Vienna’s ‘respectable’ antisemites: A study of the Christian Social movement 9781526144874

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Vienna’s ‘respectable’ antisemites

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Vienna’s ‘respectable’ antisemites A study of the Christian Social movement MICHAEL CARTER-SINCLAIR

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Michael Carter-Sinclair 2021 The right of Michael Carter-Sinclair to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 4486 7 hardback First published 2021 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

Acknowledgements Some general notes

Archival sources and abbreviations



1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Introduction

page vi viii

ix 1

Before the rise of the antisemites

13

To the brink of power, 1889–95

66

Antisemites begin to organise, 1873–89 A Christian, socially engaged movement? 1896–1914

39 93

A German movement? 1896–1914

113

An unloved republic? 1919–26

158

War and the end of empire, 1914–18 The right asserts itself, 1927–33

Building a Christian and German Austria? 1934–8 An end to Austria?

Principal conclusions and further questions Appendix: Elections in Vienna, 1932

133 177 197 224 244 255

Bibliography 257 Index 261

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Acknowledgements

I have received so much valuable assistance and guidance while attempting to produce this work that it is impossible to thank everyone in the available space. I therefore apologise to anyone I may have missed. Special gratitude is due to the following people for the extensive help they have provided. I am thankful for the assistance of Dr Johann Weißensteiner and his colleagues in the Archive of the Archdiocese of Vienna, as I am for the willing support of Herr Michael Winter and Herr Bruno Splichl at the Federal Police Archive, Vienna. Similarly, Frau Birgit Hoffmann and Frau Martha El Hadidi and their colleagues at the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus were constantly cheerful and helpful to me, as were numerous staff at the Austrian National Library and the British Library book and newspaper collections. A number of academics in the field gave me thoughtful advice, sometimes face to face, sometimes by e-mail, always encouragingly. These have included Professor Lothar Höbelt, Professor Wolfgang Maderthaner, Dr Winfried Garscha and Dr Susanne Schedtler and her colleagues. I am grateful to Professor R.J.W. Evans and Professor David Rechter, who gave me the opportunity to share some of my thoughts at their seminar in Oxford, and to other academics who invited me to speak at their colleges. The two peer reviewers who read an early version of part of this script gave me excellent new ideas on how to approach the work. At King’s College, London, Dr Jim Bjork, Professor Stephen Lovell and Professor Richard Vinen helped me in many different ways. The Department of History gave me invaluable support by extending my association there. Dr Michael Rowe has been exceptional, both as

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Acknowledgemen t s

vii

the academic supervisor for my PhD, then when I undertook this work as post-doctoral research. I am grateful to him on many counts: for his advice, encouragement, his good humour, insistence on intellectual rigour and patience. Emma Brennan and Alun Richards at Manchester University Press made this final stage of producing a book as smooth as I could have wished. Finally, none of this would have happened without the constant and loving support of my wife, Christine. She encouraged me to make the leap back into the study of history, knowing how much history in general, and this study of Vienna in particular, meant to me. This work has taken a number of years, and Christine has never lost faith that it would be completed and be worthwhile. For this, and for all the other things, I am so much more than grateful to her. Any errors are, of course, my own.

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Some general notes

Translations All translations from the original languages, unless taken from a work already translated into English, are mine. Any mistakes or misunderstandings are therefore mine. Place Names In the multilingual Habsburg Empire, the language used for place names formed a source of much conflict. In this work, where a commonly accepted English version of a place name is available, it is used. Since the vast majority of references to other place names that came from the archives were in German, the German name is generally used in these instances. Where necessary, an indication is given of the name of a place as it would appear in current English usage.

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Archival sources and abbreviations

ARCHIVES AND MATERIALS CONSULTED Abbreviation ABPD

Original Title

Description Where neither Vienna police Archiv der archive St nor V Bundes­-polizei­direktion ABPD St stated, files Archiv der Bundesare not polizeidirektion Strafseparated polizeiliche Agenden – in certain criminal investigations years Archiv der BundesABPD V polizeidirektion Verwaltungspolizeiliche Agenden – similar to civil investigations AEDW Archiv der Erzdiözese Wien Archive of the Archdiocese of Vienna AEDW AOCk Alt-Ottakring Parish Chronik Chroniken of AEDW GrCk Grinzing Parish Chronik the parishes AEDW HeCk Hernals Parish Chronik AEDW NOCk Neu-Ottakring Parish Chronik AEDW ReCk Reindorf Parish Chronik AEDW ScCk Schottenfeld Parish Chronik AEDW SRCk St Rochus Parish Chronik AEDW StAPCk Favoriten – St Anton von Padua Parish Chronik AEDW StJECk Favoriten – St Johann Evangelist Parish Chronik AEDW WäCk Währing Parish Chronik AEDW WeCk Weinhaus Parish Chronik

x

V I EN NA’S ‘ RES P E C TA B LE’ A N T I S EM I T ES

AEDW AOCor AEDW NOCor AEDW SRCor AEDW WäCor AEDW WeCor

Alt-Ottakring Parish Correspondence Neu-Ottakring Parish Correspondence St Rochus Parish Correspondence Währing Parish Correspondence Weinhaus Parish Correspondence

Correspondence files for these parishes

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PARISH NEWSLETTERS Abbreviation AO Pfarrblatt AV Pfarrblatt Br Pfarrblatt Gr Pfarrblatt HG Pfarrblatt Hs Pfarrblatt MT Pfarrblatt NL Pfarrblatt NO Pfarrblatt SLG Pfarrblatt SR Pfarrblatt SJE Pfarrblatt We Pfarrblatt

Original Title Alt-Ottakringer Pfarrblatt Katholische Aktion in der Alservorstadt, changed to Pfarrblatt der Alservorstadt in October 1938, after Catholic Action was suppressed Breitenfelder Pfarrblatt Grinzinger Pfarrnachrichten Heiliger Geistbote Hernalser Pfarrblatt Maria-Treu, Piaristenkirche Monatsblatt Neulerchenfelder Pfarr-Blatt Mitteilungen der Pfarre Neu-Ottakring St Laurenz-Gertrudsblatt St Rochus Pfarrblatt St Johann Evangelist Pfarrblat Weinhauser Pfarrblatt

NEWSPAPERS WHOSE ABBREVIATIONS APPEAR IN THE FOOTNOTES Abbreviation A-Z dkB DVB M-Z NFP NWB/NWB-IB NWJ NWT NZ Volksfreund RP SAM Stadt und Land Diözesanblatt W-Z

Original Title

Arbeiter-Zeitung Das kleine Blatt Deutsches-Volks-Blatt Montags-Zeitung Neue Freie Presse Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt and its illustrated supplement Neues Wiener Journal Neues Wiener Tagblatt Neue Zeitung Österreichischer Volksfreund Reichspost Sportblatt am Mittag Volksblatt für Stadt und Land Wiener Diözesanblatt Wiener Zeitung



A rchival sources and abbreviations

MISCELLANEOUS

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AHYB ÖBL ÖNB

Austrian History Yearbook Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950 Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

WbiR

Wienbibliothek im Rathaus

Austrian biographical lexicon Austrian National Library Vienna City Library

xi

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Introduction

Christian Social antisemitism: violence in many forms Between the middle of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth, parts of Europe, to varying degrees, were subject to outbreaks of antisemitism. These outbreaks might be spontaneous or organised. They might take the form of damage to, or the destruction of, Jewish religious buildings. They might be state-organised pogroms, or boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses; but they all marked Jews as ‘outsiders.’ Images of brown-shirted Nazi thugs, abusing Jews in the street or burning books or manuscripts by those considered to be Jewish writers or composers, are prominent in modern popular remembrances of such events. Regardless of the form they took, they all had profound effects on feelings of security and belonging for Jews, and they are all reminders of the consequences that antisemitism – and any other prejudice – can bring when it is not confronted.1 Yet, proponents of antisemitic viewpoints did not need extreme shows of violence to be sure that their messages pleased those with similar views, reached potential supporters or intimidated Jews. Some antisemites found means that were less overtly violent, and they attempted to shroud them in at least the appearance of respectability. These antisemites conformed to bourgeois dress codes. They addressed their audiences using the politest of conventions. They met in ‘respectable’ locations. But they showed no hesitation in using the most hateful language when referring to Jews, and their actions were as damaging and violating to Jews in the long term as any physical assaults or book burnings.

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This antisemitism was propagated largely, but not only, by bourgeois politicians and activists. It was dressed up in the language of bourgeois values and described as ‘common sense,’ not prejudice. The antisemites who spread this prejudice may not always have wished for the brutal and boundless antisemitic violence that erupted in German-speaking Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, but they prepared the way for its arrival, and nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the city of Vienna, which witnessed a major eruption of antisemitic savagery in the spring of 1938. This was one consequence of decades of anti-Jewish prejudice, directed against the large Jewish minority of the city, that had been openly espoused by a major political and social force in Vienna – the Christian Social movement.2 At first glance, the responsibility of the movement for widespread antisemitism might appear unlikely, since many of its principles matched those of centre-right or even liberal groups. Its key figures praised the outlook and work ethic of its base of lower bourgeois supporters. They promoted self-reliance and the creation of charitable and mutual associations, rather than state intervention, as means of economic and social progress. They moved among what was termed ‘good society.’3 They called for a prominent place in everyday life for what would normally be called bourgeois morality, even if their version was based on Christian values. Bourgeois agitators were joined by members of the lower clergy of the Catholic Church, who were prominent activists, even leaders, in the movement. But the Christian Socials had a dark side which set them firmly against liberal values of inclusivity, as they proudly expressed the core philosophy of their movement to be antisemitism; and antisemitism, often heavily tinged with an Austrian variant on German nationalism, was a strong force that bound its members together. Christian Socials claimed that this antisemitism was a necessary stance as part of a defence against changes that were sweeping over Vienna and Austria from the middle of the nineteenth century. These changes were economic, as capitalism brought factories and largescale production which created a new, wealthy capitalist class, at the same time as it threatened the guild systems that were dominated by the lower bourgeoisie. Political changes brought liberal administrations, which created modernising constitutions, through which voting rights were extended and equality before the law was guaranteed to all, without distinction. Jews were emancipated from laws that restricted

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their movements and property rights. Policies on secularisation loosened the monopolistic grip that the Catholic Church enjoyed over education, marriage and family life. All churches were to be treated equally, none privileged over the other.4 At this time, Vienna was also undergoing enormous physical changes, as migration to the city swelled the population. Speculative and often poor building projects created new or expanded suburbs, while the centre of the city saw the springing up of villas and apartments for the newly rich, all part of the phenomena of urbanisation and industrialisation that were sweeping across the continent. Antisemites did not see these changes in this way. Instead, driven by a combination of envy, bitterness, resentment, even anger, antisemites concocted elaborate conspiracy theories, myths that treated all of these changes as part of a plot by Jews, as ‘evidenced’ by the presence of numbers of newly arrived Jews in the population of the city as a whole and as prominent figures in the liberal party, even though Jews remained a minority in both. They painted liberalism as ‘Jewish liberalism,’ and it was to be opposed through antisemitic action. For nearly five decades, Christian Socials, most visibly through their political wing, the Christian Social Party, formed by far the largest antisemitic element in Vienna, then in Austria generally. They included in their ranks people with power and influence. They outlived the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, in which they originated, and survived wars and revolution.5 They persisted in their activities, first against the liberals of Vienna, then against the larger Social Democratic movement that rose in the city. They made the profession of antisemitic viewpoints a regular part of daily life in certain circles. They achieved their objective of antisemitism becoming a commonplace. For these reasons, and others, the Christian Socials have rightly been described as the ‘most successful modern political movement based on antisemitism to emerge anywhere in nineteenth-century Europe.’6 But, by the late 1930s, their position was under challenge from the biggest threat they would face. Changes in the international political, diplomatic and military climates meant that Adolf Hitler felt free to attempt the annexation of Austria, under the pretext of being on a humanitarian and peacekeeping mission for an Austria that had been impoverished by war and economic catastrophes. After all, Hitler said, Austrians were German speakers, and shared much history and culture with Germans. So, in March 1938, German troops crossed

