The city of Bruck an der Mur has an excellent geographical location and has long been a tradition as a trading and transport city. The first dealer on Brucker Boden - a scrap metal dealer - is known to us from the late Bronze Age (around 800 BC) through a scrap metal depot.
This depot consisted of fragments of sickles, knives, lances, finger-tongued swords, etc.i that the trader had buried here to protect against theft. The trade in scrap metal was a very profitable business at the time.
The city coat of arms
With a document dated April 6, 1506, King Maximilian I grants the Brucker knitting, scrap, scythe, blade and knife makers the city's coat of arms on their products.
This is described as follows:
A horizontally divided shield, the upper field of which is green, the lower field is stone-colored. In between a stone bridge with two towers and four flying buttresses through which a river flows. In the upper part is a right-turned panther, with raised paws and a fiery tongue.
Due to the amalgamation of the municipalities with the market town of Oberaich, the coats of arms of the merged municipalities lost their official validity on January 1st, 2015. The new municipal coat of arms was awarded in 2016.
Heraldic rules
A coat of arms is a symbol that is inextricably linked to its wearer and forms an essential part of its identity. This means that a coat of arms has to be graphically appealing and clearly structured in order to make it an unmistakable distinguishing feature of its wearer. Municipal coats of arms should be structured in such a way that they can be recognized at first glance, both in the form of a letterhead and as part of the welcome board at the entrance to the town, etc.
In order to make a coat of arms clearly recognizable, the number of colors, fields and figures should be as small as possible. The figures should largely fill the shield. The "new" coat of arms of the city of Bruck an der Mur corresponds to these heraldic rules.