The history of electricity production in Kaprun began as early as the 19th century with the construction of individual small power plants. The first of these supplied the Mooserboden Hotel with electricity for lighting, hot water, and the kitchen. Still in the early interwar period, the Salzburg Provincial Council discussed and approved the application of the Kaprun municipality for a loan to build a hydroelectric power plant near the centre of the village. But soon after, the first ideas emerged for a more extensive use of the Tauern valleys, and in particular the Kaprun valley, to generate electricity on a large scale.
The first concrete plans were published in 1928. The then governor of Salzburg, Franz Rehrl – who pushed for the construction of the Grossglockner High Alpine Road – was also firmly behind these proposals. As early as 1926, he had expert opinions on the expansion of hydroelectric power generation in the Fusch and Kaprun valleys collected, at the suggestion of various authorities and industrialists.
Before entering the exhibition room, visitors will find an information board that provides a chronological overview of the construction of the power generation group in the Kaprun valley. The exhibition room itself is dominated by three information panels in the middle of the room, labelled on both sides and with pictures, which highlight important periods of the construction period individually, as well as a photograph of the dam construction that covers the floor of the room.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the large-scale project took place in 1938, barely more than two months after Austria’s annexation by the German Reich (Anschluss), although no concrete plans existed at that point in time. The propaganda effect was of the utmost importance to the regime. After the beginning of the Second World War, forced labourers from the occupied territories were deployed. Only a few local or German voluntary workers were used and the majority of the workforce were prisoners of war and civilian forced labourers who had been taken from their homeland. After the end of the Second World War and the liberation of the workers, construction work was halted until 1948, when financial support, mainly from the Marshall Plan, arrived in Kaprun. These funds and the preparatory work of the forced labourers formed the basis for the Kaprun myth that now emerged and which is also critically examined in the exhibition.
