Franz-Zeller-Platz - Krems macht Geschichte

Introduction

KremsMachtGeschichte invites you to learn about and engage with the history of National Socialism in Krems. As you move through the city you connect various historical sites with each other. A simple stroll creates a personal narrative that brings the places, themes and histories into the present and enables you to keep the past alive in your critical memory.

What does it mean to “make history”? In 1938 Krems became the capital of the Gau, or Nazi administrative district, of “Lower Danube”. This was a time when Krems was making history, but history of a kind many would like to forget today. Today, when we remember, when we name perpetrators and tell the stories of victims, when we make resistance visible and point out continuities, we’re participating in the writing of history in our society. History isn’t just written in schoolbooks and by historians and at universities; it’s continually being produced by our everyday actions. History happens in the here and now.

24 historical sites, marked by green pennants, form the stations of the KremsMachtGeschichte tours. Every site stands for a different event that has something to tell us about destruction, persecution and crime, as well as about responsibility, solidarity and resistance. Some roads lead to memorials that glorify the past and that today need some historical correction. Prominent positions in the cityscape are taken up by the court and the prison, places where Nazi violence was once inflicted but that today contribute to the functioning of democracy. Many sites of past events are unrecognisable as such today; only through your imagination can they come back to life.

The information about each place can be called up with any smartphone by using the QR codes on the pennants. Texts and images can also be found in the catalogue which is displayed at various places in the city. By taking a walk through the city, you’re already making some history. En route from site to site, the historical picture gradually becomes more intricate. Common themes emerge, each of which groups the sites in a new way and connects them with our contemporary world. The themes include “on Jewish life”, “on resistance”, “on persecution and punishment” and “on remembering”. The short texts under these titles give some initial ideas that you can question and add your own stories to on the empty pages of the catalogue.

There is a single square in Krems named after a resistance fighter: Franz-Zeller-Platz.

In 1938/39 Franz Zeller was involved in the founding of a Communist resistance group and cooperated with other resistance fighters to organise “Red Aid”, a support organisation that collected money to support escaped or imprisoned Communist and Social Democrat party members and their families.

On 30 September 1942 Franz Zeller and two other Krems resistance fighters – Johann Hoffmann and Ferdinand Strasser – were executed in the Vienna Regional Court. In his letter of farewell he wrote: “But it will not be so easy to place your head under the guillotine; it is after all only a moment …” Since 2012, thanks to a private initiative by citizens of Krems, this sentence has been inscribed as a reminder from history on a window opposite the State Gallery of Lower Austria.

The Franz-Zeller-Platz was given its name during the Soviet administration of Krems (1945–1955). The idea of giving the square a different name was first raised in 1995, when the public art gallery Kunsthalle Krems opened. Finally, when the State Gallery of Lower Austria was opened in 2019, the square was renamed Museumsplatz. The street sign “Franz-Zeller-Platz” now stands over only a narrow section of street with a strip of grass.