Skip to content
DE
ShortlistSign in
List a propertyFind a property
Shortlist

Sources for the video

Kaisermühlen: no emperor, no mills

Kaisermühlen is named after imperial ship mills that floated on the main arm of the Danube, right in front of the houses. From 1870 a new bed was dug for the Danube, and in April 1875 it was flooded. The current moved, the mills had to follow, and Kaisermühlen suddenly lay across the river. Here are the sources for the video, statement by statement.

Also onInstagramTikTokYouTube

Video · 1:20 · with sound, in German

What the video shows

Until 1875 Kaisermühlen lay on the right bank of the main arm of the Danube, on the same side as the Prater. Ship mills floated on the arm: each a mill wheel between two boats, driven by the current. According to the Wien Geschichte Wiki most of them lay between the mouth of the Kaiserwasser and today’s Schüttauplatz. The place is named after these “imperial ship mills”.

On 14 May 1870 Emperor Franz Joseph made the first cut of the spade for a new, almost straight bed through the floodplain, between Nußdorf and Albern. In April 1875 the dam to the new bed was opened; the geologist Eduard Suess was there and wrote in 1916: “nun stürzte der gewaltige Strom schäumend herein” (now the mighty river rushed in, foaming). In the old arm the current grew weak, and according to the report of the Danube Regulation Commission of 30 May 1875 the Kaiser mills had to stop grinding and take up their new places on the regulated river.

Kaisermühlen now lay on the left bank, across the new river, and still belonged to the 2nd district, the Leopoldstadt, until 1938. The old arm, today the Alte Donau (Old Danube), became a bathing place: in 1900 Florian Berndl leased an island there, and on 5 August 1907 the city opened the Gänsehäufel lido on it.

Kaisermühlen has a second big story, February 1934 at the Goethehof, the council housing estate on Schüttaustraße. The film does not tell it; one minute would not do it justice. If you want to know more, you will find good sources at the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW), with photos and documents on February 1934 in the Donaustadt, in the Wien Geschichte Wiki (Goethehof, Februarkämpfe 1934) and in the Goethehof book by wohnpartner (2014), with the history of the estate and memories of its residents. The sources contradict each other on some details; that is why we give no details here.

At the end the video asks: “Kennst du noch einen Ort in Wien, der nach etwas heißt, das es dort nicht mehr gibt?” (Do you know another place in Vienna named after something that is no longer there?) Real in the video are Google’s 3D of today, the wood engraving of 1875, the map around 1875 and the photo of 1932. The views “vor 1870” (before 1870) and “1875” are AI pictures, not photos, painted after the cadastre around 1820 and the map around 1875.

Sources and image credits

Data

For the film we cropped, converted and redrew the data.

Google 3D

Kaisermühlen today, seen from the west-south-west: at the back the Danube with the Reichsbrücke bridge, in front of it Kaisermühlen on the Alte Donau (Old Danube), in the foreground the Gänsehäufel. At the beginning three jumps from the wide view to close above the Alte Donau, at the end the same view and then wide for the question: Google’s photorealistic 3D. In the film the credit stays in the picture for as long as Google’s image is visible: Bild: Google Maps