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into Austria. They brought food and fuel which they distributed to Austrians who greeted them. But many antisemites also seized the bigger chance that these troops represented. Austrian antisemites had called for ‘action’ against Jews for decades. Now, the effective takeover of Austria by the Nazis opened the floodgates, and years of pent-up hatred were released. Violence filled the streets of Vienna as large numbers of antisemites attacked their Jewish fellow citizens. Jews were beaten and abused, their homes ransacked and their synagogues attacked. The immediate trigger for these outbursts came from international events, but the long-term responsibility for making them possible rested with antisemites in the city, who had worked to make the expression of antisemitic views part of daily life through repeated antisemitic statements. As Bruce Pauley states, Even though it is impossible to prove in any empirical way, it is also highly probable that six decades of anti-Semitic propaganda had left Austrian Jews so isolated socially, that few Christians were willing to help them in their hour of mortal danger. To argue otherwise is to suggest that propaganda has absolutely no influence on the public no matter how often it is repeated over no matter how long a time.7

Yet, the violence of March 1938 was so extreme that even some of these antisemites shunned the excesses of that month, but they had long inflicted antisemitism on their victims through words, through deeds and through the creation of a climate that made life difficult – at times unbearable – for Jewish Austrians. They carried out violence in many forms. The purposes of this work This work has a number of interconnected purposes. The first is to present, in a broadly chronological manner, a history of the Christian Social movement, using the results of research undertaken in a number of archives, libraries and similar institutions. This research has covered the fifty or so years of the existence of the movement, from the late 1880s to the mid-1930s, when changes in political circumstances meant that many of the component parts of the movement were either subsumed into other organisations or disbanded. However, since Christian Socials frequently justified the existence, and the

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antisemitism, of their movement by the use of a narrative that claimed that they were resisting changes that had been introduced to Vienna and which had undermined a better society, this work examines such claims by beginning towards the mid-nineteenth century. The work also continues until just after the Second World War, since individuals who had previously belonged to the movement continued to propagate aspects of a Christian Social mindset even after the 1930s. A second purpose is to use the results of this research to engage with some of the key propositions that have been put forward in works that have been written about the Christian Social movement. For instance, this work supports conclusions that early antisemitic activists in Vienna and areas around the city used social organisations, rather than overtly political groups, as a means to spread propaganda and to build a base of support among the lower bourgeoisie.8 This work goes on to demonstrate the importance of these groups in Vienna beyond the early days of the movement. It adds to knowledge of how and where activists operated and shows that these social groups presented other characteristics of Christian Socials that were important to them, such as their attachment to German culture and the idea of the extended German nation. However, with regard to two other points, this work stands at a distance from, and even goes against the grain of, what has become an accepted narrative of the history of the movement. The first of these points has to do with the motivations that have been said to have driven priests to participate in early anti-liberal, antisemitic campaigning. One reason that has been proposed for their participation is that it was a response to their treatment by the liberal state that emerged in Austria in the 1860s. In summary, it has been suggested that liberals and the liberal state persecuted and derided priests, making them outcasts in society, virtual ‘martyrs,’ in the 1860s and early 1870s. On top of that, their incomes, long fixed by the state without revision, were being eroded by inflation, so they were being left behind economically by their bourgeois equivalents. As a group, they have been said to have therefore suffered ‘occupational anxiety’ that they were becoming socially irrelevant.9 It has therefore been claimed that the clergy who took to activism in the 1870s and 1880s were taking advantage of an opportunity to make a ‘return to society’ alongside the predominantly lower bourgeois anti-liberal groups that had started to appear in the city.10

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Priests were said to have been able to find common ground with these groups when they offered their services as agitators, propagandists and organisers. In this way, by demonstrating their usefulness and importance for the cause, they improved their status among the lower bourgeoisie and in wider society. Research for this work has unearthed a quite different picture of the 1860s as far as the lower clergy is concerned. Evidence here shows considerable interaction between clergy and state, in different ways, with priests forming, for instance, an essential part of ceremonies where local lay dignitaries were present. Some priests even took advantage of the provisions of the constitutional state in order to further their own aims. The notion of unrelenting liberal press attacks on the clergy is also shown here to be an exaggeration, at the very least. These are crucial points, since the alleged persecution of the Church became part of a founding myth that was repeatedly used by lay and clerical members of the Christian Social movement. This is not to turn a blind eye to disputes that did occur between the Church and liberals, especially when it came to a concordat that regulated Church–state relationships in Austria, but a black-andwhite picture of a struggle to the death, with the lower clergy as defenceless victims, is not an accurate representation of the period. While some liberals did attack priests, seeing them as representatives of a backward-looking religion that blocked progress, other liberals valued the contributions that priests made to social order in helping to set standards of morality and behaviour. Among other explanations that have been advanced as motivating factors in the antisemitism of the lower clergy, and which are examined in later chapters, attention is drawn for now to a deep-seated rejection of some of the ideas that came to be of influence in the shaping of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This clerical position can be summed up as anti-modernism, since modernist thinking brought the creation of secular states, with freedom of conscience in belief and equality for all religions. The modern world brought the emancipation of Jews, and it also, eventually, brought democracy. It undermined an old world where religion was used to justify differences in social rank, and where religious belief conferred status on the Church and its agents. Members of the Church in Vienna produced tirades against liberalism before any liberal administrations existed, and before any alleged liberal persecutions of the clergy could take place.11

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The second part of what has become a near-standard narrative on the early days of the Christian Socials, and which is contradicted by the research presented here, also concerns the Church. This is the portrayal of the politically active lower clergy as rebels against the senior clergy, members of the upper hierarchy having been said to have placed barriers in the way of the participation of the lower clergy in Christian Social politics. Instead, the picture that emerges from research here is that of activist clergy who encountered little resistance from senior Church figures and who found approval and reward for their efforts, with extensive Church facilities available for their propaganda work. Within the Church, the lower clergy is shown here to have formed a body of well-connected, well-regarded priests. This conclusion has been reached after examining two key pieces of evidence that have been advanced to demonstrate that opposition was placed before the lower clergy, and then assessing the evidence in the context of the research undertaken here. The first of these pieces of evidence is a mission to Rome that the episcopate in Vienna organised in order to obtain a papal denunciation of the Christian Social movement. The second is a close reading of direct, blanket prohibitions that certain bishops have been said to have placed on political activity by the lower clergy. When the Rome mission is examined in the context of many other aspects of relationships between senior and lower clergy, and not just as a self-standing picture, it does not add much, if anything, to the case that the lower clergy faced the opposition of their superiors. When certain prohibitions on political activity are examined closely, and again in wider contexts, they are seen to be prohibitions that limited activities in certain areas but left lots of scope for action elsewhere. The bishops may have been disturbed by some of the allies that the lower clergy cultivated, but the upper hierarchy, ultimately, did not stand in the way of the lower clergy and their antisemitism.12 This conclusion should not be a surprise. In time, senior Church figures became leading Christian Social politicians and were open about what they saw as the ‘need’ for antisemitism in the state.13 This pointing to anti-modernism as a root of clerical antisemitism should not obscure the fact that the antisemitism of a number of activists was pure, venomous bigotry, but it was a bigotry that became embedded in certain parts of Viennese society, where it was seen as far from irrational. It became, for some, an acceptable, logical

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and respectable viewpoint to hold. This did not take long to happen. Much has rightly been made of how it was the lower bourgeoisie, alongside the priests, who took the lead in spreading and organising antisemitism, but it should not be forgotten that both groups received support from well-connected and influential parts of society, since both the lower bourgeoisie and the lower clergy, as shown in many examples in this work, were frequently joined at campaign meetings by wealthy aristocrats. In the long term, antisemitic, anti-liberal views became part of a Christian Social truth that had to be accepted in its entirety by adherents and followers alike. They created a predominant Christian Social stance that had little or no respect for pluralism, for other points of view, and this stance is shown to have been shared by prominent members of the movement and lay and clerical activists alike. This translated, across the long period examined here, into anti-democratic stances and authoritarian tendencies that culminated in the 1930s in support for a dictatorship that declared Austria to be a Christian and German state, with all that this implied for those who could not fully belong to this Austria. These attitudes neither originated nor existed in a vacuum, so this work explores some of the contexts of their time. These include nationalist disputes that periodically shook the Habsburg Empire, and which Christian Socials could not avoid. They include calls for unification into a single state of all lands that were culturally and linguistically German, which would have included Austria. Not least, Christian Socials shaped, and were shaped by, the poverty, economic change and social divisions and tensions that accompanied the period of their existence. At their beginning, the major political and social battles in Vienna seemed to be between representatives of traditional values against those who supported a modernising vision, even if this division was within the bourgeois classes. When mass politics emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, the struggle mutated into bourgeois versus non-bourgeois, and Christian Socials became the primary representatives of bourgeois political interests and standpoints in Vienna and Austria – a counterweight to the Marxist-inspired Social Democrats who were growing to considerable strength on the left. This explains why an important qualifier must be added to these general descriptions of the Christian Socials. It would be wrong to

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claim that all Christian Socials were inspired by antisemitism. A variety of reasons drove people to join or support the movement and the Christian Social Party. Some would have done so out of a sense that a credible bourgeois, business-oriented opposition to the Social Democrats needed to exist, and the only such opposition came from the Christian Socials. Yet, the single most overwhelming, and publicly presented, characteristic of the movement was its antisemitism. This aspect of its character persisted over the fifty years or so that the Christian Socials formed a coherent movement. For too many, antisemitism was a deeply felt, bitter and nasty prejudice, and a weapon with which to beat their enemies. Followers of a movement founded on myths as to why an antisemitic movement was necessary continued to profess belief in them right to its bitter end. Antisemitism everywhere? Some works give the impression that antisemitism in Vienna was almost universally shared by the non-Jewish population. If this was true, the case that antisemitic activists, especially the Christian Socials, were the primary cause of, and conduit for, organised antisemitism would be weakened. This work briefly engages with and challenges the notion that antisemitism was everywhere. It looks at the case of a leading Social Democrat accused of admitting her antisemitism; the case of the Catholic priest in a parish in the west of Vienna, wrongly accused of writing antisemitic propaganda in his parish newsletter; and the case made by some that the internationalist Social Democratic Party, many of whose leaders and members were Jewish, was infected to a large extent by antisemitism.14 The Social Democrats made dreadful mistakes in the use of caricatures in propaganda, but they must be seen in their historical context if they are to be judged for what they were. As Peter Pulzer has written, Social Democrats and antisemites were at ‘opposite poles of the political world,’ despite ‘superficial resemblances.’15 What this work is not This work does not concern itself to any great extent with debates about so-called types of antisemitism, and antisemitism is defined here simply as prejudice against Jews for being Jews. This is because, however

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antisemites in Vienna defined their antisemitism, and the ‘reasons’ for it, whether religious or pseudo-scientific, they aimed to mark Jews as outsiders. Certainly, antisemites in Vienna proposed different ‘reasons’ for their antisemitism, but this work is more concerned with how and why antisemitism, whatever its form, came to be embedded among certain parts of the population, and who set about embedding it. More important here is that, as argued by Guido Schmid, in his foreword to Judenhass by Eleonore Sterling, antisemites look on the world through the prism of a form of ‘secularised Manicheism.’ In other words, they see two worlds, one of light, and one of darkness.16 The world of light, in their imagination, is a world free of Jews. The world of darkness is a world with Jews, a world of threat and menace. It is a world where everything that is wrong is the fault of the Jew. It is a world, in essence, that differs little from the sentiments of a popular song of the 1920s, the text of which ridiculed Nazi propaganda and satirised antisemitism and the antisemitic mindset: ‘An allem sind die Juden schuld!’ (‘The Jews are Guilty of Everything!’).17 This work is also not a comprehensive history of the whole of the Christian Social movement. It would be an enormous task to attempt this, and it would add little to a study that already examines a wide range of the associations that made up the movement. Nor is it a detailed history of the Christian Social Party, although it does at times focus on the party as the political wing of the movement, at key moments. It does so, for instance during the 1920s, when a leading figure in the Viennese Church, Monsignor Ignaz Seipel, was both leader of the Party and Chancellor of Austria. But the party was only one component of the movement. Finally, although the work considers the emphasis that activists placed on plans to create a ‘Christian’ Vienna and Austria, and how their ‘Christian’ values set them apart from ‘Jewish capitalists,’ no detailed theological analysis of what they meant by the term is encountered here. ‘Christian’ was applied in a way that said ‘not Jewish,’ and that suffices here. The time frame of this work While the core narrative of this work runs from 1860 to late 1938, there is no clean end to this history. Old, disproved attitudes on the



