The Austrian city of Linz is ready for a year in the limelight as one of Europe's capitals of culture. The small town is using the opportunity to face up to its past as Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's favorite city.
Some European Capitals of Culture are luckier than others. While this year Liverpool banked on the Beatles, the Austrian town of Linz has to grapple with its connection to Adolf Hitler in 2009.
But besides using the opportunity to deal with the fact that Hitler planned to make Linz a major cultural center of the Third Reich, the steel town along the Danube river will offer a host of quirky cultural projects geared towards a wide public rather than a select few.
"Linz is an unknown creature even for Austrians," Mayor Franz Dobusch said of this town which was first mentioned as a medieval trading hub in 799, but which remained a small provincial center until the 20th century.
While few Austrians know about the medieval alleys of the historical center, most associate Linz with voestalpine AG, the steel producer that was founded as part of Nazi Germany's industrial complex in 1938, after Austria was annexed by the German Reich.
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