Landestheater, the Rienzi Night
The 1803 theatre on the Promenade where a jobless teenage Hitler stood in the cheap standing room night after night, met August Kubizek and, after a performance of Wagner's Rienzi in 1906, climbed the Freinberg to proclaim a mission. Decades later he called that evening the moment 'it began'.
Sobre este lugar
The Landestheater opened on 4 October 1803, designed by Ferdinand Mayr after the Theater an der Wien, and it is still the home of opera and drama in Linz. Between 1905 and 1907 the theatre was the centre of young Adolf Hitler's aimless life: with cheap standing room tickets he saw Mozart, Schiller, Lehár and above all Wagner, and here in autumn 1905 he met the upholsterer's apprentice August Kubizek, his only friend. Kubizek's memoir describes a November 1906 performance of Rienzi after which Hitler led him up the Freinberg and spoke feverishly of a mission to lead his people; at Bayreuth in 1939 Hitler confirmed the tale with the words 'In that hour it began'. Historians treat Kubizek's account with caution, but the dictator himself adopted it as the founding myth of his career. Next door stands the Renaissance Landhaus, seat of the provincial government, where on the evening of 11 March 1938 Gauleiter August Eigruber ousted Landeshauptmann Heinrich Gleißner and from where he ruled the Reichsgau Oberdonau, including responsibility for the Mauthausen camp, until 1945.
Datos clave
- 1803 year — The theatre opened on 4 October 1803, modelled on the Theater an der Wien
- 1906 year — Hitler and Kubizek saw Wagner's Rienzi here in November, then climbed the Freinberg
- 14 years — Johannes Kepler taught at the Protestant school in the neighbouring Landhaus
📍 Promenade 39, 4020, Linz