Fifteen Hundred Rounds - Mozartsteg
On the Mozartsteg, the Art Nouveau footbridge by the Rudolfskai, police acting on a tip stopped a 19-year-old in June 2013 and found an air pistol, two knives and some 1,500 rounds of ammunition - the arrest of a young man whose real violence had been dealt out earlier, at the railway station.
About this place
The Mozartsteg, a filigree Art Nouveau footbridge of 1903, carries walkers over the Salzach beside the Rudolfskai, its lamps and iron scrollwork a favourite photo stop. Shortly before midnight on 29 June 2013 it was the place where a night of trouble ended. Acting on a tip, police stopped a 19-year-old on the bridge and searched him and a 17-year-old companion; they turned up a CO2 air pistol, two knives and roughly 1,500 rounds of ammunition, and arrested both. The weapons made headlines for their sheer quantity, but the bridge was only where the pair were caught. Earlier that evening the same youths had attacked a 30-year-old German tourist at Salzburg's main railway station about a kilometre and a half away, kicking him in the head and putting him in hospital. The Mozartsteg stop is, honestly, less a murder scene than a window on the low-level violence that shadows a party city's nights - and on how a dramatic haul of ammunition can hide a more ordinary assault.
Key facts
- 1500 rounds — A search on the Mozartsteg late on 29 June 2013 turned up a CO2 air pistol, two knives and about 1,500 rounds of ammunition on a 19-year-old, who was arrested with a 17-year-old companion.
- 2 arrested — Both young men were taken into custody on the bridge; the weapons seizure, not a shooting, is what happened at this spot.
- 30 year-old victim — The pair's actual violence that night was a kick to the head of a 30-year-old German tourist at the main railway station, about 1.5 km away, who was hospitalised - the Mozartsteg was only the place of their arrest.
📍 Mozartsteg, 5020, Salzburg