Last Saturday, the sixth Graf Starhemberg March took place under the command of the Vienna Officers’ Society and under the patronage of the Vienna Military Command and the Schottenstift.
The Count Starhemberg March commemorates the defender of Vienna in 1683, Ernst Rüdiger Count Starhemberg, who also occupies a prominent place in the traditions of the Vienna Military Command. The memorial march was initiated in 2015 as a fundraising march to raise money for the renovation of the tomb monuments of Count Starhemberg and Count Khevenhüller in the Schottenkirche. This year’s march collected money for the renovation of Count Starhemberg’s tomb in the crypt below the Schottenkirche.
Due to the current Covid-19 regulations, the route of the march had to be changed this year. In previous years, it corresponded to the route taken by the relief army to liberate Vienna on the night of September 11-12, 1683, before the decisive battle against the Ottomans. This year, the march led from Stockerau along the banks of the Danube via the Korneuburger Werft and Bisamberg to Stammersdorf and on to Freyung in Vienna’s 1st district. The approximately 70 participants covered 40.7 kilometers in eight hours (net marching time). At Floridsdorfer Spitz, there was a short memorial to the Nazi resistance fighters Biedermann, Huth and Raschke. The Austrian officers were publicly executed in front of the Floridsdorf district office after “Operation Radetzky” was uncovered. Following the report to the Viennese military commander, Brigadier Kurt Wagner, a mass was held in the Schottenbasilica on the Freyung as well as an agape at the invitation of the abbot of the Schottenstift.
