Empress Elisabeth Monument
Although the Habsburgs played a minor role in Salzburg, the marble statue of Empress Elisabeth on the station forecourt is a much-loved monument to the popular Sisi.
The marble statue by Edmund Hellmer was unveiled in 1901 in the park of the former Grand Hotel de l’Europe across from the Staatsbahnhof (today’s Salzburg Main Station) with Emperor Franz Joseph in attendance. To further honor the empress who had been assassinated in 1898, the surrounding city district was rechristened the “Elisabeth-Vorstadt”. The monument was relocated to the grounds of Hellbrunn Palace in 1925, where it remained until 2002, at which time it was returned to its original site.
The actual statue of Elisabeth is sculpted from Lasa marble, whilst the round plinth is made of reddish Salzburg marble. Her head is crowned by a delicate garland of edelweiss. Engraved on the plinth is a poem by Moravian-Austrian writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.
Because Salzburg did not become a part of Austria until 1816, the imperial Habsburg family has left only a few traces in the city. Elisabeth, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I, is mainly connected to Salzburg due to the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn, a railway line which went into service in 1860 and linked the west of Austria with Vienna. Sisi herself made only one extended visit to Salzburg, in August 1867, when Franz Joseph met with the emperor of France.
