Bregenz Forest


The Bregenzerwald is one of the main regions in the state of Vorarlberg. It overlaps, but is not coterminous with, the Bregenz Forest Mountains, which belong to a range of the Northern Limestone Alps, specifically the northern flysch zone. It is the drainage basin of the Bregenzer Ach river and has a population of 31.386.

Geography

Bregenz Forest borders the Lake Constance region in the Rhine Valley to the west, Germany and Bavaria to the north, the Kleinwalsertal valley to the northeast, the Hochtannberg region at Tannberg to the east and the Großes Walsertal valley to the south. It borders the Leiblachtal valley to the northwest and the Laternsertal valley to the southwest, which can be reached via the Furkajoch.
Regional inhabitants often divide Bregenz Forest into two main areas, the Vorderwald and Hinterwald. The Vorderwald, with its hills and low mountains, is closest to the Rhine valley. The taller mountains are in Hinterwald, with altitudes of up to 2,000 metres. The two regions have distinctive dialect variations.

Villages

For historical reasons, the market town of Bezau is considered the main town in Bregenz Forest, although the market town of Egg and the municipalities of Alberschwende and Andelsbuch are larger in terms of population.
Although the municipalities of Langen and Buch are located in the Lake Constance-Vorarlberg region, they are still part of the Bregenz Forest Käsestrasse, for example.
The municipalities of Egg, Andelsbuch and Schwarzenberg are also often referred to as Mittelbregenzerwald.
The court district of Bezau does not completely coincide with the Bregenz Forest region: Alberschwende, Doren, Riefensberg and Sulzberg are subject to the court district of Bregenz, but the small Walsertal valley belongs to the Bezau court. Warth is already part of the Hochtannberg region, but is also partly included in Bregen Forest.
Lower Bregenz Forest
  1. Alberschwende
  2. Doren
  3. Sulzberg
  4. Langenegg
  5. Krumbach
  6. Riefensberg
  7. Lingenau
  8. Hittisau
  9. Sibratsgfäll
Upper Bregenz Forest
  1. Egg
  2. Andelsbuch
  3. Schwarzenberg
  4. Bezau
  5. Reuthe
  6. Bizau
  7. Mellau
  8. Schnepfau
  9. Au
  10. Damüls
  11. Schoppernau
  12. Schröcken
  13. Warth

    Nature reserves

The Nagelfluhkette Nature Park is the first cross-border nature park between Germany and Austria and is therefore an international pilot project. It is 48,000ha in size, comprises ten Bavarian and eight Vorarlberg municipalities and forms the transition between the Allgäu and the Bregenzerwald. Nagelfluh is a conglomerate of round rocks that were compressed over 25 million years.
The Großes Walsertal Biosphere Reserve covers 19,231 ha. The biosphere reserve has been part of UNESCO since November 2000 and is Vorarlberg's first UNESCO reserve. It strives for a sustainable economy and tourism in the region and provides a platform for discussion about sustainability, society and politics. Of about 180 farms in the reserve, about 42 percent are organic farms.
The following European protected areas are partially or completely located in Bregenz Forest:
  • Bregenzerachschlucht
  • Witmoos
  • Kanisfluh
  • Fohramoos
  • Unterargenstein
  • Unter Stellerhöhe
  • Unter der Winterstaude
  • Widdersteinmähder
  • Ifen
  • Hochifen and Gottesackerplateau
  • Rossbad
  • Hirschberg
  • Farnacher Moos
  • Kojen-Moos
  • Hohe Kugel – Hoher Freschen – Mellental
  • Auer Ried
  • Körbersee

    History

Around the year 1000, Bregenz Forest, which was still completely forested at the time, was settled and cultivated from Bregenz via the Schneiderkopf and the Lorena mountains. The highest areas, on the other hand, were settled in the late Middle Ages by Walsers who came from the Grisons or originally from the Valais.
While the northern parts of Bregenz Forest belonged to the lordship of Bregenz, the courts of Damüls and Innerbregenzerwald were part of the lordship of Feldkirch. This division, which took place in 1338, is the basis for the distinction between the front and rear Bregenzerwald that is still common today.
In 1390, with the sale of the county of Feldkirch, the Innerbregenzerwald and Damüls fell to Austria, followed by the courts of Lingenau and Alberschwende in 1451. The Tannberg with the Bregenzerwald communities of Schröcken and Warth became Austrian in 1453, and in 1523 the Habsburgs also acquired the court of Sulzberg.