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origins of antisemitism in Vienna persist. For instance, one claim, that Jews brought antisemitism onto themselves, has been repeatedly made, and has repeatedly been shown to be wrong.18 To consider just one instance, it was not the case that The strong antisemitism of this period in Christian circles was above all caused by the over-powerful position of Jewish business people and bankers, who had taken a dominant position in the economy and industry. The Christian business people felt themselves forced out of their fields of activity by Jewish manufacturers.19

These remarks, about ‘over-powerful’ Jews, were not published decades ago, but in 2013, by a professor of Church history at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Given the huge amount of scholarship that has been produced on Viennese antisemitism, it seems that some, even those connected to an institution like the Catholic Church, which played such a significant part in the spread of antisemitism in Vienna, still have much to learn. This need constantly to remember is one reason why it is so difficult to put an end date to this study of antisemitism in Vienna. Notes 1 For treatments on antisemitism in this period, see Eleonore Sterling, Judenhass. Die Anfänge des politischen Antisemitismus in Deutschland, 1815–1850 (Frankfurt-am-Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1969) and Shulamit Volkov, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism in Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). 2 For a description of scenes in Vienna during the annexation of Austria in 1938, see George Clare, Last Waltz in Vienna (London: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 188–189. 3 Wilhelm Gause, a society portraitist, depicted antisemitic Christian Social Mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, at a City Hall festive ball in 1904. This painting is in the Wienmuseum in Vienna. 4 Peter Leisching, ‘Die römisch-katholische Kirche in Cisleithanien,’ in Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (eds), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, Vol. IV: Die Konfessionen (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1985), pp. 1–247, here pp. 41–42. 5 The lands ruled by the Habsburgs have gained the informal, shorthand name ‘Habsburg Empire.’ This applied when their state was more formally known as the Austrian Empire, and which covered all of their

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possessions, until 1867. It also applied to this state, which was renamed Austria-Hungary, until 1918. 6 Robert S. Wistrich, The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Josef (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 205. 7 Bruce Pauley, From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian AntiSemitism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), p. 322. 8 Peter Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 182. 9 See John Boyer, ‘Catholic Priests in Lower Austria: Anti-Liberalism, Occupational Anxiety, and Radical Political Action in Late NineteenthCentury Vienna,’ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 188, No. 4, 1974, 337–369, throughout. 10 This point is discussed at length in Chapters 2 and 3 of this work. 11 See Chapter 1 of this work for examples. 12 The notion of the opposition of the senior clergy in Vienna to Christian Social political activism by the lower clergy is addressed in Chapter 3 of this work. 13 See the words of Monsignor Ignaz Seipel in Chapter 7 of this work. 14 Pauley, Prejudice, p. 133: ‘the Marxists in the Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP) and the tiny Communist Party were the least anti-Semitic,’ although Pauley concedes that they limited their attacks to Jewish capitalists and did not specifically include Jews in general. 15 See Chapter 4 of this work. 16 Cited from Sterling, Judenhass, p. 7. 17 Walter Rösler, Das Chanson im deutschen Kabarett 1901–1933 (Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1980), p. 297. 18 See Steven Beller, Vienna and the Jews 1867–1938, A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 47, on the occupational status of Viennese Jews. See also Marsha T. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna 1867–1914 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), p. 107. 19 Jan Mikrut, Die Erzdiözese Wien im Spiegel der Priestergestalten des XIX. und XX. Jahrhunderts (Vienna: Dom Verlag, 2013), p. 115.

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Before the rise of the antisemites

Revolution and Habsburg survival The antisemites of Vienna attempted to identify the pre-liberal era as a golden age of unchanging, eternal certainties. In reality, the liberal era was one of change, but changes that affected the Habsburg Empire in the 1860s had deep roots, the products of circumstances that had long been developing in much of Europe. Capitalist economies, for instance, had been maturing for decades on the west of the continent. They enabled industrial and commercial projects on a scale that had never before been seen. Investment brought new technologies, such as railways.1 Populations grew rapidly, concentrated in towns and cities. These developments, to varying degrees, impacted on the Empire by the middle of the nineteenth century. The Habsburgs were neither able nor wanted to resist some changes, since they brought economic progress. However, changes were also accompanied by revolutions in ideas, not least as to how the state should be organised and where the legitimacy of the state resided. The political ideals of the liberal era, based on Enlightenment rationalism, encompassed the notion that the people should be organised along national lines and that sovereignty should rest with the nation, not a monarch. These ideas had erupted with the French revolution, and the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars spread these ideas widely across the continent. Ideas brought change, and war swept away a number of European dynasties, redrawing political boundaries. What was commonly known as ‘Germany’ was particularly affected. ‘Germany’ then was not a single entity; rather, it was a number of states of varying size, loosely bound in the thousand-year-old Holy Roman

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Empire, and many of the smaller states looked to the Habsburgs, as Holy Roman Emperors, for protection. Napoleon, however, abolished the Empire in 1806, and it was never resurrected. As a result, in 1815 a new body, the German Confederation, chaired jointly by Austria and Prussia, brought together all the German states, including Austria – again loosely, and initially for matters of shared commercial interests. From 1815 to the 1840s, a period known as ‘the restoration’ was broadly one of political repression, yet revolutionaries continued to pursue their causes across Europe with varying degrees of success, and they could not be suppressed. Would-be revolutionaries worked for liberal and nationalist goals while, in response, police and their agents suppressed anti-establishment activities. Then, in 1848, political discontent and economic hardship brought a new wave of revolutions across parts of Europe.2 Some governments faced revolutionaries who attempted to replace absolutist monarchical systems with liberal institutions. Others faced nationalist insurgencies, such as that of Poles against Prussian rule. The Habsburgs confronted both, as liberals rose in Vienna and other German-speaking centres, while Hungarians and Italians demanded the creation of independent nation-states. Within and beyond the Austrian Empire, some German speakers fought at barricades for the cause of German unification as a single German state. Most revolutionaries intended the German Confederation to form the basis of a unified Germany, but it was unclear whether the ‘German lands’ of the Habsburgs should be included. In the autumn of 1848, the matter seemed to be resolved when revolutionaries offered Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia the crown of a united Germany that would have excluded the Habsburg areas, but he refused it, dismissing with some contempt those who offered it. This, however, set a precedent that Germany need not include Austria.3 Eventually, revolution was suppressed within the Habsburg state, but the dynasty had to sacrifice the legitimate Emperor, Ferdinand II, whose mental capacities were insufficient for the role. So, Ferdinand was peacefully deposed and replaced by his eighteen-year-old nephew, Franz Josef, symbol of a new vigour in the reigning house. Franz Josef and his advisors set about consolidating their power by means of an authoritarian policy known as neo-absolutism, through which they attempted to centralise political control. Local parliaments, known as diets, were suspended, and city councils either had powers revoked or were now run by Habsburg placemen.4

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Directives from the centre aimed to strengthen the state, as Franz Josef and his circle worked to rebuild the prestige and legitimacy of the monarchy. This is not to say that the dynasty had only enemies at home, but they could not eliminate those who agitated for change, and the dynasty relied heavily on repression for control. This could be counter-productive, sometimes rallying the opposition, particularly in Hungary, which, in the 1850s, underwent a cultural revival that defied power.5 One prominent institution, the Catholic Church, stood by the Habsburgs throughout the revolutionary period and endorsed the dynasty as it pursued an authoritarianism that suppressed political freedoms. In 1855, a concordat – an agreement between the Vatican and the state – rewarded the Church.6 This enshrined marriage in Austria as a religious, rather than a civil, institution. The Church was granted permission to intervene in family life and in matters of morality. It received a significant role in education, overseeing and taking part in teaching at state elementary schools. In return, the Church was to act as the eyes and ears of the state and to form an extended administration, assisting with such matters as the census or the reporting of individuals suspected of disloyalty towards the dynasty. Neo-absolutism attempted to achieve economic modernisation but without releasing liberal political ideas. Through the introduction of reforms that loosened the grip of some traditional guilds on trade and industry, parts of the economy were liberalised with the intention of building tax revenues, then making military and diplomatic advances. Capital markets were opened, allowing manufacturers to found factories. City planning initiatives began the process of making Vienna a modern city, fit to govern an empire, with roads widened, military fortifications demolished and public works programmes begun.7 Progress was made, but the narrow circle that surrounded the Habsburgs was unable to achieve what was needed. So, reconciliation was extended to a number of those with ability who had been classed as revolutionaries in 1848 when, in reality, they had wanted reform of the monarchy, not its overthrow. Now, in the late 1850s, the Habsburgs reached out, and former ‘revolutionaries’ were called on to perform roles in revitalising the state.8 This was still not enough, however, to counter potential threats from abroad, and disaster came as France and the Kingdom of Sardinia drew the dynasty into war in 1859. Austria was defeated and

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forced to concede parts of its territory on the Italian peninsula. These territories, in addition to a number of states that had been independent, went to a new Kingdom of Italy, ruled by the Sardinian dynasty. Defeat forced the Habsburgs to reach out further than they already had in the late 1850s. Political reins were loosened, slightly; a constitution was promised; and the dynasty called into government liberals, men who, they hoped, would bring positive reform. This had been no golden era for Austria, whatever antisemites later claimed, but change now came about, not through revolution but by invitation, and the liberal era in Austria was born. The early 1860s: continuities and change The first political tasks of the new era concerned external relations, and peace was achieved with France and Italy, bringing some diplomatic and military respite. The Emperor managed this process, since he retained control over foreign and military policy, but internal affairs passed to the liberals. Constitutions and other legal measures were introduced that reflected liberal views of how the world should be ordered. They proposed equality for all before the law, regardless of rank or social status. They implemented systems of voting that could be subjected to scrutiny. Liberals talked of the collective and equal rights of nations within the Empire, and the state was set on a secularising path, with no religious group given preference over another. However, these were not signs of a modern democratic state. For instance, few could vote. Men [sic] earned this ‘privilege’ by demonstrating that they deserved responsibility, usually through wealth, occupational status or educational achievements. These were considered rational steps, but Austrian liberals now merged rationalism with tradition. There was no need to sweep away the entirety of the old order; their constitutional state had room for monarchy and aristocracy. Liberal reforms were also not intended to destroy all pre-existing economic relationships, although some practices that were considered to be outdated were abolished. For liberals, the world of work was one where the free market ruled, individual and collective achievement within this context was the ideal and state intervention in markets was only a final resort when markets had failed. While charity was seen as a virtue, people should learn self-reliance, to benefit society.

