Innsbrucker brüsten sich stolz der vielen Titulierungen ihrer Heimatstadt. Für jeden Geschmack ist etwas dabei: Hauptstadt der Alpen, Universitätsstadt, Österreichs Sportstadt oder Heimat des weltbesten Krankenhauses. Wirft man einen Blick auf die Liste der größten Arbeitgeber der Region oder in die Geschichte, ist Innsbruck vor allem eins: Beamtenstadt. Universität und Landeskrankenhaus sind zwar die größten einzelnen Arbeitgeber, rechnet man aber die öffentlichen Bediensteten aller Ebenen, Stadt, Land und Bund zusammen und nimmt die ausgelagerten Unternehmen im Besitz der öffentlichen Hand wie die ÖBB, TIWAG oder die Innsbrucker Kommunalbetriebe hinzu sowie Lehrer und Polizei, sind die Beamten klar in der Überzahl. Diese Titel hat auch die längste Tradition. Spätestens seit der Übersiedlung der landesfürstlichen Residenz unter Friedrich IV. machte die Beamtenschaft nicht nur einen beträchtlichen quantitativen Teil der Bürgerschaft aus, sie bestimmt die Geschicke der Stadt in einflussreicher, wenn auch unauffälliger Manier. Bis heute sind es Beamten, die den Laden am Laufen halten. Sie setzen Gesetze durch, kümmern sich um die Planung und Instandhaltung von Infrastruktur, machen eifrig Aufzeichnungen über die Bevölkerung, um Steuern ein- und Soldaten auszuheben. Die erste Welle der Bürokratie kam wohl bereits mit dem Roman Empire. Den Römern folgten im frühen Mittelalter die Brüder des Stiftes Wilten. Die schreibkundigen Männer verwalteten nicht nur die herzoglichen und eigenen Besitztümer durch ihre Urbare und hoben die Abgaben bei den bäuerlichen Untertanen ein, sondern legten Taufmatrikel, Heiratsverzeichnisse und Sterbebücher an. Die Feudalherrschaft erforderte zwar einen Panoramablick über das, was sich innerhalb ihres Herrschaftsbereichs abspielte, vor allem in der Stadt war das Leben aber eher von den Beschränkungen der Zünfte als von denen der Obrigkeit bestimmt. Ein Magistrat war nur oberflächlich vorhanden. Es gab Gesetze, aber keine Polizei, Steuern aber kein Finanzamt. Städtische Infrastruktur war praktisch nicht vorhanden, schließlich gab es weder fließend Wasser, elektrischen Strom, Kanalisation, städtische Kindergarten, ein Arbeitsamt oder eine Krankenkasse. Die zur Stadt erhobene Gemeinde Innsbruck wurde lange von einem Stadtrichter, ab dem 14. Jahrhundert von einem Bürgermeister mit Gemeinderat regiert. Es handelte sich dabei nicht um hauptberufliche Beamte, sondern Mitglieder der städtischen Elite. Nur wenige Menschen wie Zöllner, Kornmesser, Schreiber oder Turmwächter standen bei der Stadt unter Lohn und Brot.

In the 15th century, professional life and society became more differentiated, armies grew larger, and tax burdens increased. Traditional customary law was replaced by modern Roman law, which was more difficult for laypeople to understand. As the city grew, so did the bureaucratic apparatus. Between the early 15th century and the reign of Leopold V, Innsbruck had developed from a trading and transport settlement into a civil servants’ city. Of the approximately 5,500 inhabitants, more than half belonged to the court, the municipal administration, the university, or the clergy. Court life, administration, customs, taxation, long-distance trade, and finance required literate personnel. Administration had become the city’s most important economic sector, ahead of crafts, transport, and hospitality. Civil servants distinguished themselves socially. If at all, citizens usually encountered these foreign people only in unpleasant situations. The reins were tightened particularly firmly under Maximilian I. Laws decided centrally were implemented locally by the Imperial Circles. Salaried officials penetrated the lives of individuals in a way unknown in the Middle Ages. To make matters worse, these officials often came from abroad. Italians and Burgundians in particular were sought-after key personnel, but they remained alien to the local population. Not only did they often not speak German; they could read and write, were employees rather than subject peasants. They had more money, dressed differently, followed different customs, and ate different foods. Unlike the territorial prince, they did not invoke God, but rules written by humans and inspired by antiquity and reason. Depending on the fashions, customs, and moral concepts of the time, laws changed. Just as nature conservation or speed limits on motorways are repeatedly debated today despite their obvious sense, prohibitions against spitting, disposing of chamber pots, wooden buildings, and keeping livestock within the city walls were criticized at the time—even though they drastically improved hygiene and safety.

