experience sankt veit

Construction of the railway

The gradual loss of the function as a capital from the year 1518 on did not have any significant consequences on the town’s economic life; the town was able to hold its economic privileges until the last quarter of the 18th century. Only the loss of the iron trade privileges in 1781 led to a quick impoverishment of the town, which only had 1,509 inhabitants in 1847. The traditional industries in the south of the town – the paper mill from the 16th century and the white lead factory that had been founded in 1801 – went to rack and ruin in the course of the 19th century. The elevation of the town to a district capital and the moving in of affluent civil servants connected with this was fresh impetus for the town.

Another impulse for St. Veit’s economy was the construction of the railway which led to a rapid population increase. With the development of railway facilities with workshops, shunting systems and boiler houses, St. Veit became a “railway town”. Decisive for the town was the relocation of the railway line and the construction of the new main railway station in 1912.
In the 1920s, sawmills were established that pointed the town’s economy in a new direction.

In the elections for the local council in 1920 the social democrats achieved a clear absolute majority and henceforth appointed the mayor. After the assassination of the Austrian Federal Chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuß, National Socialist rebels occupied parts of the town on 26th July 1934. The corporative state regime had only low backing in the population in St. Veit and was intermingled with illegal National Socialists in its official ranks.

Soon after the National Socialist’s seizure of power in March 1938, an anti-Fascist resistance group formed among St. Veit’s railwaymen, whose relatives were sentenced to death in show trials. A commemorative plaque at the main railway station stands as a reminder of the executed railwaymen.
As a railway junction, St. Veit became a target for the allied bomber groups between the 16th October 1944 and the 12th April 1945. The railway system was heavily damaged and the Funder fibreboard factory almost completely destroyed. The Funder factory was newly constructed in the early 1950s and was able to resume operation in 1953. Recently it has been updated to the latest state of technology. Furthermore, two other factories were established, one in St. Veit, designed by the renowned architectural team from Vienna, “Coop Himmelblau”, which is the most modern factory in Carinthia at the moment.

After the end of the National Socialist rule, deliberate attachment to the political structures was aimed for before the end of democracy. The provisional municipal council, which the Carinthian Provincial Government ordered to be formed after the result of the last elections in 1932, meant for St. Veit a strong, social democrat majority and a social democratic mayor.