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One important qualifier needs to be added about the liberal administrations that governed from Vienna. They were not just liberal but German liberal, and, while they believed that the Empire had room for its multiple nationalities, German language and culture occupied, for them, the high ground. German liberals believed they had a unique bond with the Empire as the people of the state, the Staatsvolk, on whom the Empire could rely for loyalty. These ideas placed limits on the equality of peoples that the constitutions promised, and the gap between the words of the constitutions and their implementation could be wide. The use of German as the language of large parts of state business often gave German speakers advantages in terms of state employment. Electoral systems were also structured to ensure that, in parts of the Empire, Germans were over-represented compared with the electorates of other nations. These and other matters stimulated the development of nationalist activism, particularly among Czechs and Hungarians. In the early 1860s, their elected delegates hit back against the pro-German bias of key institutions, and, at times, they boycotted Parliament in Vienna. This brought into question the legitimacy of Parliament to pass legislation for areas which were seen as properly Czech or Hungarian. When these delegates did attend, they obstructed business through lengthy speeches or points of order. This tested the patience of the Habsburgs, since essential budgets might sit waiting for approval. At times, threats were made to suspend or even to abolish constitutions, but, after a series of false starts, liberal governments were put together from 1861 onwards.9 By contrast, the political life of the capital at the local level quickly settled into stability. In 1861, elections to a revived Vienna City Council – which covered the central district, known as the Innere Stadt, and the eight districts that surrounded it – returned members who mostly described themselves as liberal.10 A contemporary political guide gives a picture of members of the City Council. Their number included the sixty-year-old Ludwig, Count Breda, and the ennobled Johann Dumreichner, a consultant physician, born in Triest in 1815. Younger members included the likes of Ludwig Schmued, born in 1827, author of histories of Salzburg, who was a schoolteacher at the Realschule in the Schottenfeld district of Vienna from 1855.11 Schmued was also a member of the German-Liberal Electors’ Committee in the Neubau district of the city.12 This membership

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showed that he was one of a group of men who displayed their liberal and national credentials in equal measure. Some members of the City Council were elected for the first time in 1861, while others had been members before the revolution of 1848 and had fallen from favour, at least initially, during neo-absolutism. One member elected in 1861, Ignaz Czapka, Baron von Winstetten, had been Mayor of Vienna from 1838 to 1848, and he had also held the post of director of police. According to the guide, Czapka had been ‘taken away from public service’ by the ‘turmoil’ of 1848, but he had been recalled as police director by Franz Josef in 1856, at the height of neo-absolutism. Czapka then modernised the force as a ‘humanitarian service.’13 Czapka was therefore active politically and administratively before the revolution, under neo-absolutism and in the ‘liberal era,’ which cautions against seeing these periods as completely segregated from each other. Similarly, the first mayor of the liberal era, Andreas Zelinka, had been a member of the council in 1848. Ignaz Kuranda, a leading liberal and a member of Parliament (MP) in 1861, had been an opponent of the ‘more revolutionary’ elements in 1848.14 These men wanted to reinvigorate their city, not to overthrow everything that had gone before. They planned a safe water supply for the growing population. They passed bills for the regulation of the Danube, aiming to improve trade and to prevent flooding. They opened the Vienna Central Cemetery. They continued the work that was giving central Vienna the feel of the new boulevards of Paris, at a time when Paris under the Haussmann redevelopments was still a work in progress.15 The old fortifications that had been demolished during neo-absolutism were set aside as the site for modern accommodation, shops, culture and transport, to be known as the Ringstrasse, a broad boulevard that was laid out around the Innere Stadt. The buildings that lined the Ringstrasse symbolised renovation and stability, being designed in a number of ‘historicist’ styles. Italianate villas, mock renaissance homes and buildings of various kinds lined up to give the impression that they had long been there.16 Groups, as well as individuals, engaged with the changed political situation. Business associations, such as the Tradesmen’s Cooperative, the Genossenschaft der Kaufleute, organised meetings for their members from across the city in which they supported motions to participate in ‘constitutional Austria,’ to ensure that they achieved what

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they considered an adequate representation from elections to the City Council. They described this as only fair for an organisation whose members had such influence, and who paid ‘so much tax.’17 The Genossenschaft met to approve potential candidates for election, but also to discuss joint electoral action with other groups in what was known as the first curia, the highest level in a system of electoral colleges that sent members to the Rathaus, the Vienna City Hall. The higher curiae were reserved for the elite of society and had fewer members, so fewer votes were required at these levels to send representatives to the City Council. Similar systems were used for Parliament, the regional diets and other city councils.18 By the 1860s, Vienna was growing rapidly, and a number of the towns and villages just outside the boundaries of the city were, in reality, an extension of the city on the demographic, economic and social levels. These outlying areas witnessed considerable population growth as migrants arrived from places away from Vienna, looking for work. Here, they rented accommodation that was cheaper than could be found in the city itself, but which was close enough to travel there on a daily basis. These towns also took overspill from the city, as business owners moved their concerns out to cheaper premises. Places such as Ottakring, Neulerchenfeld, Hernals and Währing became an integral part of the social life of Vienna, offering inns, restaurants and music halls which were visited by those who lived within the city boundaries as well as by locals. Liberal principles of inclusivity also emerged in Vienna and the towns that surrounded it, as can be seen in the election to office of candidates with Jewish origins. This took place on the City Council, as in the earlier mentioned Ignaz Kuranda. Outside Vienna proper, in the town of Döbling, for instance, later a part of the nineteenth district of Vienna, Mayor Wilhelm Starnbacher commended to an October 1861 public gathering of electors a well-known master brewer, Franz Kuffner, pronouncing that ‘a Jew must also sit in the communal assembly, to give witness that now is not a time to exclude a virtuous and capable man from office on the grounds of his religion.’ Starnbacher continued that the communal council should not ‘tread in the steps of the past,’ but should ‘blaze a trail’ and ‘respect all religions.’ He would resign as Mayor if his recommendation was rejected, but no resignation was necessary, as Kuffner was elected along with two other candidates that Starnbacher put forward.19

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This laudable speech by Starnbacher was part of longer-term change, not just a feature of the 1860s. Before constitutions established the principle of equality, Jews had faced legal restrictions on property ownership. They had been banned from taking up residence in certain towns and cities, even being barred from staying overnight in some. Beyond the law, they suffered social discrimination; but, even before short-lived reforms introduced in 1848, Jews had been able to make progress. The usual route was via conversion to Christianity, but some gaps existed between written regulations and actual treatment, with the disregarding of some prohibitions. Without converting to Christianity, a number of Jews had reached a prominence that allowed them to act, across Europe, as leaders of the revolutions that had broken out in 1848.20 These longer-term de facto social changes, the constitutions of the 1860s and actions such as that of the electorate in Döbling signalled a more optimistic future for Jews under liberalism. Despite these displays of liberal values, no single definition existed of what being a liberal meant, at a time when party politics was in its infancy in Vienna. Political groupings were fluid, and members of the City Council described themselves as liberals of the left, right or centre.21 According to satirical magazine Figaro, ‘everybody’ wanted to be seen as a ‘liberal.’ Yet Figaro asked what kinds of liberals now sat in the council chamber, as city councillors who had previously been staunchly clerical or conservative now claimed to be liberal. Figaro queried whether much had really changed at all since neoabsolutism.22 It was a perceptive assessment, as it questioned how many members held a true commitment to liberal ideals, or were simply associating themselves through expediency with the coming political ideology. Later antisemites portrayed this as a period when the Church struggled against liberal secularisers to keep a foothold in the world of education. However, any encroachment on Church privileges in education was resisted, whatever its source – as seen, for instance, in the early 1860s in Weinhaus, to the north of the city, in a dispute between Prince Czartoryski and his parish priest, Adam Schwandner. As parish sponsor, Czartoryski provided money to the church, but it came with strings attached, and Czartoryski expected a role in the running of the parish. In Weinhaus, the Czartoryski family expected the final say in appointing the parish priest, even if some give and take existed. Lists of candidates were drawn up by the office of the archbishop,

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and the unspoken convention was that the first candidate on the list was the preferred choice. However, the first named candidate was not always chosen.23 Prince Czartoryski also expected to be involved in the running of the local school, and a long-standing dispute over the roles of priest and patron finally came to a head in the 1860s. It was resolved only through the arbitration of the local Imperial administration, the Statthalterei, and its judgement in favour of Father Schwandner.24 With a clear and total belief in the justice of his stance, Schwandner recorded his triumph with an emphatic ‘Victoria!’ – Victory! – in his parish Chronik, the record of its activities.25 Regardless of whether his opponents were liberals or aristocrats, Schwandner was determined that he should play a key role in education in his parish. ‘Liberal hegemony’ and the ‘exclusion of the clergy’ In 1861, liberals won a commanding majority of the seats on Vienna City Council, but they did so with little popular support, since little more than 3 per cent of the population had the right to vote. Low turnout meant that liberals were elected to positions of power by very few people.26 Yet, while this meant that liberals formed the major force in Viennese city politics at this stage, even then they did not have a complete monopoly of political representation in and around the city. Some who were not inclined to liberalism used electoral processes to ensure that their voices were heard. Priests made their presence felt and, in a number of places, they participated in some way or other in politics in the early 1860s. In 1861, Father Ambros Rösner took a seat on the Hietzing town council, and Father Moriz Haber did the same in Grinzing.27 Father Mathias Poppenberger, parish priest at the church of St Leopold, took a vocal part in a vigorous debate as to who should become chair of the council in the Leopoldstadt.28 Father Anton Krottenthaler was elected to the City Council for a seat in the Josefstadt.29 Father Georg Zeinlhofer was elected in Wieden.30 Zeinlhofer did not enjoy the experience, however, and did not stand again, as he found himself ‘out of tune’ with the politics of the chamber.31 Father Johann Skala was elected in Margareten.32 Father Urban Loritz attempted, but failed, to be elected in Neubau.33 Priests were elected just outside of the city, in places such as Braunhirsch, now part of Vienna, and further away,

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in Wiener Neudorf.34 Further examples can be found of priests who were certainly able to stand up for themselves in liberal society. While the numbers of priests who were elected should not be exaggerated, no legal bar to their participation existed, and some of their number sought direct political engagement over a considerable period. As late as 1867, Father Emanuel Paletz was re-elected to the council in Ottakring. Paletz was successful in the third curia, alongside Ignaz Kuffner, another member of the Jewish brewing family encountered earlier in this chapter.35 As will be seen, Paletz and Kuffner, even at what antisemites alleged was the height of the ‘liberal era,’ enjoyed at least a working relationship when representing their respective religious communities. Priests loudly played a full part in all matters that affected them. Prominent among them were Sebastian Brunner and Albert Wiesinger, men in their thirties and forties, respectively, when the liberals came to government in 1861. Both conducted heavily antisemitic anti-liberal campaigns, but their antisemitism was not a response to any actions by liberal administrations – rather, it was against the principles of liberalism itself. Before a liberal government had even been established, Brunner, who between 1848 and 1865 was editor of the Wiener Kirchenzeitung für Glauben, Wissen, Freiheit und Gesetz der Katholischen Kirche, known as the Kirchenzeitung, used it as a forum for attacking liberals as Jews, or the agents of Jews, who threatened the moral basis of Austrian society.36 On 25 January 1860, the newspaper led with a piece entitled ‘The State: Christian, Jewish or Heathen,’ which argued that a state from which Christianity was removed must necessarily become Jewish.37 The same issue proposed that long-standing legal restrictions on Jews had ‘their good reasons.’38 Brunner was involved in legal battles with Ignaz Kuranda and with liberal newspapers such as the VorstadtZeitung.39 Antisemitic attacks proliferated in the Kirchenzeitung, including reprints of articles from other antisemitic sources, such as the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.40 Sebastian Brunner has been described as a leading member of a so-called Romantic faction within the Church, heading a revival of Catholic values, but he was also a hard-headed individual who knew that the Church needed the support of the powerful if it was to maintain a privileged position in Austrian society. Brunner was not above appealing to the material interests of those who might be converted

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into supporters of the Church, even when mocking those who, he suggested, scorned religion: ‘If you, the rich, find belief in the true God to be risible then, in the same way, proletarians will be highly amused by your belief in the legal right to your possessions.’41 It is a matter of interpretation as to whether Brunner should be described as realistic or cynical in making a call for those who had no faith in religion to fall in with the Church because of their shared worldly concerns. In 1862, Albert Wiesinger, a prolific writer and a close associate of Brunner, used an equally direct anti-liberal tactic that became typical among antisemites: that of portraying liberals as an alien intrusion into the life of Vienna. In a pamphlet that attracted much attention in the press, both positive and negative, Wiesinger responded to the calls of one liberal City Council member, Adalbert della Torre, for monks to be removed from city educational establishments. While Wiesinger used the pamphlet to defend the rights of the brothers to be present in schools, he also launched an ad hominem attack on della Torre, claiming that della Torre was an outsider who had no right to sit in the Rathaus.42 However, the influence of Brunner and Wiesinger, and others, was limited, especially among the electorate of the city. These electors had little reason to be dissatisfied with the policies of the liberal national government which, at the time, were generating economic growth, and which were to the benefit of the monied classes. Brunner and Wiesinger engaged in turf wars with liberals, but not all priests, and not all liberals, confronted each other with hostility. Priests attended many social functions, including as welcomed guests, which gave them opportunities to engage with the institutions and individuals of the liberal state in more positive ways than those demonstrated by Brunner and Wiesinger. City councillor and ‘German liberal’ Ludwig Schmued, the school teacher encountered previously, was a guest at the celebrations for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ordination of Father Johann Engel, who was director of the Realschule in the Schottenfeld district of Vienna, where Schmued taught.43 His German liberal credentials were clearly not a hindrance to his being a guest at such an important milestone in the career and life of Father Engel. Even when disputes did occur between priests and politicians, not all of them descended into antisemitism. Priests at this time