While it had long been customary for citizens to take certain liberties in the absence of the ruler—whether in logging, construction, hunting, or fishing—the bureaucracy was always present. Whereas the territorial prince was seen as a benevolent father of his subjects, and bishops and abbots, though strict landlords, could at least offer salvation in return, the new administrative authority appeared anonymous, aloof, faceless, foreign, and distant. The basis for negotiation that a subject once had in direct contact with his lord was buried by merciless law—at least if one could not pay bribes or did not know someone in a higher position. When the unconditional faith in an increasingly corrupt clergy began to crumble and Ferdinand I appointed the Spaniard Salamanca as the country’s supreme financial administrator, the simmering dissatisfaction erupted into open rebellion in 1525. The subjects did not demand the deposition of the prince, but a change in the rule of the clergy and the foreign bureaucracy. Even in the 17th century, it was the head of Wilhelm Biener, the highest-ranking official in the country, that rolled—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 modernization of administration took place in the 18th century. Under the enlightened absolutist monarchs Maria Theresa and Joseph II, a new wind blew down to the municipal level. Innsbruck received a police force for the first time. The city administration was modernized in 1784. Instead of the old town council with its community assembly, a mayor now governed, supported by a council and above all by civil servants. This magistrate consisted of salaried experts who were still largely members of the lower nobility, but who now had to qualify for office through examinations. Bureaucracy gained more power at the operational political level. While the office of mayor was limited in time, civil servants enjoyed lifelong, non-terminable positions. This tenure and a renewed surge of new laws—often contradicting tradition—reinforced the image of civil servants as aloof and distant from citizens. When the element of foreign rule was added with the Bavarian occupation of Tyrol—modeled on French administration—another uprising broke out in 1809. The mass conscription of young men for military service, regulation of religious life, and compulsory vaccination, enforced by Bavarian officials, was too much for the Tyrolean psyche.

After 1809, bureaucracy expanded into ever more areas of life as part of industrialization and new technologies. Not only the state through taxation and the military, but also universities, schools, construction, railways, the postal system, and institutions such as the Chamber of Trade and Commerce required administrative staff. The city grew in population and businesses alike. New infrastructure—gas, sewer systems, and electricity—and new ideas about hygiene, food inspection, health, and education demanded new employees in the municipal administration. The old town hall in the Old Town became too small, and an extension proved impossible. In 1897, the civil servants moved into the new town hall on Maria-Theresien-Straße. The move was made possible by the generous donation of the industrialist and hotelier Leonhard Lang. He had converted the former Palais Künigl into the Hotel d’Autriche before the mayor and his entourage moved in.

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.

