The abandoned clinic in the Vienna Woods looks ghostly today. Once used to treat tuberculosis patients, no one is treated here today. Founded in 1904, the exclusive lung sanatorium quickly gained a good reputation, which is why patients from all over the world came here to be treated. Today it is a lost place with a long history.
The history of the sanatorium
The clinic was founded by lung specialists Hugo Kraus and Arthur Baer. Originally, there was only room for 90 patients, but due to high demand, the facilities were expanded. From 1930, Hugo Kraus practiced a method in which an artificial pneumothorax was applied to tuberculosis patients. This ensured that demand continued to rise and the sanatorium was always fully booked, despite the high treatment costs.
People from all over Europe and overseas traveled to be treated at the noble health resort, including famous personalities such as Franz Kafka. The sanatorium was surrounded by a spacious park, which served to expose the patients to different terrains in the fresh air.
In April 1938, the sanatorium was confiscated by the Nazis and converted into a maternity clinic. Hugo Kraus committed suicide and his colleague Arthur Baer was arrested and had to sign over the clinic. It was now in the hands of the Lebensborn Association, whose primary goal was “racial hygiene”. The new maternity clinic was intended to give birth exclusively to Aryan children. At least 1,200 children were brought into the world here, more likely as many as 1,700. Mothers from all over Germany came to the Lebensborn home in the Vienna Woods, where not only their physical data but also their behavior was precisely documented. It was considered “un-German” if they cried at the birth of their child.
After the end of the Second World War, the facility initially served as a home to help malnourished children regain their strength before it had to be sold in 1950. This was followed by its conversion into a vacation home, which was expanded over the years to include more and more facilities, not least an indoor swimming pool in 1980, before the hotel closed nine years later. In the last few years, the former sanatorium became a rehabilitation center where 22,000 patients were treated, but this was also discontinued after a few years.
The Wienerwald Sanatorium today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YGxAbq3Kxk
In 2002, the Wienerwald Sanatorium closed its doors for good. The surrounding park was maintained for a while, but in the meantime it too was left to its own devices. In 2007, 80 animals that had been illegally housed there by an animal hoarder were freed from the building. All further attempts to make the building usable again in some form failed.
The sanatorium has since fallen into disrepair in parts and is a popular lost place for urban explorers, but illegal raves and occult ceremonies are also held in the rooms from time to time. But even when it was still in operation, it had changed visually over the years due to the conversions required.
The sanatorium belongs to the municipality of Feichtenbach and is around an hour’s drive from Vienna. In 2024 and 2025, it was the subject of the traveling exhibition “On the edge of the Vienna Woods – The Lebensborn in Feichtenbach”, which also made a guest appearance in Vienna.