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had frequent contact with the representatives of elected local bodies over matters of mutual interest, and they showed little sign of being cowed by either liberal newspapers or liberal activists. Priests, instead, often proved to be skilled and experienced operators. For instance, when the Kuffner family donated money for a nursery in Ottakring for children ‘of all confessions,’ Father Paletz sought assistance from the Ordinariat, the office of the Archbishop of Vienna, and promptly announced a counterproposal for a predominantly Catholic nursery run by nuns. This unleashed outrage from the liberal Neues Wiener Tagblatt, which put the story on its front page in December 1867. In less than complimentary terms, it alerted readers to a clerical ‘sleight of hand,’ an apparent act of charity disguising an attempt to gain influence for the Church.44 However, discussions took place, the storm died down, a compromise was reached and a communal nursery was established. At its opening ceremony, members of the local council, including the mayor, lined up next to Paletz and other Church figures.45 Representatives from the Statthalterei were also in attendance, which emphasises the importance that was attached to the event and to the nursery itself. The building intended for the school was covered in festival decorations for the occasion, speeches were made and the Ottakringer Gesangverein closed the event by singing the Austrian national anthem.46 This episode shows that Paletz endured no humiliation for his part in taking on the worldly authorities. Instead, as the Neue Freie Presse noted, the ‘conflict’ ended in ‘reconciliation.’ Paletz played within the rules of the constitutional state, developed a plan for what he wanted and negotiated with the local authorities. Paletz had no need to become a ‘martyr’ because of this dispute; he engaged with the state, and won concessions for himself and the Church.47 The life story of Paletz is a corrective to black-and-white narratives that pit the clergy on one side as activist antisemites struggling against liberals and the secular state on the other. Paletz had arrived in Ottakring in 1845 as a curate, but he missed the revolution of 1848 in Vienna as he was convalescing in his birth town of Groß Meseritsch, in Moravia, after a serious illness. There, he received news that his parish priest at Ottakring, Father Johann Lutner, had resigned his post and that he, Paletz, was to take temporary charge of the parish when he was fully recovered. This appointment was at the request of the Ottakring town council.48

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While in Groß Meseritsch, Paletz witnessed anti-Jewish disturbances on Easter Sunday and heard of rumours that Jews had stolen from the parish church a monstrance, the vessel used to hold the consecrated host for mass. Paletz felt compelled to respond to further rumours, repeated in the Wiener Zeitung, that a curate at the parish, Father Kutschera, had been stirring up hatred against Jews. In a letter to the Kirchenzeitung, he explicitly denied that this had been the case, stating that he knew Father Kutschera personally and that he was a ‘scientifically trained, humane, pious believer,’ who had ‘in no way’ been an originator of anti-Jewish excesses. He had instead tried to calm those who committed excesses.49 Paletz showed, by implication, that he believed that anti-Jewish excesses were a sign of an unscientific, irrational mind. When Paletz returned to Ottakring from Groß Meseritsch late in 1848, he was greeted by a deputation of local dignitaries bearing a petition for him to be made parish priest permanently. Paletz must have had great personal qualities. A later history of Ottakring commented that relationships between priests and their parishioners were frequently difficult at that time, but it noted that Paletz had won round the people of the area.50 To their great surprise, however, another priest, Father Vincenz Willim, was nominated for the parish by the diocesan office. So, the town council met Willim on his arrival in Ottakring to take up his parish. A local judge, Georg Eisner, advised Willim not to accept the nomination, at which point Willim approached the Ordinariat for advice as to how to act. He was allowed to make his own decision, at which point Willim turned down the Ottakring parish, to which Paletz was now appointed, taking up the position in January 1849.51 Paletz remained at Ottakring for a further twenty-five years. He played a full part in the life of his parish, as did other parish priests across the capital, despite a heavy workload. Paletz, for instance, engaged in frequent correspondence with the Ordinariat about the need for additional assistants to help him in a parish where urbanisation was bringing huge population increases. He sent regular reminders about the failure of the Ordinariat to pay these assistants on time.52 While, in 1861, Paletz wrote in great detail in his Chronik of the damage caused to church buildings by a thunderstorm, and the dangers the damaged buildings presented to his parishioners, he wrote nothing about the political events of that year.53 Similarly, while

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the Chroniken and correspondence of the parishes of Währing and Weinhaus also make mention of the need for funds for building work and to pay for teachers, they are in the 1860s devoid of references to broader political matters.54 But Paletz, like other priests, did become involved in discussions and disputes about important local matters, especially education, and he sat with town politicians on a committee for the establishment of a school in Ottakring.55 Institutions of common interest to state and Church provided opportunities for priests and politicians alike to display themselves in public, reinforcing their importance to local life. For instance, the opening of a new school building in Währing in 1867 was a major event. The Neues Fremden-Blatt contrasted the premises with buildings in the rest of the area, declaring the new school to be, relatively, a palace. The opening ceremony was attended by many dignitaries, including the Statthalter, Count Chorinsky. The ringing of bells and singing from a choir accompanied a procession of children from the church to the new school. According to the newspaper, the ‘most uplifting moments’ of the ceremony came with the speeches of thanks by the mayor, Herr Kleitenhoffer, and by parish priest Father Joseph Magnollo. These ceremonies presented a front of unity between the secular and spiritual which continued informally that evening at a dinner where most of the dignitaries would again be present.56 These occasions are important indicators that blanket descriptions of the liberal state being complicit in the ostracising of priests, victimising them and stripping them of their dignity are wide of the mark. Some of the liberal press may have attacked, even mocked, the priests, but this was part of the rough and tumble of everyday life in the constitutional state. Moreover, the press that did attack the clergy, in the evidence presented by Gavin Lewis, was mainly a press aimed at certain professions, such as teachers.57 This raises questions as to how effective it was in its propaganda and how far it reached the overall population of Vienna. These questions should be asked, but they can deflect attention from two things of even more importance that were taking place in the development of Viennese clerical antisemitism. If focus stays on the liberal and clerical press exchanging barbs, then it can seem that clerical antisemitism was caused by attacks from the press. This masks the fact that, even without any liberal hostility, the Church in Vienna as an institution harboured opposition to the liberal state in principle,

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most obviously in the form of calls by the clergy for the liberals to abandon plans to revoke the concordat of 1855. The concordat had been a target for the liberals from its inception. They considered as wrong and irrational for the modern age the privileges it gave to the Catholic Church. In 1867, plans were announced that would effectively override its provisions. Against these plans, one prominent clerical appeal appeared in a large advertisement in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt in January 1867, which printed a list of some of those who supported the appeal.58 These included lay figures, but also included Father Adam Latschka, who later went on to be a founder of the Christian Social movement, and Father Urban Loritz, who may have stood for election against the liberals in the 1860s but who seemed to have at least cordial relations with them in the late 1860s, as will be seen. The appeal claimed that the revocation of the concordat would remove the freedom of the Church, an attempt to portray the ‘persecution’ of the Church. The revocation of the concordat was constantly given as the heart of reasons for clerical opposition to the liberal state. Anti-liberals portrayed the concordat as if it had been the age-old definer of the privileges of the Church, yet the Church had been placed, in theory and in practice, at the centre of the Austrian state, for only a brief period, from 1855 to 1867. Now, after little more than a decade, this status was being withdrawn. However, opposition to the revocation of the concordat was just one factor in a deeper resistance to the notion that views on the world other than those of the Catholic Church held any validity. This would soon be confirmed by a cadre of priests that was training in the seminaries, and which would emerge in the 1870s and 1880s, who used anti-liberalism and antisemitism to resist anything other than a radical Catholic view of the world. Viennese and German? Albert Wiesinger clearly defined a Viennese identity as Christian. He also constantly referred to the Viennese as the Volk, indicating that he probably also defined this identity as ‘German.’ However, major international changes were to raise questions as to what a Viennese ‘German’ identity meant. In 1863, a dispute broke out over two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, that lay just beyond the northern border of the German Confederation. The duchies, populated by Danish

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and German speakers, were governed by Denmark, and in the middle of the nineteenth century, in an echo of events elsewhere in Europe, Danes and Germans clashed over national rights. A break in the Danish royal line of succession threw into doubt who held the right to rule the duchies, so their German populations sought an association with the German Confederation, and appealed to the Confederation for armed assistance to bring this about.59 For some in Vienna, this raised nationalist passions in support of ‘fellow Germans.’ From the inns of Vienna, calls went out for the German states to move against Denmark. By January 1864, activists were raising funds for volunteers to support any military efforts that might take place.60 Politics and diplomacy, however, were the main drivers behind the decision by the Austrian and Prussian governments to send troops into Schleswig in February 1864, bringing war with Denmark. The clash filled the pages of Viennese newspapers, and the emotions it raised penetrated bourgeois society.61 Unfortunately, while patriotism could bring unity to the Habsburg Empire, it could also drive wedges between people. Patriotic devotion to the Emperor and the principles of the multinational state might encourage people to see their principal loyalty as being to Austria and lead them to regard their national identity as a purely cultural matter. In places such as Tyrol, populated by both Italian and German speakers, individuals might have a loyalty not just to the Habsburg state but to one of the regional cultures that emerged from two different national traditions. On the other hand, their patriotism might lead them to believe that their future should lie in a German or an Italian nation-state.62 In Vienna, many bourgeois attached considerable importance to their German identity, which they saw as transcending the borders of Austria and which co-existed comfortably with their identity as Austrians. Bourgeois activists turned to social events to collect contributions for the German cause. Among these were gatherings of singing groups, a popular form of male association and a way for ‘respectable’ men to converse, to explore business and career opportunities and to enjoy social entertainments with those of like-minded opinions. The members of one group, the Ottakringer Liedertafel, which would later be prominent among Christian Social gatherings, held a meeting on 2 March 1864, at the Ottakring Brewery Hall. By now, war was in full swing, as the song sheets for the occasion reflect. They included



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patriotic songs about Austria but also about the wider German nation beyond. Appropriately, the event began with the ‘German folk song,’ the Schleswig-Holstein Song: Schleswig-Holstein bound by the sea German tradition, high alert, Give true loyalty, hard earned, Until a finer morning dawns! Schleswig-Holstein brother tribe, Do not weaken, my fatherland!63

These words hardly stir modern sensibilities, but they summed up a view of the world where Germans were divided into related tribes with shared values, where these values were esteemed and where a brighter future waited. By 29 June, the Ottakringer were still meeting at the brewery hall in Ottakring, but this time along with sixteen other singing groups.64 Another group, from the nearby district of Hietzing, ended this evening by singing the Austrian national anthem, Österreich mein Vaterland, showing no contradiction between Austrian and wider German loyalties.65 In October 1864, Denmark was defeated, and Schleswig and Holstein joined the German Confederation under joint Austrian and Prussian governance. Prussia, however, under its ambitious chancellor, Bismarck, had no intention of allowing Austria equality in the German lands. Prussia challenged Austria, eventually bringing war in 1866, and roundly defeated Austria. The German Confederation was dissolved, and the North German Confederation, under the sole leadership of Prussia, came into being.66 The Habsburgs were also forced to surrender to Italy, a Prussian ally, most of the remaining areas within the Empire where Italian speakers formed a majority. A major internal revision of the Empire came, too, as the dynasty attempted to reduce the possibility of revolt from Hungary. The Habsburgs placated the Hungarian nobility with a settlement known as the Ausgleich, or compromise, which ceded home rule to the Kingdom of Hungary, whose authority at that time also spread to Croatia and Transylvania. The Ausgleich was portrayed as a onceand-for-all settlement among the peoples, including autonomy provisions for minorities within the borders of Hungary; but, in reality, Hungarians would dominate.

