Rattersdorf (, ) is an Austrian hamlet about 90 km south of Vienna, with a population of under 500. It is in the municipality of Mannersdorf an der Rabnitz, Oberpullendorf district, Burgenland state. Until 1899 the village was officially known by the more abbreviated name of Rőt.
Location
Rattersdorf is one kilometre south of Liebing, off Austrian Highway 55 (Kirchschlager-Bundesstraße). For its last six kilometres before the junction with Hwy. 61 (which extends into Hungary as Hwy. 87), Hwy. 55 closely follows the Austro-Hungarian border north of the Kőszegi Nature Protection Zone, near the Hungarian village of Kőszeg. Rattersdorf forms a part of the Kőszeg Lutheran parish and is the seat of the Rattersdorf Catholic parish; civil records are maintained in Lockenhaus.
Rattersdorf offers direct access to the nature park at the Geschriebenstein (Írott-kő); since Hungary joined the Schengen Agreement in 2007, no border controls have been in place. The village is also conveniently linked to Austria's well-developed system of hiking trails and mostly asphalted cycling paths. Lutzmannsburg is 15 km away, and the Austrian wine country of Mittelburgenland, famous for Blaufränkisch grapes, is 25 km away.
History
Medieval times
The first documented reference to the village, in the form Reuth, dates to 1279, when it was recorded as a possession of "Mons. de Reuth", who had acquired the estate from the feudal seigneury of Lockenhaus (still the name of a nearby town of about 2,000 people). By 1390, the village was in the possession of the Kanizsay family.
In 1532 an Ottoman army besieged the area, abducting or killing most of the population of Liebing and Rattersdorf and destroying both villages.
By 1676, near the apogee of Ottoman power in Europe, the lands of Galántha (now in Slovakia) included Lockenhaus and Rattersdorf and were owned by the Esterházy family, descending from Ferenc Zerházy (1563–1594), first baron of Galántha.
Austro-Hungarian boundary
Rattersdorf's population at the 1910 census of Austria-Hungary was predominantly German-speaking; indeed, the four villages of Liebing, Rattersdorf, Hammerteich and Lockenhaus had a combined population of 2,381 German speakers but only 124 identifying themselves as ethnic Hungarians. After World War I the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) provisionally assigned the German-speaking Burgenland to Austria but did not settle the exact Austro-Hungarian border. Pursuant to the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, the four villages initially became a part of the Kőszeg subdivision of the Vas administrative district in the Kingdom of Hungary, and a neutral boundary determination commission was created to delineate the frontier.
The new countries (Austria and Hungary) made overlapping territorial claims. The Hungarian delegation pointed out that the four villages had long-established trading ties with the Hungarian town of Kőszeg (known in German as Güns), whilst Austria, with its greatly reduced territory, population and resources, would face considerable difficulties in adequately providing the area with food and other supplies. An important factor behind the Hungarian position was Prince Pál Miklós Victor Esterházy's vast land holdings, which included much of the area in and around Lockenhaus and which he wished to remain within Hungary's territorial boundary; the Hungarian government saw that their best interest lay in supporting his claim. As it happened, although a short-lived communist government took power in 1919 under Béla Kun, it failed to redistribute large Hungarian estates, such as those of Esterházy, to the peasantry and became embroiled in war with both Romania and Czechoslovakia.
As regards the economic relations of Kőszeg to its substantial hinterland, Austria argued that the area, considered as a single economic entity, had more connections with Austria than with Hungary and that rather than attaching the four villages to Hungary, Kőszeg should instead form a part of Austrian Burgenland. Furthermore, if the counterclaim were not accepted, Esterházy need not fear economic difficulties resulting from the alienation of his lands; Austria would willingly compensate him by allowing Austrian timber harvested from his lands to be milled in Hungary.
Austria explained to the boundary determination commission its belief that the loss of Lockenhaus, Hammerteich, Liebing and Rattersdorf would thwart the then proposed expansion of the Kirchschlag-Deutschkreutz railway line to Liebing and also the expansion of a line to Oberschützen-Hartberg. Cutting off access to the hinterland would also undermine the viability of the Deutschkreutz-Mannersdorf railway line.