For: Linz am Rhein For: Land Information New Zealand

Linz is the third largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria ( ).

It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately 30 km south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube, the longest river of the European Union and the longest river in Europe after the Volga.

The population of the city itself is 189,343 (2007), and 271,000 in the Greater Linz conurbation.

History

The city was founded by the Romans, who called it "Lentia", but there was already a Celtic settlement called "Lentos", and was first noted in 799 AD. 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.

Adolf Hitler was born in the border town of Braunau am Inn but moved to Linz in his childhood, spending most of his youth there. Hitler's parents are buried in the town of Leonding, near Linz. Hitler was enrolled in the Realschule 1, as was the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Hitler had extensive architectural plans for Linz, and wanted to it to be the main cultural centre of the Third Reich. The Rathaus on the Hauptplatz (the Town Hall on the Main square) was used by Hitler to proclaim the Grossdeutsches Reich during the Anschluss of 1938. In order to make the city economically vibrant Hitler initiated a major industrialization of Linz shortly before, and during, World War II. Many factories were dismantled in the newly-acquired Czechoslovakia, and then reassembled in Linz. One in particular came to be know as the Hermann-Göring-Werke, and still exists today as the voestalpine steel company. Linz grew to become a major industrial area; manufacturing chemicals and steel for the Nazi war machine. The Mauthausen-Gusen, located near Linz, were the last Nazi concentration camps to be liberated by the Allies. While in operation, they were the source of quarrying for stone for Hitler's prestige projects across the Reich. The main camp in Mauthausen is just 15.6 miles (25km) away from Linz.

After the war, the river Danube that runs through Linz  from the eastern side to the northern side  which separates the Urfahr district in the north from the rest of Linz  served as the border between the Russian and American occupation troops. The Nibelungen bridge that spans the Danube river from the Hauptplatz (main square) was at that time Linz's version of Checkpoint Charlie. The Nibelungen Brücke with the two bridge head buildings is the only architectural plan Hitler ever carried out in Linz.