The best family-friendly hikes and walks around Sankt Michael in Obersteiermark

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Saint Stephen (or in another spelling Stephan, both variants also partly with the Latin ending "...us"), patron saint of this church in the place of the same name, is one of the first seven deacons of the original Jerusalem community and is the first martyr (martyr) of early Christianity. The church commemorates him on the second day of Christmas, December 26th. When Stephen expressed his vision of the open heaven "But he, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God" (Acts chapter 7 verse 55), the people were so outraged that they drove him out of the city and stoned him.

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Military cemetery with memorials A relic from the time of the First World War is the military cemetery, which is located at the foot of the Annaberg. On August 18, 1915, it was built for the deceased soldiers after the first death in the hospital. By the end of the war in 1918, a total of 410 dead from various countries of the monarchy had been buried there. Most of the names are known, only in the last days of the war were two mass graves dug in which unknown soldiers were buried. The military cemetery was redesigned for the first time in 1930. Up until this point, there were also white crosses of deceased Italian soldiers near the graves. However, these were exhumed and then buried in Graz. The military cemetery was redesigned several times in later years. For example, symbolic graves were created for members of the parish of St. Michael who died in the Second World War. In one of the cemetery's crypts there are numerous human bones that were discovered during the construction of the road near Walpurgis Church and mostly date from the battle of 1809. These human remains were transferred to the military cemetery on May 25, 1935 and buried in this crypt. Above this tomb there is a memorial stone for those who died in this battle. It consists of a granite stone with an iron ball, an eagle and the inscription "1809". Until 1943 there was another memorial in the military cemetery, but it was a thorn in the side of the Nazis and was therefore removed. This war memorial, created by the "one-year volunteer" Reitinger - a member of the reserve hospital - with the inscription "In honor of the warriors" was inaugurated on November 7, 1915. In 1959, a new memorial for those who died in the two world wars was erected in the military cemetery to replace the destroyed monument.

Bracher Kreuz - is a so-called field cross

History of the Annaberg Memorial: During the First World War, there was a military hospital in St. Michael, where wounded soldiers from all parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and wounded prisoners of war were cared for. Those who died in the hospital were buried in the "soldiers' cemetery" that still exists today. The Annaberg Memorial was erected by recovered soldiers - especially prisoners of war - between 1916 and 1917. As a "war memorial", it was intended to commemorate "Dear Fatherland's great times" - as the inscription on the memorial reads. The monument has a base area of 8 by 4 meters, a height of 26 meters and is therefore a widely visible symbol of that era. The inscriptions testify to the spirit of that time. On the east side it reads: "Built in 1916 through the willingness to make sacrifices and the hard work of the Res. Spit. under the hospital commandant Dr. Albert Pakh k. Hungarian Honved Staff Doctor by the academic painter and sculptor-architect Lst. E. F. Hans Reitinger, master mason Lst. Zgf. Karl Fuchs, as construction manager, sponsored by the municipality of St. Michael, district and city of Leoben and many friends of the Green Mark." On the west side, which faces the site of the former reserve hospital, there is a plaque under the motto "From the great times of our beloved fatherland": "In memory of the Austro-Hungarian Reserve Hospital St. Michael, which, attached to the glorious 10th Army, was built down there for the benefit and piety of our heroes."

A very beautiful lake