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The Austrian Empire was replaced by Austria-Hungary, with parliaments in Vienna and Buda to govern the internal civilian affairs of Austria and Hungary, respectively. These were no independent states, however, since the Emperor retained control over the foreign affairs of the Empire, as well as over the imperial army.67 Settlements were reached, to be renegotiated every ten years, that regulated relationships between Hungary and the rest of the Empire covering, among other matters, trade and finance.68 The Austrian part of Austria-Hungary was, broadly, the western part of the Empire. It was never formally called Austria, but Austria, in the German word Österreich, was how most Germans of the Empire referred to it. It was described officially as ‘the lands and peoples represented in the Reichsrat in Vienna.’69 Austria was also known as Cisleithania, the lands ‘this side of the Leitha,’ the river that formed much of the boundary between Austria and Hungary. Cisleithania included Lower and Upper Austria, with a majority of German speakers, as well as land around Triest in the south, with Italian and Slovene speakers. Its northernmost province, Galicia, enjoyed self-rule, cementing the privileged position of its Polish aristocracy and keeping local Ukrainians at the bottom of its social order. In Bohemia and Moravia, Czech elites felt slighted at not being granted privileges equal to those of the Hungarians. These Czechs wanted a further reorganisation of the Empire, with the Czech lands separated from Cisleithania, and with the same status as Hungary.70 Czechs boycotted the newly constituted Parliament in Vienna, leading German liberals to stiffen resistance against any changes that might undermine the political systems that gave the German bourgeoisie advantages. They accepted that, within Cisleithania, others had some rights based on perceptions of the past. Italians and Poles were presented as the ‘historic nations,’ who had histories which set them apart from the other peoples. Czechs were not accorded such respect. German liberals rejected challenges from the representatives of other nations in areas where German speakers were in the majority. Yet, majority status was not the only factor through which German liberals designated areas that they considered to be the preserve of Germans. They pointed to Bohemia, Moravia and parts of Styria, where German speakers in the nineteenth century formed minorities

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but where, it was claimed, Germans had played historic leading roles. Germans, they said, should continue to be the leading linguistic-cumethnic group here, since they excelled when judged by the standards of educational and economic attainments. Other groups would no longer accept this. By the late 1860s, opposition was growing among the Slavic peoples of Cisleithania and, in particular, the Czech political classes. This generated much concern among the German liberals of Bohemia, where voting rights and constituency boundaries made it a source of much German liberal electoral strength. These German liberals saw their exclusion from Germany confirmed at this time, when Bismarck contrived another war that allowed Prussian forces to overwhelm France between 1870 and 1871. Bismarck used victory to consolidate into a new German Empire the North German Confederation and various other German territories, excluding Austria. The door to Germany was now firmly closed on the Habsburgs.71 The door to a German identity was not, however, closed on the Germans of Austria, and many German Austrians believed that they shared a common heritage with other Germans, regardless of lines on maps. This feeling would have profound effects on the development of Austria over the next seven decades or so. At the same time, Germans of a nationalist disposition would have sensed a threat to their status as, by 1871, Czechs appeared to be nearing victory for their own cause, with Franz Josef ready to give them their own Ausgleich through proposed laws known as the ‘Fundamental Articles.’72 These included a separation of Bohemia from Cisleithania, which would have placed bourgeois Czechs in a majority in a revised electorate.73 How close the Czechs came to achieving their goals has been much debated, however. Some have claimed that the process was part of a plan by Franz Josef and his advisors to restrain the liberals who, they believed, were too independent in their policies, veering away from the wishes of the Emperor in the reconstruction of the state. Those who stood to lose from these changes called for Franz Josef to maintain the status quo and, by 1871, he was coming to the view that the Fundamental Articles would not strengthen his state. Franz Josef withdrew his support for the reforms, and the Fundamental Articles were buried.74 Relationships between Germans and Czechs deteriorated, and influenced how some Germans felt they needed to define their role in the Empire.

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Liberal zenith Liberal political influence peaked in Austria in the 1860s and 1870s, as a new constitution in 1867 cemented liberal principles into the life of the Austrian part of the Empire. This also superseded the concordat: indirectly, through guarantees of freedom of conscience, and directly, by reducing the role of the Church in schools and confirming marriage as a secular as well as religious institution. These provisions were confirmed in legislation known as the May Laws of 1868.75 The Church lost further ground after Pope Pius IX was declared to be infallible in spiritual matters. This step had been opposed by many bishops who had been called to a Vatican council that year, including Cardinal Josef Rauscher, Archbishop of Vienna, as they believed it would give ammunition to opponents of the Church, and they were right. In 1870, Austrian liberals, with the agreement of Franz Josef, formally revoked the concordat.76 None of this meant liberal repression of the Church, despite reactions by some, such as Bishop Rudigier of Linz, who issued a pastoral letter with instructions that the May Laws were to be resisted. The tone of the letter was such that Rudigier was arrested and found guilty of a breach of the peace. He was sentenced to fourteen days in prison, but was immediately pardoned by Franz Josef.77 But neither the May Laws, nor the 1867 constitution, showed a lack of respect on the part of liberals for the Church or for local priests, and interactions between priests and politicians continued. For instance, in 1869 the Jewish Kuffner family, a number of whose members were elected as liberals, worked in Ottakring alongside Father Paletz, when Paletz suspected communal authorities of failing to live up to their legal obligations to ensure a religious education in the local elementary school. Paletz enlisted the aid of Pastor Wilkens from the Evangelical Church in Vienna, and ‘Herr Kuffner, for the Israelites,’ to use the law to force the commune to provide adequate funds for teachers of religion at the school.78 At this high-water mark for liberalism in Austria, much interchange still took place between clergy and politicians at many levels. Even after 1867, many priests maintained at least a working relationship with the organs of the state and those who represented it. In 1869, for instance, Father Urban Loritz participated in a procession with liberal Mayor of Vienna Cajetan Felder for the opening of a new

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school in his Schottenfeld parish.79 To the north of the city, fifty-fiveyear-old Father Wilhelm Hulesch took over the parish of Döbling in 1872. Hulesch had personal resources to make his own contribution to church restoration funds, with money for paintings, gilding and interior and exterior works, but he also received contributions from a member of the local communal council, Carl Weil, and from Bürgermeister Eduard Bieder.80 These were not one-off interactions. Clergy and politicians appeared together in public, giving each other mutual seals of secular and spiritual approval. In Ottakring, the 1871 Corpus Christi procession, one of the major parish events of the year, was led by Father Paletz but attended by a swathe of civic dignitaries, including MP Dr Karl von Stremayr and Ignaz Kuffner, now Bürgermeister of the Ottakring commune. This should not be surprising. Many politicians, even those with a secularising agenda, would have been raised as Catholics and may have been practising Catholics. Kuffner was Jewish, but in attendance at such a visible point of contact between priest and politician.81 If the words of later antisemites were accepted at face value, such exchanges between the Church and politicians of the day would be difficult to believe. Despite these interchanges, clerical anti-liberals continued to attack the state. Albert Wiesinger picked up familiar tropes, conflating Jews and liberals. Wiesinger raised the ‘Social Question,’ proposing that liberals had neither the means nor the will to solve social problems. He decried new religious laws, the annulment of concordats and the expulsion of nuns from hospitals. He attacked the ‘Rothschilds of Paris and Vienna’ and wrote of a ‘difference’ between Jewish and non-Jewish capitalists, although he failed to mention how that difference manifested itself. The title of his pamphlet, Poor Christians and Sufferers of Hunger, Jewish Capitalists and Spendthrifts, makes clear where he felt responsibility for the ills of the modern world lay.82 Other members of the Catholic clergy were striving to open new fronts against the liberals. In 1870, Father Carl Dittrich published a pamphlet where he called the Catholic social and political club – a Catholic ‘casino’ in the vocabulary of the time – one of the most effective ‘means of rescue’ for society.83 Much debate has taken place as to whether these groups had any political importance before the 1880s. John Boyer believes that they only became significant in the 1880s,

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but William Bowman argues that this was the case from the 1860s.84 This is an important point. If the associations carried weight in the 1860s and 1870s, it is another indication that the Church and its associated bodies participated in public affairs in liberal Vienna, and this lessens the case that priests were later making a return to society through politics. The opinion of Bowman on Catholic associations seems to be confirmed by Dittrich, who suggested that they were an essential piece of firepower against the liberal state. Dittrich was well connected in Vienna, as rector of a training seminary for boys for the priesthood. He had access to members of the upper hierarchy of the Church and, in March 1872, he made clear to them that purely political associations should not be the only form of Catholic group to support the anti-liberal cause. In a speech to the Joseph of Arimathea Society, in the presence of Cardinal Rauscher, Dittrich gave his views on the nineteenth century, an ‘age of discoveries,’ which he also described as an era marked by social misery. Dittrich echoed Wiesinger, indicating a gap between governments and ‘the people,’ since governments, by which he meant liberal governments, no longer understood the rights of the people. In this, Dittrich was adding to the antisemitic founding myth that the liberal era destroyed a better past.85 Dittrich denounced the secularisation programmes of the state, and called for the Church to respond to the modern world by engaging with it. Dittrich pointed to liberal associations, which he described as ‘shooting up like mushrooms.’ He believed that Catholic associations should be encouraged to multiply and to counter the state.86 This would prove a prescient point, yet the talk by Dittrich probably passed by the liberals since, at the highest levels, as will be seen, the Church seemed to be edging towards an accommodation with the state. This was promising for the liberals, who seemed to be progressing on a number of fronts. The economy was growing, and cities such as Vienna were being revitalised. The German bourgeoisie and its representatives formed the most influential groups in politics. By 1872, therefore, liberals might have felt satisfied. Some might have predicted trouble from nationalist wrangles in Bohemia, but few, if any, would have expected the rise of an anti-liberal and antisemitic movement that drew considerable strength from the Viennese clergy.



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Notes 1 See David F. Good, The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire 1750–1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), for a study of Habsburg economic development. See also John Deak, Forging a Multinational State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015) on how the Habsburgs attempted to modernise the state. 2 For a generalist history of the revolutions of 1848, see  Mike Rapport, 1848: Year of Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 2008). 3 James J. Sheehan, German History 1770–1866 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 691. 4 For an account of the neo-absolutist period, see Alan Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire (Harlow: Pearson, 2001), pp. 140–178. 5 Ágnes Deák, From Habsburg Neo-Absolutism to the Compromise, 1849– 1867 (Boulder: Atlantic Research and Publications, 2008), p. 81 and p. 422. 6 Leisching, ‘Die römisch-katholische Kirche,’ pp. 25–34, gives details on the concordat. 7 See Ilsa Barea, Vienna (London: Secker and Warburg, 1967), pp. 238– 258, for a description of the remodelling of the city in the 1850s and 1860s. 8 Josef Redlich, Austrian War Government (New Haven: Yale, 1927), p. 9. 9 Deak, Forging, pp. 139–171. 10 Figaro, 22 March 1861 and 22 June 1861. 11 See the entries for the members of the city council in Moritz Bermann and Franz Evenbach, Die neuen Väter der Großkommune Wien (Vienna: Beck & Co, 1861), p. 3, p. 7 and p. 52. 12 Die Presse, 28 October 1861, p. 2. 13 Bermann and Evenbach, Die neuen Väter, p. 4. 14 Bermann and Evenbach, Die neuen Väter, p. 11. 15 For instance, the Palais Garnier, home of the Paris Opera, was not completed until 1875. See Eric Hazan, The Invention of Paris (London: Verso, 2010), p. 37. 16 William M. Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, 1848–1938 (Berkeley: University of California, 1972, 2000 edition), pp. 147–151. 17 Die Presse, 29 January 1861, p. 4. 18 Deak, Forging, p. 152 and p. 159. 19 Die Presse, 29 January 1861, p. 4. The newspaper spells Kuffner as Kufner. 20 See, for instance, Jonathan Sperber, The European Revolutions, 1848–1851 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005 (Second edition)), p. 199. 21 Maren Seliger and Karl Ucakar, Wien: Politische Geschichte 1740–1934, 2 Vols (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1985), Vol. 1, p. 600.

