Georg Trakl Memorial (Traklhouse)

The revered German-language poet Georg Trakl was born in Salzburg in 1887 and spent much of his short life building up a body of literary work that has remained with us long after he died in a military hospital in Krakow at the tender age of 27. He spent his formative years in the city and much of his work shines light on the Salzburg of the early 20th century, although he flitted restlessly around Austria, traveling frequently to Vienna and Innsbruck. Heavily influenced by the works and lifestyles of French symbolist poets like Baudelaire and Rimbaud, Trakl was soon heavily involved with drugs and also suffered from depression; it is suspected he may have committed suicide but this is not known for sure.

Nevertheless his poetry attracted much praise attention and his reputation lives on. Many years after his death in 1914, his birthplace on Salzburg’s Waagplatz was converted to a museum in his memory in 1973. The story of his short life is presented in the Georg Trakl Memorial (Traklhouse), and told through extracts from his diaries, his poetry, photos and a movie based on his formative years.