Vienna, 150 years ago

Imported to Vienna as a gentleman's sport along with the first "six outrigger" boat from England in 1862, rowing would become Austria's oldest club sport, starting a tradition which has remained unbroken. Austria's first rowers, upper class and nobility under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, found the gentle meanders of the Danube, including the so-called "emperor's water", ideal for the practice of rowing and were eager to master the waters, as their German counterparts had done in Hamburg 30 years before. With a constant eye on developments in England, between 1862 and 1867, the first rowing club LIA was established, a boathouse built, and a professional racing boat purchased. The Pirat and Donauhort clubs soon followed. Although the English club system was adopted along with its exclusivity and ritual rules, LIA club statutes of 1863 show that the Austrians brought a characteristic of their own into the sport by placing "gesellige Unterhaltung" (social entertainment) in the forefront, ahead of physical fitness and technique.¹ Rowing was largely a social occasion, and it would take years for competitive racing to take hold. This emphasis on recreation survives in a form of recreational rowing called a "Wanderfahrt", in which a day's outing is made on the water for the purpose of sightseeing and socialising. "Wanderrudern" is popular in Germany as well as Austria, and even the LIA club, which today produces the core of Austria's elite rowers and has the most competitive outlook of Vienna's clubs, holds regular "Wanderfahrten" each year.

The Taming of the Danube

When Emperor Franz Joseph decided to regulate the meanders and by-ways of the Danube to prevent flooding in the 1870s, a phase of constant relocation and rebuilding began for the handful of existing rowing clubs. By the 1880s, further clubs had appeared and most of today's Viennese clubs settled in their present-day location on the shores of a dammed former meander of the Danube, the Alte Donau (old Danube). Initially dueling amongst each other, the first few clubs with racing crews were eager to catch up with international standards. 1881 would prove a key year for competitive rowing in Austria. It saw the founding of the Austrian Rowing Association and the festive opening of the first Viennese International Regatta, attended by none other than Crown Prince Rudolph himself. But the highlight of the year and most influential event was the Austro-American match between the Donauhort and Cornell University crews. In response to an American rowing magazine's having poked fun at the state of rowing in Austria, the Austrians invited the Americans for a challenge on the Danube. In a race between two Danube bridges that lasted nearly an hour and a half, the Austrians managed to beat the Americans and defend their honor, becoming the heroes of the hour. Rowing soon found more enthusiasts, as well as public support.

The World Wars and the Third Reich

The first world war naturally put a halt to rowing activities. News of the murder in Sarajevo came days before the first Austrian Club Team Championships were to be held and many rowers were drafted and their boathouses forfeited for military purposes. This was also the start of the on again, off again relationship with Germany which would have its own impact on the development of rowing. In 1895 Austria's rowing clubs had broken away from the German Rowing Association in a dispute over the definition of "amateur" rower. The Germans wanted to keep the elitist English definition, but Austrians wanted to redefine it in such a way as to include the craftsmen class. On the one hand, the dispute revealed a cultural gap, though not as marked as the one today, and a relationship which was to remain ambivalent. Yet in the wake of World War I as differences paled and affinities grew between the two countries, the join exclusion of Austria and Germany from the 1920 Amsterdam Olympic Games and the FISA would signal the beginning of a common fate.

While the particular pan Germanic nationalism, which flourished in the 19^th century and is echoed in the heroic names of rowing clubs such as the Ellida, Argonauten, Nibelungen, and Normannen, was in many ways distinct from the ideology of the NSDAP and the Third Reich, there were enough common elements for a brotherhood to begin. Shortly before the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Austria signed a pact of friendship with Germany, giving their unconditional support to the games and sharing the pride of the strong showing of German rowers, one Austrian from the Ellida club winning silver. In 1838 Hitler annexed Austria. For Vienna's clubs this meant both less autonomy after the dissolution of the Austrian Rowing Association and a surge in government support and funding. For the members of the predominantly Jewish Austria Club and a handful of foreign coaches it meant deportation and, in many cases, death. Sports organizations were consequently "aryanised" and the Austria Club boathouse became an SS rowing center. Under Nazi rule, rowing would become the national sport par excellence, considered to embody all the values of the Nazi body cult and ideology: discipline, beauty, strength, and Nordic heroism. Rowing was both instrumentalised for propaganda purposes and transformed into a sport for the masses.

From Gods To Good Old Boys

Some say that during the period of disillusionment and reconstruction following World War II, Austria's separate identity became clearly defined for the first time. In rowing, a new phase of organization and activity also began separately from Germany. After the war, Vienna's clubs operated out of the only remaining LIA boathouse, and pulled together to hold the Austrian Club Team Championships for the first time in 1946. While competitive rowing continued to grow, the social aspects of rowing also resumed their importance. The emphasis on social recreation or "gesellige Unterhaltung" under the monarchy may have been a precursor of the trait of today's "Gemuetlichkeit" (easygoingness), an integral part of Austrian self-defined identity. Intended to distinguish them from the overly - or even worse, overtly - ambitious Germans, Gemuetlicheit means sharing a round of beer, heading off on a day-long Wanderfahrt, and generally downplaying the competitive aspects of rowing. For someone unused to the continental club structure, this mélange of the social and the athletic can be surprising, but the American system of collegiate sports and its exclusive focus on competition is just as much a novelty to Europeans.