1669 is considered the official founding year of one of the most important institutions in the history of the city of Innsbruck. On 15 October of that year, Emperor Leopold I granted the Tyroleans the privilege of the so‑called “Hall salt surcharge.” This tax levied on the highly sought‑after trading commodity produced in the state-owned saltworks made it possible to finance a university. The foundations for an institution of higher education had thus already been laid. The university emerged from the Latin school that had been founded just over a hundred years earlier by the Jesuits under Ferdinand I. The curriculum at the gymnasium focused on classical humanist education. Latin and Greek were essential core subjects, as they were necessary for participation in intellectual and political discourse. Scholarly books and many other written documents were still composed in Latin during the Early Modern period. Latin was also a prerequisite for holding senior positions in public service. The university brought new opportunities for education to Innsbruck. The first faculty to begin teaching was philosophy; theology, law, and medicine followed shortly thereafter. When Pope Innocent XI gave his blessing to the university in 1677, academic life was already fully underway. Professors and students of many different nationalities populated Innsbruck. The Jesuit order held several professorships, while other professors were appointed by the Diocese of Brixen. This led to tensions within the university, as the Jesuits primarily represented the interests of the territorial prince and the monarch, whereas the professors appointed by the diocese aimed to safeguard the political interests of the bishop. At this early stage of the Enlightenment, the separation of state, church, and scholarship was still far off. Positions, power, money, and influence were at stake—not only within the city itself.

A course of study usually lasted seven years before a graduate was permitted, as a sign of his status as a doctor, to wear a ring. During the first two years, every student was required to devote himself to philosophy before choosing a specialized field. In addition to instruction in the humanities, students participated in church services, theatrical performances, music-making, and practical skills such as fencing and riding, all of which were considered indispensable in the life of an educated young man. 

However, the university was more than merely an educational institution. In 1665, Innsbruck had lost its status as a residence city and thus much of its prestige and splendor. The operation of the university partially compensated for this degradation, as the aristocracy continued to be present in the city in the form of students. Students and professors altered the city’s social fabric. In the first decade following the foundation, nearly fifty different intellectuals from all parts of Europe taught philosophy in Innsbruck to more than 300 students. At social events such as processions, delegations like the Congregation of the Holy Virgin—whose members were drawn from the Jesuit-influenced university—were particularly prominent. Professors appeared in velvet robes of different colors depending on their discipline, while students carried the swords they were permitted to bear. Academics also spoke German differently from the local population, while official matters were usually conducted in Latin in any case. Work hard, play hard applied even then. The strictly supervised student routine in lecture halls and auditoriums was enlivened by a colorful mix of boisterous evening entertainment, excursions into the surroundings of Innsbruck, music-making, church processions, and theatrical performances. Unlike the soberly and modestly dressed inhabitants of Innsbruck, young men from well-to-do families appeared flamboyant and cheeky, in the manner of medieval dandies. They spoke among themselves in a way that must have seemed utterly ridiculous to outsiders.

Despite their social standing, students were often not diligent model pupils but rather young men accustomed to a certain lifestyle and status. Managing these young elites required a separate legal system. To a certain degree, students were subject to university jurisdiction, which was independent of municipal law. Only in cases involving capital punishment did the regional government have to be consulted. This created a diffuse and often contradictory system in which one segment of society was permitted, at least in certain situations, to do what was forbidden to another. Encounters between privileged youths and citizens, servants, and craftsmen did not always proceed smoothly. Upper-class teenagers were accustomed to carrying weapons and using them. Insults to honor could, much like in the military, lead to duels even in student circles. Especially in combination with alcohol, disturbances were not uncommon. Thus, in January 1674, “not only at night did disturbances, rumors, and improper actions occur,” and “students of the university were encountered carrying all sorts of prohibited weapons such as firearms, pistols, blunderbusses, stilettos, sabers, knives …”. Students were also officially forbidden to drink excessively. If this nevertheless occurred in one of Innsbruck’s taverns, the young offender would be reprimanded. If he was unable or unwilling to pay the bill, the aggrieved innkeeper could not bring a complaint before the court, as the excessive serving of alcoholic beverages to students was itself forbidden. To enforce university law, the rectorate maintained its own force. The Scharwache was armed with halberds and tasked with preventing student disturbances as effectively as possible. Six men served armed duty day and night to maintain order. The costs were shared by the city of Innsbruck and the university. There was also a dedicated carcer in which offenders could be detained on bread and water. Deprivation of liberty, fines, and even expulsion from the territory could be imposed by the university.

