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ItalianoUpdated 31.08.2021
When the European Forum Alpbach meets in Alpbach for almost three weeks, the idyllic mountain village is transformed into the "village of thinkers" where world politicians and Nobel Prize winners shake hands. Hansjörg Lederer, now 88, tells us how the locals follow the events and what illustrious encounters occur.
Alpbach - Every summer, the Congress Centrum in the Tyrolean town of Alpbach becomes a cross-generational think tank and knowledge platform with the aim of strengthening Europe in the long term. The "village of thinkers" in the Tyrolean mountains has shaped generations of intellectuals and politicians with its liberal ideas about Europe. It all began in 1945: Otto Molden and Simon Moser organised the first "International University Weeks" in the mountain village of Alpbach with 80 students at the time. In 1949, the event was given the name European Forum Alpbach. In the meantime, the Forum has had a decisive influence on several generations of intellectuals and politicians and thus on European political culture. Hansjörg Lederer, who is now 88 years old, remembers the beginnings with pleasure.
Hansjörg Lederer was involved as a young builder and later as a board member of the "Club Alpbach for European Culture". As a young carpenter from 1950 onwards, he helped with many constructions. For example, for a stage in front of the church, on which great actors performed the Ur-Faust.
"From the beginnings in the first months after the war, I noticed that hunger was still an issue for the participants," Lederer recalls. Alpbach was also chosen as the venue because the mayor at the time, Alfons Moser, promised to slaughter a cow for the occasion. US care packages were then handed out at the shop in the village. Later, world-class politicians came to Alpbach. Among them was India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, whom Hansjörg Lederer still remembers with a smile.
Helicopter caused power failure
A helicopter accompanied their convoy of cars and flew much too low. It then cut a cable between Alpbach and Reith and the power went out in the village. "Because of Indira Gandhi, there was also a big terror exercise on my sawmill site" tells Lederer. In the middle of the night, the Cobra stormed the house with a loud roar. And once the popular Gandhi caused horror among the security staff when she suddenly disappeared. She calmly went shopping alone in an Alpbach boutique. "I then photographed her there," Lederer laughs.
Artists set up their own national territory in Alpbach
There was also excitement about the "Free State of Artopia", which was founded in 1979 in the middle of Alpbach by Andre Heller and Gustav Peichl. The state territory comprised the area between Gasthof Messner and Böglerhof with its own gate. A backdrop was built up to a toilet door. A cable TV programme was broadcast in two or three inns. When locals threatened in jest to set the whole thing on fire at night and Forum founder Otto Molden was less than enthusiastic about the clambake, "Artopia" was soon history again.
Are the locals generally very relaxed about celebrities? "Yes, for the people of Alpbach a minister on the street or while shopping was always a matter of course," says Lederer.