Austria experienced the 1873 stock-market crash that began in Vienna and became known as the Gründerkrach.
The Gründerkrach, or founders' crash, began in Vienna on May 9, 1873. It followed years of rapid expansion, railway investment, bank formation, and property speculation. When confidence broke, share prices and real-estate values fell sharply, damaging banks and businesses connected to the boom.
The shock spread internationally, including to Germany and the United States. In New York, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke and Company in September 1873 helped trigger a major panic and the temporary closure of the New York Stock Exchange. The resulting downturn is often called the Long Depression, although historians debate its exact duration and severity across countries.
Germany is a common alternative answer because its market and banking system were also hit, and German-speaking sources use Gründerkrach widely. However, the term specifically describes the Vienna crash and the Austrian setting in which the financial panic first broke.