Women on the water

Anyone who has seen photos of the first women to set their behinds in boats wonders how they were able to row under so many layers of clothing. The answer is simple, aside from those few photographed outings in the last century, women simply did not row - One reason for this being the very clothing they were depicted in. The devastating effects of Victorian age and fin de siècle fashion on women's health only served to underline the already common view of women as frail, inferior beings, incapable of exertion. Not only were women supposed to be the passive counterparts to men, but many Viennese doctors believed that sports made a woman physically unfit to be a mother and could even endanger the sexual orientation of her children. During the latter half of the 19^th century in Austria, women's sports were, as in most other countries of the time, nearly nonexistent.

When the first steps, or strokes, were taken in Austria, they would come with some delay compared to other European countries or even Austria's neighboring cities, Prague and Budapest. The wives, sisters, and friends eventually took an interest in the sport, although their function at first was a mainly social and financial one. In proper English fashion, the women were also not allowed in the boathouse until after 5 PM.

When they did row, it was cautioned that they not exert themselves or try to compete in any way. They practiced a form of rowing called "Stilrudern" (stylistic rowing), mean to be aesthetically pleasing.

Around the turn of the century, occasional dissident voices made themselves heard, but the first real opening of sports to women came after World War I when in 1921, under the initiative of rower Otto Engelberger, the first mixed rowing club Donaubund was formed. Illustrating the changes that were taking place, doctor Alice Profe, who supported women's sports, made a provocative statement: "Gentlemen, you may find it hard to believe, but women do not practice gymnastics with their wombs!"². The development of sport clothing for women had also made progress, but complicated changes of clothing at the docks preserved moral acceptability. The Donaubund club raised little protest among male rowers because, like sun tanning, rowing was thought to be a passing fad for women. It did, however, cause an uproar among the rowers' wives, who were still not allowed on the premises by day.

In 1931, also with the help of Engelberger, the women finally got their own club, the Frauen Ruder Riege (FRR).^l Run much like the men's clubs with strict initiation rituals and restricted hours for members of the opposite sex, this would become the center of women's rowing for over a decade. Though these women trained throughout the year, received coaching, and competed internationally, they still practised "Stilrudern" with technical precision and accurate stroke timing. Women's rowing was still meant to be pretty, not strong, and rowing still ranked among the "dangerous" sports.

The Nazi regime would revise this attitude about women and sports. Instead of being thought of as endangering a women's motherly function, sports were considered necessary to make women the guarantors of a great nation. "With a high degree of physical training and a minimum of intellect, women will become what they are destined to be: the breeding ground for the Third Reich," wrote Hans Peter Bleuel in a book on the ideals of the Reich³. To a degree, this simply meant that the list of acceptable sports had grown longer, but women were also given medals and awards for their achievement. In keeping with the past, however, these achievements were held to be less athletic than moral and aesthetic in nature. At women's rowing events "beauty and soul" were doubly emphasized. During this period the Frauen Ruder Riege was renamed the Frauen Ruder Verein and its close-knit group of members increased in number.

After World War II a phase of women's participation began which is still in progress today. Close quarters and financial need, as well as contacts made during recreational outings brought male and female rowers closer together, facilitating the subsequent period of integration. Motivated by a need for boats, the Ellida club proposed a fusion with the FRV in exchange for the promotion of a woman rower to club officer, and the Ellida today still have the highest percentage of women members in Vienna. This fusio9n was an exception, however, and signaled a shift from separate and unequal to integrated and invisible. One by one, over many years, the Viennese clubs began to admit women, who no longer had their own center of rowing activity, and the LIA club completed the list as late as 1973. There are still by far fewer women involved in both recreational and competitive rowing than men, and prize money is awarded unequally. The Society for the Promotion of Women's Rowing, founded in 1995 by Alfred Unger and the national team coach Ileana Pawel, may provide just what is needed: funds for women rowers and a central basis of communication.

Rowing in Austria Today

This year's Austrian Club Team Championship (OEVMM) results give a good indication of the distribution and ranking of rowing clubs in Austria today. In the totaling of points, the Viennese clubs LIA and WRKDonau headed the list, the Carynthian club Albatros, with Olympic veteran Arnold Jonke, managing to eek into the top three. Vienna is still the traditio9nal center of rowing activity, though regional clubs have gained in number and importance. Internationally, Austria has earned three fifth place results at world regattas in the past year and they are intent on upping the standard with stricter erg entry requirements for the national team. In spite of a long-standing respectable showing, however, media coverage and official financial support remain low, with a scant funds going to junior and women's rowing programs. A certain elitist reluctance to admit a need for funding may be encumbering the process. Only a handful of rowers have received enough sponsorship to meet the costs of participation in bi-yearly rowing and cross-country skiing camps, and women, less likely to profit from military and police sports programs, are at even more a disadvantage. Like in many countries where the elitist aura of rowing is a self-perpetuating prophesy, rowing in Austria depends on individual effort and money virtually from the first stroke to the last.

