especially since 1988, numerous memorials have been created in public spaces.
  The city's confrontation with its Nazi past resulted in the renaming of many streets. In 1945, immediately after the end of the Nazi dictatorship, 39 streets in Linz were renamed, whereas from 1946 to 1987, only two streets were renamed. However, since 1988, 17 new traffic areas were named
caption: The central part of the town.
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