Vienna - Old Town Hall / Museum and Archives of Austrian Resistance

(Local Name: Altes Rathaus) The Old Town Hall in Vienna, opposite the Böhmische Hofkanzlei, houses the archive of the Austrian Resistance Movement. In the Resistance Museum are exhibits illustrating the active revolt against Austrian Fascism (1934-38) and of the resistance and persecution under the National Socialists in Austria (1938-45).

Although the decision to set up the Museum of Austrian Resistance in the Old Town Hall has little to do with the history of the building, there are nevertheless parallels. The Old Town Hall was originally the house of a rebel, Otto Heimo.

After Emperor Albrecht I was murdered in 1309 a number of influential Viennese citizens including Heimo resolved to resist the Habsburg rulers. However the plot was discovered, the conspirators punished and their property confiscated. Duke Frederick the Fair gave Heimo's house to the municipality in 1316. The building remained the town hall until 1885 and during this time was on several occasions altered, enlarged and partly rebuilt. It received its Baroque facade about 1700 and the portals with the sculptures of "Fides publica" and "Pietas" by Johann Martin Fischer are also 18th C. The Andromeda Fountain with a lead relief of Perseus and Andromeda in the courtyard is one of Raphael Donner's last works, dating from 1741.

A memorial to the Austrian resistance fighters and victims of the Nazi regime can be found five minutes away at No. 6 Salztorgasse.