Karl-Marx-Hof (Karl Marx Courtyard)

12 Februar Platz

About

When the Social Democrats came into power at the beginning of the 1920s, they started a social project to construct more buildings in the hope of improving the bad living conditions in crowded Vienna. The Karl-Marx-Hof is an impressive example: more than 1km long, with pinnacles and thick walls for the balconies, it looks like a fortress. At one time it really was a fortress: in 1934, on February 12th, the building was bombarded with cannons. The revolution called for by the Social Democrats, who hid themselves in the Karl-Marx-Hof and tried in vain to prevent the elimination of the democratic institutions in Austria, was quashed.

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