Pictures

  1. Johann Nepomuk Schönberg (draughtsman of the original drawing), Zeitungsausschnitt mit Illustration: "Der Durchbruch des Rollerdamms am 14. April" (a wood engraving from the Leipzig Illustrirte Zeitung of 8 May 1875: the Danube breaks through the Roller dam into the new bed), 1875. Wien Museum, inv. no. 58629/2. Licence: CC0 1.0. Change: cropped without the printed caption, slow pan, with the strip quoting Eduard Suess on top. On screen “Holzstich nach J. Schönberg, Illustrirte Zeitung, 8. Mai 1875 · Wien Museum, CC0” (wood engraving after J. Schönberg).
  2. Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Military Geographical Institute, LA3 1875 Kaisermühlen (Kaisermühlen with the printed label “Kaisermühlen (zum II. Bez.)” (to the 2nd district), the new river on the left, the old arm on the right; a crop from a survey sheet; the file page gives “circa 1875”, its description 1872), circa 1875. Wikimedia Commons. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: cropped, slow zoom towards “Kaisermühlen (zum II. Bez.)” (to the 2nd district), a golden line beneath it. Rectified, the map is also part of the template for the AI pictures (houses of the settlement, positional error about 25 m). On screen “Karte um 1875: Militärgeographisches Institut · Wikimedia Commons, Public domain” (map around 1875).
  3. Walter Mittelholzer, ETH-BIB-Gänsehäufel, Wien-Weitere-LBS MH02-14-0006 (aerial photograph of the Gänsehäufel in the Alte Donau (Old Danube)), 1932. ETH Library Zurich, image archive, LBS_MH02-14-0006, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: gemeinfrei (Public Domain). Change: portrait crop, the island with the lido in the middle. On screen “Foto: Walter Mittelholzer, 1932 · ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Public Domain” (photo).

AI, voice and music

The views “vor 1870” (before 1870) and “1875” are AI pictures, not photos: painted with AI after a template from the Franciscan cadastre around 1820, today’s waters and the map around 1875, slightly animated with Kling. The flowing water is computed, the mill wheels are a computed 3D model after the painting. The sources do not say how many mills floated there: the picture shows a few, not a count. Drawn are the tiles, labels and quotation strips. Voice: Julien El-Bahy, one of the two people behind wohnwahn. Music: Lyria 3 Pro (Google), via OpenRouter. Sound effects (current, breach): ElevenLabs.

Each statement in the film and its sources

  1. “Kaisermühlen: kein Kaiser, keine Mühlen. Und die Donau fließt auch woanders.” (Kaisermühlen: no emperor, no mills. And the Danube flows somewhere else, too.) On screen: Google’s 3D today, the card “WAS WAR HIER? · 4” (what was here?), then the cut back to “vor 1870” (before 1870).

    “Somewhere else” means the main river: since 1875 it has flowed in the dug bed. The water in front of Kaisermühlen is still there, the Alte Donau, but it stands still. That is why the film says “flows somewhere else”, not “has disappeared”.

  2. “Der Name kommt von kaiserlichen Schiffmühlen. Die meisten schwammen auf dem Hauptarm der Donau, direkt vor den Häusern, heute die Alte Donau. Angetrieben von der Strömung.” (The name comes from imperial ship mills. Most of them floated on the main arm of the Danube, right in front of the houses, today the Alte Donau. Driven by the current.) On screen: the AI picture “vor 1870” (before 1870), the tile “Schiffmühle · ein Mühlrad zwischen zwei Booten” (ship mill · a mill wheel between two boats).

    “Most of them”, because some mills stood on the Kaiserwasser (Wien Geschichte Wiki). The sources do not say how many mills there were or who owned them in 1875; “imperial” is in the name, which is why the film does not say “the emperor’s mills”.

  3. “Und Kaisermühlen lag damals auf derselben Seite wie der Prater.” (And back then Kaisermühlen lay on the same side as the Prater.) On screen: the AI picture “vor 1870” (before 1870), the label “Kaisermühlen”.

    The houses had not always stood there: in the cadastre of 1817 to 1829 there is still floodplain forest in their place, and according to the Wien Geschichte Wiki the chessboard layout points to a later origin. That is why the film says “back then”, not “for centuries”.

  4. “Ab 1870 grub man durch die Au ein neues Bett. Den ersten Spatenstich machte übrigens der Kaiser selbst.” (From 1870 a new bed was dug through the floodplain. The first cut of the spade, by the way, was made by the emperor himself.) On screen: the label “Au · hier wurde gegraben” (floodplain · dug here), the tile “Erster Spatenstich · Kaiser Franz Joseph, Mai 1870” (first cut of the spade · Emperor Franz Joseph, May 1870).

