Salzburg council approves five street renamings over Nazi ties

Salzburg’s municipal council has approved the renaming of five streets whose names honour people classified by a historians’ commission as heavily tainted by National Socialism, ORF reported.

The relatively short, little-known streets are mainly on the outskirts of the city: two are in Aigen, two in Leopoldskroner Moos and one in outer Nonntal.

They are named after lesser-known figures from the cultural sector, including a musician, a musicologist, two sculptors and a painter. Their names will be replaced by those of women: Helene von Taussig, Anna Reindl, Elsa Bienenfeld, Irma Rafaela Toledo and Maria Johanna Sedelmaier. Three of the women honoured were Holocaust victims.

Karajanplatz remains unchanged

The decision does not affect Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz, the city’s most prominent square named after a person with a heavily documented Nazi past.

The renamings are to be carried out gradually by 2028. Salzburg’s ÖVP and FPÖ oppose the changes. The Freedom Party also proposed that residents’ consultations on future street renamings should be politically binding.

Residents recently objected to the proposed renaming of Josef-Thorak-Straße in Aigen. In early August, they called for a say in a possible change to Helene-Taussig-Straße.

The street has been named since the 1960s after Josef Thorak, described as Hitler’s favourite sculptor. Residents are no longer opposed to a renaming, as many had been for years. Almost 30 women and men from the street wrote to Mayor Bernhard Auinger and Salzburg’s governing coalition of the Social Democratic Party, Greens and Communist Party.