The Grey House (Landesgericht fur Strafsachen)
Behind the endless grey facade of Vienna's criminal court lies the deadliest room in the city: a converted storage chamber where the Nazi regime guillotined 1,219 people, and the courtyard where Austria carried out its very last execution in 1950.
About this place
No address in Austria has witnessed more crime than this one. Opened in 1839 and nicknamed the Grey House after the grey uniforms of its first prisoners, the Landesgericht fur Strafsachen is Vienna's criminal court and, attached behind its 223 meter facade, the country's largest jail with room for over a thousand inmates. In 1884 its courtyard hosted the hanging of Hugo Schenk, the charming serial killer who seduced Viennese housemaids and murdered them for their savings. In 1950 it saw Johann Trnka become the last person ever executed in Austria. But its darkest chapter came under the Nazis, who converted an ordinary storage room into a killing chamber and installed a guillotine shipped from Berlin, coldly catalogued as Device F. Between 1938 and 1945, 1,219 men and women were beheaded there, among them roughly six hundred Austrian resistance fighters. Today that room is a silent memorial, while upstairs the trials of Austria's most notorious modern criminals continue, just as they have for nearly two centuries.
Key facts
- 1219 beheaded — Men and women guillotined by the Nazi regime in the building's execution room between 1938 and 1945, including some 600 resistance fighters.
- 4 murdered maids — Serial killer Hugo Schenk seduced servant girls, proposed marriage, then killed them for their savings. He was hanged in the courtyard in 1884.
- 1950 year — Robber and double murderer Johann Trnka was hanged here on March 24, the last execution ever carried out in Austria.
📍 Landesgerichtsstraße 11, 1080, Wien