1934: Vienna's Höhenstrasse

The construction of the Höhenstrasse, which today leads from Neuwaldegg via the Cobenzl, the Kahlenberg and the Leopoldsberg to Klosterneuburg, was based on plans that had already been created in the course of Vienna’s urban expansion at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century. Yet, the construction of the street was only begun in the time of the corporatist authoritarian state, whereby the project's main objective was to promote tourism and fight against the high unemployment rate of the time.

As a general rule, the plan was to predominantly dispense with heavy equipment during construction in favour of employing as many people as possible. However, soon after the propagandistically staged ground-breaking ceremony on May 18, 1934, it became evident that the mostly unskilled workers were unable to complete the work in the intended time frame with the primitive equipment available to them. Only with the use of professional construction companies that had skilled workers and heavy equipment could the halting construction advance again so that the first segment could be opened for traffic on October 16, 1935. After that, stages of construction were tackled successively; starting on December 15, 1940, the road was finally navigable in its entirety.