Throughout its history, the university was also a political institution and always a mirror of the prevailing spirit of the age. From the mid‑18th century onward, it served to educate loyal, Catholic civil servants for the state. The name Leopold‑Franzens University refers to the emperors Leopold and Francis, under whom the university was founded and later re-established. Twice, the university was downgraded to a lyceum or abolished altogether. Emperor Joseph II closed it, as did the Bavarian administration during the Napoleonic Wars. The Jesuit-influenced students and professors were viewed with suspicion and were excluded from the education system. Emperor Francis I, who during the Restoration again adhered more closely to the traditionally Catholic line of the Habsburgs, re-founded the university in 1826. Nevertheless, the university remained under observation even within Metternich’s police state. During the pre‑March period (Vormärz), nationalist and liberal forces were regarded with suspicion. The secret state police were present not only in lecture halls but also within student circles, in order to suppress potentially subversive ideas among young agitators at an early stage. Industrialization and the accompanying new economic, political, and social rules also transformed university life. In keeping with the spirit of the age, the inaugural lecture by the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Prof. Dr. Joachim Suppan (1794–1864), addressed a practical problem in physics so that “a more precise knowledge of the highly important and useful invention of the steam engine might also be achieved for domestic industry, where it has hitherto found no application.” The fact that Suppan, in addition to his degrees in philosophy and mathematics, was also an ordained priest illustrates the influence the Church still exerted on education in the 19th century. How closely the university remained connected to state authority as well as to the Church is shown by Suppan’s concluding admonition to the students to “one day render beneficial service to the fatherland through knowledge and virtue.” The national conflicts of the late Habsburg monarchy were likewise reflected in the university’s history. The 19th century was the age of associations—in the case of the university, student fraternities. In Innsbruck, conflicts between German-speaking and Italian-speaking students repeatedly caused tensions, reaching their climax in the Fatti di Innsbruck. Students with German nationalist leanings continued to play a major role at the university thereafter. Many of these young men had grown up in the Habsburg Empire and had served in the First World War. The ponderous parliamentary Republic of Austria appealed less to many young academics than the new political movements that likewise emerged during this period. Male elites were suddenly no longer among themselves alone. Women and sons of craftsmen had long been barred from studying at the university; now it at least became theoretically possible to advance socially through education. Five years after the founding of the Republic, the university celebrated its first female Doctor of Law. The press reported:

“This coming Saturday, Miss Mitzi Fischer will be awarded the degree of Doctor of Law at the University of Innsbruck. Miss Fischer is a native of Vienna. She also completed her secondary education in Vienna. After her matriculation examination, she pursued the study of law at the University of Innsbruck. The future doctor passed all examinations with distinction and would therefore, according to former custom, have to be promoted sub auspiciis imperatoris. In any case, Miss Fischer is the first woman to earn the doctoral degree in law at the University of Innsbruck.”

The enthusiasm of the young men—some of whom had returned from the fronts of the First World War—was partly directed toward fascist Italy, perceived as modern and dynamic, and later toward National Socialist Germany, both of which upheld traditional role models. With the Anschluss to the German Reich in 1938, the university was renamed once again. After the war, the German Alpine University became once more the Leopold‑Franzens University. The relative calm with which Innsbruck’s students behaved in 1968 was striking, much as it had been in 1848. While students in other European cities were the driving force of change, Innsbruck remained unruffled. In Paris, paving stones were thrown; in Innsbruck, boycotts and sit-ins sufficed. Although there were individual groups in the late 1960s and 1970s—such as the Communist Group Innsbruck, the Committee for Solidarity with Vietnam, the socialist VSStÖ, or the liberal‑Catholic Action within the Austrian National Union of Students—no mass movement emerged. The vast majority of students came from the upper classes and had completed their secondary education at Catholic-oriented grammar schools. Beethoven’s old observation that “as long as the Austrian still has his brown beer and sausages, he will not revolt” proved true. Only a few students could be inspired by solidarity with Vietnam, Mao Zedong, or Fidel Castro. Who would risk their own career in a country dominated by the trinity of the Tiroler Tageszeitung, Bishop Paulus Rusch, and a provincial parliament with an absolute ÖVP majority? Those who nevertheless dared to distribute rebellious leaflets or leftist literature had to reckon with media defamation, reprimands by the rectorate, or even visits from state authorities. Professors were seldom criticized, many of them still exuding in the 20th century the aloofness and unapproachable aura of Early Modern times, or making little effort to conceal their political convictions. More frequently criticized was the inadequate equipment of the modest lecture halls, given the constantly growing number of students. The great transformation of Austrian universities was not fought for but voted for. Under Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, tuition fees were abolished. Education became attainable and conceivable for a larger number of young people. As a result, the number of students at Austrian universities rose from around 50,000 in 1968 to more than 73,000 by 1974.

