This is a sequel of my old Tsar Bell videos from a few years ago, The Old Pummerin was originally cast in 1705 from 208 of the 300 cannons captured from the Muslim invaders in the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna.
The church bell cost 19,400 florins to cast. Images of St. Joseph, St. Mary as the Immaculate Conception, and St. Leopold adorned the bell. These figures bore the arms of Bohemia, Hungary, the Holy Roman Empire, and Austria.
It had a diameter of 3.16 meters (2 centimeters more than the New Pummerin), with a pitch of Bb.
On December 15, 1711, Bishop Franz Ferdinand Freiherr von Rummel consecrated the bell, which was then installed in the lower part of the high south tower of the cathedral. It rang for the first time on January 26, 1712 to mark the entry of Charles VI to Vienna from Frankfurt after his coronation as Emperor.
It took a quarter-hour for 16 men pulling on the bell rope to swing the heavy bell back-and-forth enough before the clapper would strike. But the forces from swinging the 18161 kg bell endangered the structure of the beloved tower, so in 1878 Friedrich von Schmidt, the cathedral's architect, ordered that it be rung only by pulling its clapper, instead of being swung.
A photo of it in place shows how the Old Pummerin was then borne by wooden rails on which its lip rested. When it was to be rung, the rails had to be lowered away from it by turning jackscrews, and then eight men pulled on the two ropes attached to its heavy clapper. The Old Pummerin last sounded on Easter 1937. A fire caused by war-time looters of near-by shops destroyed the bell when its wooden cradle burned through and the bell crashed onto the stone floor of the south tower on April 12, 1945, along with Johannesglocke of the Northern tower, Zwölferin, and Neuerin of the south front tower. The other 6 bells of the north front tower survived the fire and still exist today. The other 11 bells of the Southern tower were cast in 1960, after the fire.