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22 Figaro, 22 March 1861 and 22 June 1861. 23 See William D. Bowman, Priest and Parish in Vienna, 1780–1880 (Boston: Humanities Press, 1999), p. 142, on the expectations of a sponsor to nominate a new parish priest. See also AEDW WeCor, later letter from Prince Czartoryski dated June 1901. 24 AEDW WeCk. The year is unclear from the Chronik, which is marked 1860s, but it is between 1862 and 1865. 25 AEDW WeCk. The year of this entry is also unclear from the Chronik, but it too is between 1862 and 1865. 26 Seliger and Ucakar, Politische Geschichte, Vol. 1, p. 575. 27 Die Presse, 29 January 1861, p. 4. 28 Morgen-Post, 25 January 1861, p. 2. 29 Die Presse, 27 February 1861, p. 4. See also Morgen-Post, 6 March 1861, p. 2, where he is described as a Gemeinderat. 30 W-Z, 5 March 1861, p. 797. 31 Gemeinde-Zeitung, 8 July 1875, p. 19. 32 Die Presse, 26 June 1862, p. 4, for clerical electoral involvement in the Josefstadt, Wieden and Margareten districts of Vienna, respectively. 33 Die Presse, 27 February 1861, p. 4. 34 Die Presse, 2 February 1861, p. 4. 35 Neues Fremden-Blatt, 27 July 1867, p. 5. 36 The paper was known as the Kirchenzeitung, the Church Newspaper, but it was not, at this time, an official Catholic publication. 37 Kirchenzeitung, 25 January 1860, p. 1. 38 Kirchenzeitung, 25 January 1860, p. 4. 39 The dispute with the Vorstadt-Zeitung was reported in Die Presse, 21 March 1860, p. 1. 40 Kirchenzeitung, 16 January 1861, p. 12. 41 Quoted in Franz Loidl, Geschichte des Erzbistums Wien (Vienna: Herold, 1983), p. 230. 42 Albert Wiesinger, Hinaus aus dem Gemeinderath! Aber nicht: Hinaus mit den Schulbrüdern! (Vienna: Publisher name not printed, 1862). Available in WbiR, as a part of a collection of newspaper articles by Wiesinger. 43 Karl Klekler, Festschrift zum 50. Jahresbericht der Schottenfelder k.k. StaatsRealschule (Vienna: Self-published, 1901), p. 13. 44 NWT, 12 December 1867, pp. 1–2. 45 NFP, 25 August 1868, p. 6. 46 W-Z, 25 August 1868, p. 6. 47 NFP, 25 August 1868, p. 6. 48 Karl Schneider, Geschichte der Gemeinde Ottakring (Vienna: GeschichtsComité der Gemeinde Ottakring, 1892), p. 370. 49 Kirchenzeitung, 3 June 1848, p. 3.

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50 Schneider, Ottakring, p. 371. 51 Schneider, Ottakring, p. 371. 52 AEDW AOCor, 27 August 1851. 53 AEDW AOCor, 26 April 1861. 54 See AEDW WäCk, 1873 and AEDW WeCk, 1860. 55 NWT, 4 February 1870, p. 4. 56 Neues Fremden-Blatt, 1 August 1867, p. 10. 57 Gavin Lewis, Kirche und Partei im politischen Katholizismus: Klerus und Christlichsoziale in Niederösterreich, 1885–1907 (Salzburg: Geyer, 1977), p. 61. 58 NWT, 31 October 1867, pp. 9–10. 59 This is a very brief simplification of the status of the duchies. See Stacie E. Goddard, ‘When Might Makes Right: How Prussia Overturned the European Balance of Power,’ International Security, 33:3 (2008/9), 110– 142 for more detail. 60 ABPD 1861–1872, 8 January 1864 on the Wiener Männergesangverein. 61 See numerous references in Fremden-Blatt, 2 February 1864, or Vaterland, also 2 February 1864. 62 Laurence Cole and Hans Heiss, ‘Unity versus Difference: The Politics of Region-building and National Identities in Tyrol, 1830–1867,’ in Laurence Cole (ed.), Different Paths to the Nation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 37–59. 63 Programm und Liedertext zur Fest-Liedertafel, dated 2 March 1864 to 20 December 1866, WbiR. Hereafter Programm und Liedertext. 64 Programm und Liedertext. 65 Programm und Liedertext. 66 On Austro-Prussian relations within the Confederation, see Jiři Kořalka, ‘Deutschland und die Habsburgermonarchie, 1848–1918,’ pp. 1–158, in Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (eds), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, Vol. 6: Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, Part 2 (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1993). 67 Deak, Forging, pp. 167–170. 68 See Sked, Decline, pp. 191–202. 69 Deak, Forging, p. 169. 70 For a discussion of Czech moves at this time to achieve equality, and why these moves failed to be implemented, see Lothar Höbelt, ‘Devolution Aborted: Franz Josef I and the Bohemian “Fundamental Articles” of 1871,’ Parliaments, Estates and Representation, 32:1 (2012), 37–52. 71 Frank Bridge, From Sadowa To Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of AustriaHungary 1866–1914 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 50–55.

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72 See Höbelt, ‘Devolution,’ p. 37. 73 Höbelt, ‘Devolution,’ p. 38. 74 Höbelt, ‘Devolution,’ p. 44. 75 Leisching, ‘Die römisch-katholische Kirche,’ pp. 41–42. 76 Loidl, Erzbistum, pp. 246–248. 77 Gerhart Marckhgott, ‘Der Kampf für das Konkordat und gegen die Maigesetz,’ in Rudolf Zinnhobler, Bischof Franz Josef Rudigier und seine Zeit (Linz: Landesverlag, 1987), pp. 119–137. 78 AEDW AOCor, 3 September 1869. Correspondence between Paletz and the archbishop’s office. 79 AEDW ScCk, 1869. 80 Wilhelm Hulesch, Geschichte Döblings (Vienna: Self-published, 1877), pp. 73–74. 81 Neue deutsche Biographie, online edition: http:​//www​.deut​sche-​biogr​aphie​. de/s​fz468​50.ht​ml (accessed 24 August 2020). At some point, a number of Kuffner family members left behind their Jewish religion. It is not clear when. 82 Albert Wiesinger, Arme Christen und Hungerleider, jüdische Kapitalisten und Geldvergeuder (Vienna: Sartori, 1870). 83 Carl Dittrich, Katholisch-politische Casino’s eines der wirksamsten Rettungsmittel der Gesellschaft (Vienna: Sartori, 1870). 84 John Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848–1897 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1981), pp. 122–183 and William Bowman, ‘Religious Associations and the Formation of Political Catholicism in Vienna, 1848 to the 1870s,’ AHYB, 27 (1996), 65–76. 85 Carl Dittrich, Rede gehalten in der 15. Generalversammlung des St. Josef von Aramathea-Vereins am 17. März 1882 (Vienna: Self-published, 1882). Pages not numbered. 86 Dittrich, Rede.

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2 Antisemites begin to organise, 1873–89 Change, chance and antisemitism On 1 January 1873, Die Presse reflected the liberal mood when it noted that 1872 had been an unremarkable year, concluding that its outcomes had been ‘at any rate, quite respectable and satisfying.’1 Slightly smug liberal optimism was understandable, as the liberals considered this another year of consolidation for their position and ideas in Austrian society, but voices were raised against the liberals. Priests such as Sebastian Brunner and Albert Wiesinger attacked liberalism as a principle, not just as a set of policies. Anti-liberal tirades came from Catholic convert Karl von Vogelsang, owner-editor of the daily Vaterland. But, in 1873, anti-liberal antisemitism in Vienna was promoted by individuals and small groups, with little resonance among the electorate. Besides, not even all priests refused to engage with the state. The liberal Neue Freie Presse showed respect for priests, such as when it described Father Paletz as ‘meritorious.’2 This situation would not persist, however. On the religious and the secular political fronts, the next decade and a half would see massive change in Vienna, as economic downturns, liberal policy mistakes and apparent corruption tarnished the liberal image. And priests would emerge who challenged liberals, in the most violent of terms. In the years immediately after 1873, several factors coincided to undermine the image of liberalism as an idea associated with success. One of these, a ‘world fair,’ a trade exhibition to show off Austria’s industrial progress, had been planned for Vienna, but cholera broke out in the city, and an expected stream of visitors, and income, failed

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to materialise.3 The effects of a banking crash then spread from the United States across western Europe into Vienna, bringing business failures and unemployment.4 The liberal response was laissez-faire economics: to do nothing. By the time something was done, liberal claims of economic know-how were weakened. Prominent liberals and their supporters also became mired in scandals that involved public money, further damaging liberal reputations. These events were far from decisive in the decline of the liberals, but they undermined their standing. Luckily for them, in the 1870s organised opposition was minimal. This can be seen from annual elections for a proportion of the seats on Vienna City Council. The seats that came up in 1873 were fought vigorously, according to the Neue Freie Presse, indicating that, even if the opposition was in a difficult situation, it was not dead.5 Very few voters, however, contested these seats. In the Innere Stadt district, in the third curia, the most numerous in terms of electors, only 310 votes were required for election.6 A similar picture emerges from other districts, where outcomes could be that almost all of the votes went to the winning candidates.7 The small numbers of voters makes ‘landslides’ the wrong description, but they were overwhelming victories. Success went to householders, lawyers and writers, business liquidators and those from independent professions associated with liberals. The Viennese press did not detail the political stances of liberal opponents in the 1873 elections, but these can be extrapolated from the previous year.8 Neue Freie Presse reports from 1872 show the unsuccessful candidacies of a few conservatives and ‘clericals.’ In the Leopoldstadt, a conservative candidate attracted fifty-five votes, and a clerical fifty-eight, out of a total of 336, while, in the Landstrasse, a clerical candidate won eighty-four out of 657 votes.9 In these years, liberals appeared to be electorally invincible. In the mid-1870s, clerical anti-liberals therefore developed other ways to undermine their opponents, using the pages of their newspapers to try to reach beyond clerical ranks.The likes of the Kirchenzeitung were aimed at the Catholic clergy, so had a restricted audience, but others, such as the Volksblatt für Stadt und Land, aimed at a more general readership. Alongside criticism of liberal attitudes towards the Church, articles in a typical issue covered domestic and international news.10 Church appointments within the Archdiocese of Vienna were listed, but agricultural and economic news also featured, so an attempt

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was being made to reach beyond the clergy, while informing readers of the views of the Church.11 Das Vaterland, a general newspaper established in 1860, was one of the most prominent, loyally Catholic and vigorously antisemitic journals. It repeated ‘stories’ from other newspapers that vilified Jews. It reported on rumours of Jews poisoning water, wine and brandy to ‘wipe out’ the Hungarians, or the duplicitous behaviour of Jews towards nationalist movements.12 But, even for the committed antisemite, it was at times a dull read, sometimes running to only two pages.13 Other newspapers in the Catholic camp adopted a populist tone, which, if their claims were accurate, had some success. The Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, founded in 1874, led its first issue with an apology that so many subscriptions had been received that not all subscribers would receive a copy until production facilities were increased.14 The paper tried to appeal to different readerships by producing several sub-editions, and focused firmly on trivia and sensationalism, such as miraculous recoveries of sight for those who had been blind in one eye, or men falling asleep in parks who found on waking up that they had been robbed and their feet tied together, to prevent them pursuing the thieves.15 The first issues of the Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt claimed that it was nonparty political and that it was ‘honest.’ It soon became clear that the Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt meant the ‘dishonest’ press to be, as it termed it, the Judenpresse, the ‘Jewish press.’16 This expression became a regular in the Welt-Blatt and in other antisemitic propaganda. The Katholisches Vereinsblatt (the Catholic Association Newspaper), a newspaper about Catholic societies, for instance, cited speakers from a Catholic congress in Vienna who denounced a ‘Jewish press’ that was antagonistic to Christianity, and urged Catholics to buy Catholic newspapers.17 The circulation of the Welt-Blatt eventually ran into tens of thousands of copies, so it was not without success.18 The circulations of these newspapers were important, but so were the ways in which they tried to influence their readers and either to confirm them in their antisemitic ways or to convert them to the antisemitic cause. Albert Wiesinger, who by the mid-1870s was writing for the Gemeinde-Zeitung, picked up on his old theme of liberals not belonging in Vienna. Wiesinger continued to point to what he saw as liberals, on the one hand, and the people (das Volk) on the other. Articles raised ‘the needs of the people,’ they talked of ‘the