A Regional Outlook

In 1996, after years of competing, coaching, and holding an office in the Viennese club Ellida, Martin Zoeberl, age 36, left the Ellida to found the easternmost Danubian rowing club in his hometown of Orth a. d. Donau near the border with Slovakia. Situated directly on the Danube, Orth is a town with a long tradition of life and death on the river. Martin's ancestors worked "ship mills" or floating mills which harnessed the power of the current to grind flour until late 1800s, and his great, great, uncle even perished in the current. The region became controversial in the 1960s when thousands of demonstrators, including Martin, prevented the construction of a power plant in what is today a national nature preserve. The first Orth Rowing Club is set in the middle of this rich past and natural beauty.

For Martin, the rowing club is a way to combine his enthusiasm for rowing with enthusiasm for local history and nature. He and his girlfriend Sabine Bergauer have attracted 30-odd members, collected 11 boats, and built a mobile boat shelter in accordance with riverbank regulations. Of the predominantly female rowers, many have participated in regattas all over Austria, including the OEVMM where they earned more points than certain Viennese clubs. The approach to rowing is another when one leaves the capital to row directly on the Danube, however. First of all, there are the unpredictable currents, winds and fog, and the freight traffic, which can make a row more than complicated and take their toll on technique. But the river is also a center of gravitation. In Vienna, rowers go home and forget that the water exists; in Orth rowers extend their relationship to the river by rowing.

As if to demonstrate this, Martin has begun a project of which he has dreamed all his life. Next to the boats he is building a "ship mill" from scratch with traditional craft, using plans and photos from his great, great uncle to guide him. When finished by the end of the year 2000, the mill will be fully functional and house a small museum for art and local history. Both the rowing club and mill projects have kept him quite busy in the past few years. To complete the journey into the past, Martin has had a wooden barge or "Tschaike"⁴ built in replica of a kind of boat adopted by the Austrians from the Turks after their first invasion and used in Danube battles. With high wooden sides, a 7m rudder and seats for twenty sweep oars, this vessel takes one back to the very origins of rowing. Visitors can either be shuttled to the museum in the Tschaike, which is also equipped with an ecologically compatible motor, or they can take matters into their own hands and savor the gentle creak of wood on wood as they make their way along the silent, wild river.

For those planning a trip to Vienna, Martin and Sabine are happy to welcome any rowing or local history buffs to their club and museum. English is spoken, and they are always ready for new rowers to join them on either "Wanderfahrten" or regular practices. Orth is a mere 40 minute drive from Vienna, but can also be reached by bicycle along the Danube.l the Uferhaus restaurant near the club serves tasty fish lunches and dinners which draw guests from all over the region. If you are feeling particularly adventurous, you can brush up on your German rowing terms (see list) before you go.

Address: Martin Zoeberl and Sabine Bergauer, Fadenbachstrasse 6, A-2304 Orth/Donau, Telephone: +42/(0) 22123157

German rowing terms for the adventurous

• Ans Bootl - Hands on the boat!
• Rudern - rowing or "row!"
• Streichen - backing or "back!"
• Backbord - port
• Steuerbord - starboard
• Schlagfrau/mann - stroke
• Steuermann - coxswain
• Bug - bow
• Heck - stern
• Rollbahn - slide
• Ruhige Rollbahn = slow on the slide
• Auslage - at the catch
• Einzug - at the finish
• Schnelles Haendeweg - faster at the finish
• Schnelles Wasser fassen - quicker catch
• Lang bleiben - stay long
• Halbe Kraft - half pressure
• Volle Kraft - full pressure
• Zehn harte Schlaege - power ten
• Ruder, hoch! - push handles down and glide
• Ruder, halt! - way'nough
• Aufgestelltes Blatt - squared blade
• Stoppschlaege - pause drills
• Ruder - oar
• Riemen - sweep oar
• Skull - sculling oar
• Blatt - blade
• Hantel - handle
• Boot - boat
• Ausleger - rigger
• Dolle - oarlock
• Spanten - gunwhales
• Ruder ? - rudder
• Ruhe im Boot! - Quiet in the boat!
• Ufer - shore
• Floss - dock
• Wasser - water [am Wasser = on the water]
• Bootshaus - boathouse
• Gehen wir auf ein Bier/ ein Glass Wein? - Shall we go for a beer/ a glass of wine?

1 Schipper-Doechl, Arabella: Frau im Boot! Die Frau im Wiener Rudersport. Vienna, 1997, p. 13.

With the exception of the current and regional section, information and photos for this article were based largely on this book. Interviews with Martin Zoeberl of the Orth Rowing Club and Siegi Schellander of the WRK Donau provided information for the current and regional situation, as well as the LIA and OERV websites.

2 Schipper-Doechl, p. 29.

3 Ibid., p. 43.

4 This term probably has its origins in the Turkish-Hungarian language community.

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