Peasant Republic

After 1380, especially in the Inner Bregenz Forest, the peasantry of the forest formed a self-government, with its own free rural community, its own constitution and high - and blood jurisdiction. A Landammann, usually from the most respected families in Bregenz Forest, was elected as the head of the community. Many of the well-known names that originally came from Bregenz Forest, e.g. Feurstein, Meusburger, Metzler, are depicted with their coats of arms on the surviving Landammann board.
The Landammann was appointed by free election and his town hall stood on the Bezegg between Bezau and Andelsbuch. Today, the Bezegg-Sul, a stone pillar, is a reminder of the former town hall.
The existence of the peasant republic is confirmed in the tradition of the Capuchin priest Stanislaus Saurbeck : Bregenz Forest was still "a long undeveloped wilderness" at the beginning of the 17th century, which "already had a bad reputation" in the chronicles of the 16th century:

Missionization

The chroniclers explain the " level of moral and religious life" of the inhabitants, "although they were descended from Catholic parents", with customs and traditions from "pagan ancestors", which they had retained like a "blatant superstition. As crude, wild and immoral as they were in their behavior, the women in particular are said to have been just as shameless and angry in their dress."
"A thorough renewal and moral transformation in the whole of Bregenzerwald" only took place on the initiative of Father Stanislaus: the Capuchins "in their insatiable thirst for souls hurried from hut to hut, from village to village, instructing the people through conversations, Christian teachings and sermons, not resting or resting until the ice cover broke and the rough and cold minds became warm."
As a further consequence of missionization, "a small Capuchin monastery was founded in the valley. On July 12, 1655, the abbot of Mehrerau, Heinrich Amberg, laid the foundation stone for the monastery building , and on October 22, 1656, the monastery church was consecrated by Prince-Bishop Johann von Praßberg."
The last subordination, that to Mehrerau Abbey, was dissolved in 1658 – 190 years before the peasants' liberation of 1848.
In contrast to most farmers of the time, Bregenz Forest people were able to settle anywhere as free men. There are numerous names, especially in Swabian, that can be traced back to Bregenz Forest.
The peasant constitution was abolished during the French Wars and was not reintroduced afterwards. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were still countless alps and farms where agriculture, livestock farming and cheese production were practiced. Numerous alps are still farmed today, but fewer and fewer farmers are doing so.
Until around 1900, many children from Bregenz Forest had to go to Swabia in Baden-Württemberg from May to October to work on farms there. This meant that their parents had one less child to feed during the summer. These children became known as the Swabian children.
A Bregenz Forest house can be seen on the reverse side of the 100 schilling banknote from 1970.

Cheese dairy

Cheese-making has a long tradition in Bregenz Forest. The Celts first brought cattle breeding and alpine farming to the region. The Romans occupied the region from 15 BC. They were already practising professional alpine cheese-making and passed on the knowledge of cheese-making to the Alemanni in the 5th century, who cleared a lot of forest for pasture farming and established communal pastures. In the 9th century, markets were regularly held in and around Bregenz Forest during church festivals, where cheese and lard were traded. The monasteries were involved in cheese production.
From around 1594, the "Schwarzenberg Market" was held once a year, where cattle and cheese were traded. Until the second half of the 17th century, only sour cheese dairies were operated in Bregenz Forest, where a lot of butter could also be produced. Butter production was very important as taxes had to be paid to the authorities in the form of butter.
After the Thirty Years' War, from around 1648, dairymen from Appenzell came to Bregenz Forest and taught the locals how to milk fat. Some of them leased alps and also set up dairies themselves. The spread of fat dairying is due to the fact that people in the less favorable climatic valleys had to build up durable food stocks for winter and times of need.
In the 18th century, a large proportion of alpine milk was already being processed into alpine cheese.
At the beginning of the 18th century, there was a ban on fat dairying, which resulted in uprisings by the people of the Bregenzerwald. The farmers prevailed and thus began the upswing of Bregenz Forest hard cheese making. The production of sour cheese gradually declined. It was mostly only used for personal consumption and for sale within the region. In 1785, the first roads were built in as a strong trading activity developed. The first iron-shod wagons appeared in 1786.
Schwarzenberg has been the most important trading center for cheese in Bregenz Forest since 1816. The cuboid brick cheese and a Swiss Emmental imitation were transported in carriages to the Danube Monarchy, including Italy and Greece. The first municipal dairy was built in Au in 1830.
The second half of the 19th century was the time of the so-called "cheese counts". Even back then, milk and cheese production was an important source of income for farmers. The cheese counts were a few influential cheese merchants with a monopoly position. They bought milk and cheese and took care of the marketing, while the majority of farmers lived in poverty. The most famous cheese count was Gallus Moosbrugger. To alleviate the plight of the farmers, the farmer and social reformer Franz Michael Felder founded a cheese trading association and a cattle insurance company.
In 1900, an imperial and royal school for cheese-making was opened in Doren.
Since 1993, the Vorarlberg Cheese Awards have been held annually in September in Schwarzenberg. Around 100 dairies and alpine dairies compete with 170 products for the award for the best cheese in the categories of alpine cheese, mountain cheese and semi-hard cheese made from hay milk.
The Bregenzerwald Cheese Route was founded in 1998. It is a cooperation of farmers and innkeepers, craftsmen and tourism in Bregenz Forest. The member businesses hope to preserve the regional cultural and natural landscape and promote the production and marketing of regional products among themselves and with each other. The KäseStraße is a project of the regional funding program LEADER II of the European Union.
To this day, Bregenz Forest is known for its cheese. More than 1,322 agricultural farms with 12,446 cows produce over 50 million kilograms of milk per year.