'Schellenberg' is a municipality in the lowland area of
Liechtenstein, on the banks of the
Rhine.
As of 2005, it has a population of 952 and covers an area of 3.5 km².
The area was first settled by
Celts, then by
Rhaetians.
Rome conquered the area in
15 BC, and made it part of the
Province of Rhaetia. The Province later became an earldom under
Charlemagne. The earldom was continually divided up by inheritance.
The Lordship of Schellenberg was purchased by the Counts of
Vaduz in
1437 and the two states have been united in fact ever since. After the
Swabian War in
1499, both came under
Austrian suzerainty. Different dynasties of counts bought and sold them, until their purchase in the early 18th century by the Liechtenstein dynasty, which had been granted Princely status in
1706, but which needed to acquire a territory with imperial immediacy in order to vote in the Diet of the Princes of the Empire. The Emperor formally united Vaduz and Schellenberg in
1719 as the Principality of Liechtenstein.
In the municipality, there is a war monument
[1](Denkmal). Soon after the war in 1945, a large group of
Cossack troops, troops with ethnic origins in the
Soviet Union, sought
political asylum in Schelleberg. This was a tremendous hardship for the municipality given the scarity of food, but the visiting troops were cared for and supplied with food. Eventually, the group was settled in
Argentina. A similar group of Cossack troops sought asylum with
British forces. However, they were not so fortunate. They were returned to the USSR where all of them were prompted executed.
[2]
In Schellenberg, there is a small road crossing to Austria that is manned by Austrian border guards.
References
1. Schellenberg TravelGuide on Virtual Tourist.com
2. See Betrayal of the Cossacks