    “Dug” does not mean “in the dry”: more than half of the earthworks were dredging under water (report of 1875, p. 14). The state, the province of Lower Austria and the city of Vienna each paid a third (Wien Geschichte Wiki).

  5. “Im April 1875 wurde es geflutet. Eduard Suess war dabei: … nun stürzte der gewaltige Strom schäumend herein.” (In April 1875 it was flooded. Eduard Suess was there: … now the mighty river rushed in, foaming.) On screen: the tile “April 1875 · geflutet” (flooded), then the wood engraving of the breach of the Roller dam with the quote “Eduard Suess, Geologe, Erinnerungen, 1916” (geologist, memoirs).

    The day is disputed: the 1875 report and the Illustrirte Zeitung give 14 April, Suess (1916) the 15th. That is why the film only says “April” and crops the printed caption of the engraving. By his own account Suess gave the order, Taussig opened the dam; hence “was there”.

  6. “Ab da floss die Strömung im neuen Bett. Im alten Arm wurde sie schwach. Zu schwach für die Mühlen. Die Kaiser-Mühlen mussten das Mahlen einstellen und an den neuen Strom übersiedeln.” (From then on the current flowed in the new bed. In the old arm it grew weak. Too weak for the mills. The Kaiser mills had to stop grinding and move to the new river.) On screen: the AI picture “1875”, the tile “1875 · der Strom fließt im neuen Bett” (the river flows in the new bed), the strip “… die Kaiser-Mühlen mussten sogar das Mahlen ganz einstellen …” (the Kaiser mills even had to stop grinding entirely) with “Bericht der Donau-Regulirungs-Commission, 30. Mai 1875” (report of the Danube Regulation Commission).

    In the report the “Kaiser-Mühlen” are the mills, not the place. It dates from 30 May 1875 and reports what had happened. The old arm was only fully dammed off in the winter of 1875/76; that is why the film says “weak”, not “stood still”. The mills did not disappear, they moved to the new river; the sources give no number.

  7. “Kaisermühlen lag jetzt jenseits der Donau. Zum zweiten Bezirk beim Prater gehörte es trotzdem, bis 1938.” (Kaisermühlen now lay across the Danube. It still belonged to the second district by the Prater, until 1938.) On screen: the map around 1875 with “Kaisermühlen (zum II. Bez.)” (to the 2nd district), the tile “bis 1938 · 2. Bezirk, Leopoldstadt” (until 1938 · 2nd district).

    The 2nd district is the Leopoldstadt, to which the Prater belongs. In 1938 Kaisermühlen went to the 21st district; today it lies in the 22nd, the Donaustadt.

  8. “Und der stille Arm? Der wurde zum Badeplatz. 1907 eröffnete auf einer Insel darin das Strandbad Gänsehäufel.” (And the still arm? It became a bathing place. In 1907 the Gänsehäufel lido opened on an island in it.) On screen: the aerial photograph of the Gänsehäufel from 1932, the tile “Gänsehäufel · Strandbad, eröffnet 1907, im stillen Arm” (lido, opened 1907, in the still arm).

    People bathed there before: from 1900 on the island that Florian Berndl had leased. The city opened the lido in 1907. The photo shows the lido in 1932, not 1907. The film does not say the lido came about because the current was gone.

  9. “Kein Kaiser mehr, keine Mühlen mehr, die Donau fließt woanders. Geblieben ist der Name.” (No emperor any more, no mills any more, the Danube flows somewhere else. What remains is the name.) Then the question: “Kennst du noch einen Ort in Wien, der nach etwas heißt, das es dort nicht mehr gibt?” (Do you know another place in Vienna named after something that is no longer there?) On screen: Google’s 3D today, the label “Kaisermühlen”.

Literature and sources

How wohnwahn measures