Celts settled the area from about 600 BC, the name of the
Stiria River is of
Celtic origin. Their kingdom of
Noricum became part of the
Roman Empire in 15 BC. A settlement named
Gesodunum noted by the ancient geographer
Claudius Ptolemy (c. 90 – c. 168) was possibly located in the Steyr region. Here the Roman "Iron Road" led from the
Erzberg mine along the Enns River to the
castra of
Lauriacum (at present-day Enns) on the Danube. In the 6th century, Slavic settlers moved into the area, but when they were defeated by Duke
Tassilo III of Bavaria, who granted the land to nearby
Kremsmünster Abbey in 777, the area was resettled with
Bavarians. During the
Hungarian invasions of Europe, a fortress was erected above the Steyr River by the local Traungau counts, first mentioned as
Styraburg in a 980 deed. From 1055 Steyr Castle in the Bavarian Traungau as well as the adjacent "
March of Styria" were ruled by the mighty
Otakar dynasty. The Otokars controlled the
iron mining at Erzberg and made their residence at Steyr a centre of medieval courtly culture and
Middle High German poetry. In 1180, Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa elevated Margrave
Ottokar IV to a
Duke of Styria; however, the line became extinct upon his death in 1192 and, according to the 1186
Georgenberg Pact, his Styrian lands fell to the
Babenberg dukes of
Austria. Steyr, already named a
town (
urbs) by then, lost its importance as a ducal residence but retained its status as a centre of ironworking. The Babenberg rulers promoted its economic development as a site of blacksmithing, mainly
knife making and
armament industry. After the extinction of the Babenbergs in 1246, Steyr together with the Duchy of Austria was occupied by the
Přemyslid king
Ottokar II of Bohemia and finally taken over by the
Habsburg king
Rudolf I of Germany upon his victory at the 1278
Battle on the Marchfeld. The town privileges and
market rights were confirmed by Rudolf's son King
Albert I in 1287 and the citizens further on benefitted of Steyr's preferred position within the iron trade all over the
Holy Roman Empire and especially with the
Republic of Venice. In the 13th and 14th century, Steyr was a centre of the Christian
Waldensian movement and a location of the inquisitorial persecutions led by the Catholic cleric
Petrus Zwicker (d. 1403). Likewise, the
Protestant Reformation quickly spread among the citizens about 1525, fiercely opposed by the Habsburg rulers in the course of the
Counter-Reformation. The economic situation changed for the worse, as the iron trade decayed during the
Thirty Years' War, when Upper Austria was pawned to Duke
Maximilian I of Bavaria, and the
Peasants' War in Upper Austria of 1626. In 1727 the medieval
Styraburg was devastated by a blaze and replaced by the
Baroque Lamberg Castle. The resurgence of Steyr began under the conditions of late 18th century
Josephinism and continued in the course of the succeeding
industrialisation. During the
Napoleonic Wars Steyr was occupied by
French troops several times. On 25 December 1800, the
Armistice of Steyr was signed there. In 1830 the blacksmith Leopold Werndl founded an armory at Steyr, which his sons Josef and Franz Werndl re-established as a stock company in 1864, named the
Österreichische Waffenfabriksgesellschaft (ÖWG) from 1869. Including the
Steyr automobile branch from 1915 it was renamed
Steyr-Werke AG in 1926 and formed a large industrial conglomerate by the merger with
Austro-Daimler and
Puch in 1934. However, the Steyr industry was hit hard by the 1929
Great Depression. In 1934, the town became one of several battlegrounds between Social Democratic
Schutzbund paramilitary forces and Christian Social
Heimwehr militias in the
Austrian Civil War, which brought about the
fascist corporate
Federal State of Austria that ruled the country until the 1938
Anschluss to
Nazi Germany. The Nazi authorities incorporated the armament industry into the vast
Reichswerke Hermann Göring conglomerate, including the construction of the
Steyr-Münichholz subcamp of forced labourers, part of the
Mauthausen network. A major producer of arms and military vehicles during
World War II, Steyr became a target of
Allied bombing raids to knock out its factories. In two major attacks by the US
Fifteenth Air Force during the "
Big Week" on 23 and 24 February 1944, much of the town was badly damaged, but the factories continued to function until near the end of the war. The city was a meeting point on 9 May 1945, when units of the
5th Guards Airborne of the
Red Army and
black troops of the US
761st Tank Battalion along with the
71st Infantry Division contacted each other on the bridge over the Enns River. Steyr was occupied by the U.S. Army—the Soviet Army moved east behind the demarcation line of the province of Lower Austria. The troops remained until 1955 when Austria officially declared
neutrality by the
Austrian State Treaty. ==Population==