Despite all adversities and curiosities over the centuries, the University of Innsbruck has, since its earliest days, generally enjoyed an excellent reputation. In the 20th and 21st centuries, faculty and students repeatedly achieved internationally acclaimed research results. Victor Franz Hess was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on cosmic radiation. Quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger was also associated with the University of Innsbruck, though not at the time of his award in 2022. Professors Fritz Pregl, Adolf Windaus, and Hans Fischer likewise received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, though none of them were active in Innsbruck at the time. The university hospital has likewise delivered outstanding achievements in both research and education, as well as in the daily medical care of the city, and is considered one of Innsbruck’s flagship institutions. The university is of great importance to the city not only intellectually and economically. Around 30,000 students populate and shape life between the Nordkette mountain range and the Patscherkofel. 

The works of the Gumpp family still strongly characterise the appearance of Innsbruck today. The baroque parts of the city in particular can be traced back to them. The founder of the dynasty in Tyrol, Christoph Gumpp (1600-1672), was actually a carpenter. However, his talent had chosen him for higher honours. The profession of architect or artist did not yet exist at that time; even Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were considered craftsmen. After working on the Holy Trinity Church, the Swabian-born Gumpp followed in the footsteps of the Italian master builders who had set the tone under Ferdinand II. At the behest of Leopold V, Gumpp travelled to Italy to study theatre buildings and to learn from his contemporary style-setting colleagues his expertise for the planned royal palace. Comedihaus aufzupolieren. Seine offizielle Tätigkeit als Hofbaumeister begann 1633. Neue Zeiten bedurften eines neuen Designs, abseits des architektonisch von der Gotik geprägten Mittelalters und den Schrecken des Dreißigjährigen Krieges. Über die folgenden Jahrzehnte wurde Innsbruck unter der Regentschaft Claudia de Medicis einer kompletten Renovierung unterzogen. Gumpp vererbte seinen Titel an die nächsten beiden Generationen innerhalb der Familie weiter. Die Gumpps traten nicht nur als Baumeister in Erscheinung. Sie waren Tischler, Maler, Kupferstecher und Architekten, was ihnen erlaubte, ähnlich der Bewegung der Tiroler Moderne rund um Franz Baumann und Clemens Holzmeister Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts, Projekte ganzheitlich umzusetzen. Auch bei der Errichtung der Schanzwerke zur Landesverteidigung während des Dreißigjährigen Krieges waren sie als Planer beteiligt. Christoph Gumpps Meisterstück aber war die Errichtung des Comedihaus im ehemaligen Ballhaus. Die überdimensionierten Maße des damals richtungsweisenden Theaters, das in Europa zu den ersten seiner Art überhaupt gehörte, erlaubte nicht nur die Aufführung von Theaterstücken, sondern auch Wasserspiele mit echten Schiffen und aufwändige Pferdeballettaufführungen. Das Comedihaus war ein Gesamtkunstwerk an und für sich, das in seiner damaligen Bedeutung wohl mit dem Festspielhaus in Bayreuth des 19. Jahrhunderts oder der Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg heute verglichen werden muss.

