The site of Mattersburg was already populated in antiquity based on excavations of
Roman and
Longobard graveyards. The town was first mentioned in writing as
Villa Martini in 1202, when it was a property of the
Nagymartoni family of
Aragonese origin. Its Hungarian name (Nagymarton) also refers to the church consecrated to
Martin of Tours. Originally the German name was
Mattersdorf and it was renamed to
Mattersburg in 1924.
Matter originated from
Martin and also refers to St. Martin of Tours, while
Dorf means "village" and
Burg means "castle". The area's original fortress had already been torn down by 1294. Mattersburg was elevated to the status of a
market town in 1354. The town was destroyed by fire in the year 1774 and again in 1856. The area's wealth increased when the railway began running from Wiener Neustadt to Mattersburg in 1847. During the 19th century, the town was the site of a ceramics factory founded by János Ziegler in 1815 or 1818, producing yellow coloured wares following the style of
Vienna porcelain. The town was one of the Burgenland
Siebengemeinden. The first Jews to settle in the town arrived in the 16th century, having been expelled from
Sopron, and their presence in the town increased greatly over the following years. In 1671, the Jews were forced to abandon the town by the order of
Leopold I. They were allowed to return to Mattersdorf, as it was then called, in 1678, although they were forced to buy back their own possessions. The self-governing Jewish community was merged with the rest of the town in 1902/03. As with the rest of Burgenland, Mattersburg belonged to the
Kingdom of Hungary until 1920 and it was the seat of the Nagymarton district in
Sopron county. In late 1918, Mattersburg locals rebelled against Hungarian rule to create the short-lived
Republic of Heinzenland aimed at unifying with Austria. After the end of the First World War, German West-Hungary was given to Austria in the Treaties of
St. Germain and
Trianon; there it formed the new province of Burgenland. Mattersburg kept the official name of Mattersdorf until June 14, 1924; on July 2, 1926, it received town privileges. In 1978, Mattersburg incorporated the village of Walbersdorf. After the
Anschluss in February 1938, the Jewish population of Mattersburg was expelled and dispossessed, so that already in the autumn of 1938, there were no more Jews in Mattersburg. In the course of the war, more than two hundred of the town's residents were missing or killed. Approximately one hundred of its Jewish residents were murdered in the
Holocaust. == Politics ==