Innsbruck is proud of its many titles. University city, Austria's capital of sport or home to the world's best hospital. If you take a look at the list of the region's largest employers or at its history, Innsbruck is one thing above all: a city of civil servants. The university and provincial hospital are the largest single employers. However, if you add up the public servants at all levels, city, state and federal, and include the outsourced companies owned by the public sector such as ÖBB, TIWAG or Innsbrucker Kommunalbetriebe as well as teachers and the police, the civil servants are clearly in the majority. At the latest since the relocation of the royal residence under Frederick IV, civil servants have not only made up a considerable proportion of the city's population in quantitative terms, they have also determined the fate of the city in an influential, albeit inconspicuous manner. To this day, it is civil servants who keep things running smoothly. They enforce laws, take care of the planning and maintenance of infrastructure, eagerly keep records of the population in order to collect taxes and draft soldiers.

The first notable bureaucracy probably came with the Roman Empire. The Romans were followed by the brothers of Wilten Abbey in the Middle Ages. The men, who were well versed in writing, not only administered the ducal and their own estates through their Urbare and collected taxes from their peasant subjects, but also compiled baptismal registers, marriage registers and death registers. Although feudal rule required a panoramic view of what was happening within its domain, life in the city in particular was governed by the restrictions of the guilds rather than those of the authorities. There were laws but no police, taxes but no tax office. Urban infrastructure was practically non-existent, as there was no running water, electricity, sewage system, municipal kindergarten, labour office or health insurance. The municipality of Innsbruck, which was elevated to the status of a town, was governed for a long time by a municipal judge, and from the 14th century by a mayor with a municipal council. These were not full-time civil servants, but members of the municipal elite.

In the 15th century, the professional world and society became more differentiated, the armies larger and the tax burdens higher. Traditional customary law was replaced by modern Roman law, which was more difficult for the uninitiated to understand. As the city grew, so did the civil service. The court, administration, customs, taxes, long-distance trade and finance all required clerical staff. The citizens only came into contact with these foreign officials in unpleasant situations, if at all. Maximilian I tightened the reins particularly tightly. His centrally passed laws were implemented locally by the imperial districts. The salaried civil servants permeated the lives of individuals in a way that did not exist in the Middle Ages.

To make matters worse, the civil servants often came from abroad. Italians and Burgundians in particular were in demand as key labourers, but they were alienated from the local population. Not only did they often not speak German, they could read and write, were employees and not subservient farmers and had more money at their disposal. They dressed differently, had different customs and ate different food. Unlike the ruler, they did not appeal to God, but to rules written by men and inspired by antiquity and reason. The laws changed depending on the fashions, customs and moral concepts of the time. In the same way that nature conservation or speed limits on motorways are repeatedly discussed today, even though they make sense, bans on spitting, disposing of the chamber pot, wooden buildings and keeping livestock within the city walls were viewed critically at the time, even though they drastically improved hygiene and safety.

While it had long been customary for citizens to take certain liberties with logging, building, hunting and fishing in the absence of the ruler, the bureaucracy was always present. While the sovereign was seen as a good father to his subjects and bishops and abbots were strict landlords, but could at least offer salvation in return, the new authorities appeared anonymous, aloof, faceless, foreign and distant. The basis for negotiation that you had as a subject in direct contact with your landlord was buried by the merciless law, at least if you could not pay bribes or did not know anyone in a higher position. When unconditional faith in the increasingly corrupt clergy began to crumble and Ferdinand I appointed the Spaniard Salamanca as the country's chief financial administrator, the underlying dissatisfaction turned into open rebellion in 1525. The subjects did not demand the removal of the prince, but a change in the rule of the clergy and foreign officials. Even in the 17th century, it was the country's highest civil servant, Wilhelm Biener, whose head rolled and not that of the sovereign.

Bureaucracy, the rule of the administration, also had advantages for the subjects. It established fixed rules where arbitrariness often prevailed. The law, harmonised across different territories, was more predictable. And with a bit of luck and talent, it was possible to climb the social ladder by serving the public authorities, even without belonging to the nobility. Michael Gaismair, one of the leaders of the 1525 rebellion, was the son of a mining entrepreneur and had been in the service of the provincial governor before his career as a revolutionary.

The next modernisation of the administration took place in the 18th century. Under the enlightened, absolutist monarchs Maria Theresa and Joseph II, a new wind blew right down to the municipal level. Innsbruck was given a police force for the first time. The city administration was modernised in 1784. Instead of the old city council with Common was now ruled by a mayor supported by a council, but above all by civil servants. This magistrate consisted of salaried experts who, although still mainly made up of members of the lesser nobility, now had to pass examinations to qualify for their office. The bureaucracy was given more power at the operational political level. While the position of mayor was limited in time, civil servants enjoyed a lifelong, permanent position. This pragmatisation and a new wave of new laws, which often contradicted tradition, reinforced the reputation of civil servants as being aloof and distant from the people. When the Bavarian occupation of Tyrol added a foreign element, modelled on the French, another uprising broke out in 1809. The mass conscription of young men for military service, the regimentation of religious life and compulsory vaccination, enforced by Bavarian officials, was too much for the Tyrolean soul.

After 1809, bureaucracy found its way into more and more areas of life in the context of industrialisation and new technologies. Not only the state system through taxes and the military, but also the university, schools, construction, railway, post office and institutions such as the Chamber of Commerce and Industry required administrative staff. The city grew in terms of inhabitants and businesses. New infrastructure such as gas, sewerage and electricity and new ideas about hygiene, food control, health and education called for new employees in the city magistrate's office. The old town hall in the historic city centre became too small. A planned extension proved to be impossible. In 1897, the officials moved to the new town hall in Maria-Theresien-Straße. In 1905, the Tyrolean provincial government with its various offices found a new home for a short time in Palais Fugger-Taxis before moving to the Gauhaus on Landhausplatz.

When the monarchy collapsed in 1918, the transition was not seamless, but thanks to the structures in place, it was unimaginably smooth. However, it was no longer the emperor who carried the burden of the state, but a host of civil servants and guardians of order who provided water, electricity and a functioning railway network. With Eduard Klingler and Theodor Prachensky, two heads of building authorities in the first half of the 20th century left their mark on Innsbruck's cityscape, which is still clearly visible today. With agendas such as public housing, the labour office, education, urban infrastructure, road construction, public transport, registration and weddings, the Republic took over more or less all the tasks of daily life from the monarchy and the church. So for anyone who is annoyed by excessive officialdom and agonisingly slow bureaucracy on their next visit to the New Town Hall, it is worth remembering that the welfare state in the person of its civil servants manages the social welfare and public infrastructure of thousands of people from the cradle to the grave, mostly unnoticed.