His descendants Johann Martin Gumpp the Elder, Georg Anton Gumpp and Johann Martin Gumpp the Younger were responsible for many of the buildings that still characterise the townscape today. The Wilten collegiate church, the Mariahilfkirche, the Johanneskirche and the Spitalskirche were all designed by the Gumpps. In addition to designing churches and their work as court architects, they also made a name for themselves as planners of secular buildings. Many of Innsbruck's town houses and city palaces, such as the Taxispalais or the Altes Landhaus in Maria-Theresien-Straße, were designed by them. With the loss of the city's status as a royal seat, the magnificent large-scale commissions declined and with them the fame of the Gumpp family. Their former home is now home to the Munding confectionery in the historic city centre. In the Pradl district, Gumppstraße commemorates the Innsbruck dynasty of master builders.

The abundance of churches, chapels, crucifixes, statues, and paintings in public spaces strikes many visitors to Innsbruck from other countries as unusual. Not only places of worship, but also many private houses are decorated with depictions of Jesus, Mary, saints, and biblical scenes. For centuries, the Christian faith and its institutions shaped everyday life throughout Europe, and Innsbruck—as a residence city of the strictly Catholic Habsburgs and the capital of the self-proclaimed Holy Land of Tyrol—was particularly richly endowed with ecclesiastical buildings. In terms of number and scale relative to the conditions of earlier times, churches appear as gigantic features in the cityscape. In the 16th century, Innsbruck, with its approximately 5,000 inhabitants, possessed several churches whose splendor and size surpassed every other building, including the palaces of the aristocracy. Wilten Abbey was a vast complex in the midst of a small farming village that had developed around it.

The spatial dimensions of these places of worship reflect their importance within the political and social structure. For many inhabitants of Innsbruck, the Church was not only a moral authority but also a secular landowner. The Bishop of Brixen was formally equal in rank to the territorial prince. Peasants worked on the bishop’s estates just as they did on those of a secular ruler. The clergy exercised both taxation and judicial authority over their subjects, and ecclesiastical landowners were often regarded as particularly demanding. At the same time, it was also the clergy in Innsbruck who were largely responsible for social welfare, healthcare, care for the poor and orphans, food distribution, and education. The Church’s influence extended into the material world in a way comparable to how the modern state operates today through tax offices, police, schools, and employment services. What democracy, parliament, and the market economy represent for us today, bishops, the Bible, Christian devotional literature, and parish priests represented for people of earlier centuries: a reality that maintained order.

It would be incorrect to believe that all clergymen were cynical power-hungry figures who exploited their uneducated subjects. The majority of both clergy and nobility were devout and God-fearing, albeit in a manner that is difficult to comprehend from today’s perspective. It was not the case that every superstition was blindly accepted or that people were arbitrarily executed based on anonymous accusations. In the early modern period, violations of religion and morals were tried before secular courts and punished severely. Charges were brought under the term heresy, which encompassed a wide range of offenses. Sodomy—meaning any sexual act not serving reproduction—sorcery, witchcraft, and blasphemy, in short any deviation from the correct faith, could be punished by burning. The act of burning was intended both to purify the condemned and to destroy them and their sinful behavior completely, thereby removing evil from the community. For a long time, the Church regulated everyday social life down to the smallest details. Church bells structured people’s daily schedules. Their sound called people to work or worship, or informed the community of a death through tolling. People were able to distinguish individual bell signals and their meanings. Sundays and holidays structured time. Fasting days regulated diet. Family life, sexuality, and individual behavior were expected to conform to Church-prescribed morality. For many people, salvation in the afterlife was more important than happiness on earth, which was seen as predetermined by the course of time and divine will. Purgatory, the Last Judgment, and the torments of hell were real and served to frighten and discipline even adults.

While parts of the Innsbruck bourgeoisie were at least gently awakened by Enlightenment ideas after the Napoleonic Wars, the majority of the population remained committed to a mixture of conservative Catholicism and superstitious popular piety. Religiosity was not necessarily a matter of origin or social class, as repeatedly demonstrated by social, media, and political conflicts along the fault line between liberals and conservatives. Although freedom of religion was legally enshrined in the December Constitution of 1867, the state and religion remained closely linked. The Wahrmund Affair, which originated at the University of Innsbruck in the early 20th century and spread throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was just one of many examples of the influence the Church exercised well into the 1970s. Shortly before the First World War, this political crisis, which would affect the entire monarchy, began in Innsbruck. Ludwig Wahrmund (1861–1932) was Professor of Canon Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Innsbruck. Originally selected by the Tyrolean governor to strengthen Catholicism at what was considered an overly liberal university, Wahrmund was a proponent of enlightened theology. Unlike conservative representatives in the clergy and politics, reform Catholics viewed the Pope as a spiritual leader but not as a secular authority. In Wahrmund’s view, students should reduce the gap and tensions between Church and modernity rather than cement them. Since 1848, divisions between liberal-national, socialist, conservative, and reform-oriented Catholic interest groups and parties had deepened. Greater German nationalist-minded Innsbruck citizens oriented themselves toward the modern Prussian state under Chancellor Bismarck, who sought to curtail the influence of the Church or subordinate it to the state. One of the fiercest fault lines ran through the education and higher education system, centered on the question of how the supernatural practices and views of the Church—still influential in universities—could be reconciled with modern science. Liberal and Catholic students despised one another and repeatedly clashed. Until 1906, Wahrmund was a member of the Leo Society, which aimed to promote science on a Catholic basis, before becoming chairman of the Innsbruck local branch of the Association for Free Schools, which advocated complete de-clericalization of the education system. He evolved from a reform Catholic into an advocate of a complete separation of Church and state. His lectures repeatedly attracted the attention of the authorities. Fueled by the media, the culture war between liberal German nationalists, conservatives, Christian Socials, and Social Democrats found an ideal projection surface in the person of Ludwig Wahrmund. What followed were riots, strikes, brawls between student fraternities of different political orientations, and mutual defamation among politicians. The “Away from Rome” movement of the German radical Georg Ritter von Schönerer (1842–1921) collided on the stage of the University of Innsbruck with the political Catholicism of the Christian Socials. German nationalist academics were supported by the likewise anti-clerical Social Democrats and by Mayor Greil, while the Tyrolean provincial government sided with the conservatives. The Wahrmund Affair reached the Imperial Council as a culture-war debate. For the Christian Socials, it was a “struggle of liberal-minded Jewry against Christianity,” in which “Zionists, German culture warriors, Czech and Ruthenian radicals” presented themselves as an “international coalition,” a “liberal ring of Jewish radicalism and radical Slavic movements.” Wahrmund, on the other hand, in the generally heated atmosphere, referred to Catholic students as “traitors and parasites.” When Wahrmund had one of his speeches printed in 1908, in which he questioned God, Christian morality, and Catholic veneration of saints, he was charged with blasphemy. After further, sometimes violent assemblies on both conservative and anti-clerical sides, student riots, and strikes, university operations even had to be suspended temporarily. Wahrmund was first placed on leave and later transferred to the German University in Prague. Even in the First Republic, the connection between Church and state remained strong. Ignaz Seipel, a Christian Social politician known as the “Iron Prelate,” rose in the 1920s to the highest office of the state. Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss viewed his corporative state as a construct based on Catholicism and as a bulwark against socialism. After the Second World War, Church and politics in Tyrol were still closely linked in the persons of Bishop Rusch and Chancellor Wallnöfer. Only then did a serious separation begin. Faith and the Church still have a fixed place in the everyday life of Innsbruck’s residents, even if often unnoticed. Church withdrawals in recent decades have dented official membership numbers, and leisure events are better attended than Sunday Mass. Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church still owns extensive land in and around Innsbruck, including outside the walls of monasteries and educational institutions. Numerous schools in and around Innsbruck are also influenced by conservative forces and the Church. And anyone who enjoys a public holiday, taps Easter eggs together, or lights a candle on a Christmas tree does not need to be Christian to act—disguised as tradition—in the name of Jesus.