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improvement of the people’ and ‘the true people.’ The people were contrasted with those who lived in ‘palaces on the Ringstrasse,’ antisemitic shorthand for rich Jews. Wiesinger used populist language to talk of how the people were being corrupted, especially in the cities.19 This was on a par with antisemitic accusations that cities were corrupted by ‘Jewish influence,’ unlike the ‘real Austria.’ Antisemites attempted to entrench the idea that the true Viennese were ‘us,’ and Jews were an ‘other,’ alien to the city. In addition to newspapers, Catholic political casinos, so warmly praised earlier by Father Dittrich, assumed some prominence for antisemites, their meetings being frequently publicised in the Catholic press. Vaterland carried several positive references to the work by Dittrich on the casino.20 The idea of Catholic political casinos certainly seems to have had at least a moment, and the gatherings of several casinos, both within Vienna and beyond, were chronicled in Catholic newspapers.21 General Catholic associations were also identified as a means to combat liberalism. One letter to Vaterland, from an anonymous priest, praised this idea with the phrase, ‘You can learn from your enemies,’ since the associations that had their roots in the 1860s had been an essentially liberal phenomenon.22 In 1874, Dittrich left his post as rector of the seminary to become priest for the parish of Ottakring, where he was to become a noted local activist in the struggles against the liberals.23 One of his main weapons consisted of Catholic associations, which were generally established at parish level. Major milestones in the development of organised antisemitism came in 1874. Among these was the reaction to publication of new laws regarding the Church, the May Laws of that year. They confirmed the position of the Church with regard to marriage and education, as defined in the 1867 constitution and May Laws of 1868. They offered nothing new of substance, but they antagonised some in the clerical ranks. Speaking in a debate in the Herrenhaus (House of Lords) on the proposed laws, Cardinal Rauscher attacked them as attempting to make the secular state, rather than God, the ultimate authority in all matters. These laws, Rauscher said, broke previous agreements, specifically the concordat, which was still in force.24 An official newspaper of the Catholic Church in Vienna, the Diözesanblatt, recorded that Rauscher declared in the debate that priests must keep far from political campaigning that involved attacks on the government, to avoid giving opponents reasons or pretexts to

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disrupt priests in their religious ministry.25 Other newspapers differ slightly in their recording of the position that Rauscher took. This may be because the Diözesanblatt reported on the debate some months after it took place, while other newspapers printed reports almost immediately. Given that several newspapers agree on what Rauscher said, their versions appear to be more accurate as to how Rauscher regarded cooperation with the liberal state. According to them, Rauscher did not use his speech to ban clerical political activity against the government. Instead, he announced that he found it ‘unthinkable’ that a priest would engage in a perfectly legal political activity, against which there might be no law, but which was nonetheless so ‘dangerous’ that swift intervention would be necessary. Rauscher believed that, in this case, the government would have time to warn the priest or to work with the bishops in an investigation.26 In other words, Rauscher was prepared to work with the state, even against his own clergy, if he thought it necessary. This shows that, for Rauscher, no black-and-white divide existed between all of the members of the Church, on one side, and liberals on the other. Rauscher was a pragmatist, however firmly he held to his Catholic beliefs. He defended the Church, but he never appeared to be cowed by the state. He worked with it when he considered it appropriate. Rauscher was not alone in this. Father Paletz was a central figure at the dedication ceremony for a new convalescent home in Hütteldorf in 1875 after he had moved there the year before.27 The home was to be run by a monastic order so, as expected, senior representatives of the Church, including Cardinal Rauscher, were present. The dedication was also attended, however, by representatives of the state at many levels. The Statthalter was there, alongside delegates from the local and city councils. The Mayor of Vienna also sent representation. The Church was certainly not treated with disdain by liberals at this ceremony.28 As late as 1876, cooperation continued between Father Hulesch in Döbling and local politicians. In addition to earlier contributions to the church restoration fund, Father Hulesch noted in a history of Döbling, of which he was author, that the parish music fund received donations from three former mayors of local communes, while two former mayors made contributions to the Catholic Vincent de Paul charitable society in the parish.29 The liberal Neue Freie Presse confirmed that, in Döbling at least, good relationships existed between

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clergy and politicians, as it reported that Father Hulesch and the mayor of Oberdöbling, Heinrich Zobel, both attended as the local poor relief fund distributed alms to the needy of the area, ‘without distinction of confession.’30 Priests at this time therefore continued to make a contribution to public affairs. The party affiliations of these politicians are not specifically known, but all of these men were elected at the height of liberal electoral strength, so it is a reasonable assumption that they were at least sympathetic to liberalism and its ideals. This assumption is strengthened by a report in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt in October 1873 that ‘its men’ were strongly placed in parliamentary elections that covered Oberdöbling.31 Since the Tagblatt was strongly liberal, and since elections to various bodies tended to follow similar patterns, this appears to be another indicator of their liberal sympathies. Unlike Father Hulesch, however, some priests were approaching social involvement in a different way, participating in building an organised political presence that challenged the liberal hold on the City Council. One of these, Father Josef Deckert, was appointed to the parish of Weinhaus, northwest of Vienna, in 1874, the same year that Father Dittrich took over at Ottakring.32 Deckert was just thirty-one, and he was fortunate that the sponsorship of the parish by Prince Czartoryski would have made finances easier to manage than at many other parishes. It is not known what helped him to attain a very desirable parish in a relatively affluent location just outside the then boundaries of the capital, but Deckert was much younger than many other priests, who often only attained parishes of their own in their fifties.33 Deckert had experienced a meteoric ascent. Ordained in 1866, he was appointed that year as Kooperator in Laa, just outside Vienna.34 Less than a year later, he was transferred to Schwechat, again as Kooperator.35 He then moved yet again, to the Leopoldstadt, before taking up his first position as a parish priest in Weinhaus, in October 1874.36 Deckert was active socially and politically in the early 1870s, as a curate in the Leopoldstadt. He must have been well known in Catholic circles, even then, as Vaterland announced in May 1870 that he was to address a meeting of a Catholic charity.37 The newspaper also later noted that Deckert addressed the Landstrasse Catholic Political Casino, where he called on Catholic political parties to develop a joint programme that did not follow that

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of the Catholic conservative parties, as their stance of fidelity to the constitution was playing into liberal hands.38 This was just the tip of the iceberg, however, in anti-liberal positions that Deckert would take. He was a vicious antisemite who boasted of his antisemitic ‘achievements.’ Despite claims made about the pressures and persecutions faced by priests, Deckert showed no ‘occupational anxiety’ that his religious and social significance was being limited by modern society. He was involved in numerous court cases, and he acquired considerable personal wealth.39 Deckert was also a man who could motivate and organise others, and his long list of subsequent publications displays his energy and self-assurance. When Deckert took over at Weinhaus, he addressed some immediate material issues. He founded a charity for the benefit of poor local children. He took on the problem that no real church building existed. Instead, part of the Czartoryski family chateau had doubled as the place of worship. So, Deckert set about raising funds for the construction of a new church, his campaign beginning with sixty contributing members.40 By now Deckert had a significant public profile, at least in Catholic circles. He had already been appointed by Rauscher as ‘protector’ of the 1,200-member Society for the Eternal Honouring of St Joseph.41 He could exploit these connections in developing the restoration campaign to over 4,000 members by the end of 1875.42 These numbers were impressive, but a list of committee members shows a strictly local focus, with priests, curates and Weinhaus notables taking positions.43 Deckert then expanded his ambitions, establishing a newsletter, the Sendbote des heiligen Joseph, the proceeds of which, he said, were to supplement the building fund. This confidence from Deckert was not misplaced, however over-optimistic he may have seemed. After all, he was banking on the appeal of what would be a newsletter from a priest, however well connected, in a small parish to the northwest of Vienna. Yet Deckert reported, in the second issue of the Sendbote, in February 1876, that letters of support were arriving from abroad. In the tenth issue, Deckert wrote that the Sendbote was being sent monthly to 10,000 subscribers.44 The intention behind the newsletter may have been fundraising for building works, but Deckert wasted no time in turning his attention, and that of his readers, to politics. Deckert was quick to aim barbs at both Germany, where Bismarck was conducting the Kulturkampf, and Italy, which was engaged in its own struggles with the Catholic

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Church. He exhorted readers to pray ‘for the endangered Catholic Church, for the Holy Father … who for their true faith suffer persecution, and for all Christian communities which, through the persecution of their priests, find themselves in great spiritual need.’45 The Sendbote had barely completed its first year when Deckert turned his attention in 1877 to matters closer to home. Deckert made lengthy quotations from a speech that had been given in the capital in 1876 by a Baron Raimund von Stillfried. Stillfried compared the travails of the Church in Austria with those in Germany, in phrases that became commonplace in antisemitic rhetoric over decades. The struggles in Germany may have been more physically violent, said Stillfried, but in Austria, the opponents of the Church were using more guile. They were trying to erect barriers between senior Church figures on the one hand, and those lower down the hierarchy on the other. These opponents were not mentioned by name, but they were clearly liberal governments who, according to Stillfried, were trying to change the status of marriage. They wanted to make it the outcome of a secular ceremony, not a sacrament, to divide the people from the Church. Again, it was suggested that ‘the people’ should have a natural bond with the Church. Stillfried ended, like Dittrich before him, with an appeal to multiply the Catholic societies, to reinvigorate Catholic values and to ‘recreate’ a Catholic Austria.46 But, contrary to the picture that Stillfried painted of a Church persecuted at every turn in this period, many religious foundations were established in Vienna in the nineteenth century, both before and during the liberal era: schools run by orders of Dominican nuns in the 1870s; nunneries; hospices.47 These, and the Catholic associational life that William Bowman has identified as emerging in the city in the 1860s and 1870s, are not evidence of a Church that was under mortal threat.48 Stillfried, though, with his confidence in his cause, was the sort of man antisemites needed in order to show their respectability and their support for the establishment. In 1876, when he was thirty-seven, Stillfried had left behind an army career. He was well travelled, having visited the United States and the Far East.49 Deckert reproduced his speech to show his readers that Catholics had a means to take on the liberal state, and he was showing that at least one strand of the respectable establishment was ready to join the struggle. Stillfried was by no means the last aristocrat that priests called on in their antisemitic campaigns.



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New challenges for liberals In 1879, following a foreign policy dispute with the Emperor, liberals fell from the national government, to be replaced by a conservative-led coalition, and they never regained their leading position at national level. In Vienna, however, they retained firm control of the City Council. Shifting political labels make the number of liberal City councillors hard to state with certainty. Some estimates gave almost 50 per cent to those labelled centre liberals and 38 per cent to the left, while others believed that liberals overall still controlled two-thirds of the council chamber.50 Regardless, the extent of liberal political power was impressive, and anti-liberals continued to see the difficulties in opposing them in the ballot box. They therefore sought to move into yet more arenas where they might influence opinion, such as public meetings. One such meeting, in central Vienna on 11 November 1880, under the banner ‘Craftsmen against the pedlars’ trade,’ convened to discuss threats to the livelihoods of craftsmen who were obliged to follow guild rules and regulations.51 Such rules raised the cost of products when cheap, mass-produced goods were being sold door to door by ‘pedlars.’ Many pedlars were Jewish, and this attracted the ire of those present at the meeting, who demanded the reinstatement of former requirements that sellers of goods should belong to an appropriate guild. One attendee at the meeting was Karl Lueger, a lawyer and politician who later became the leading Christian Social of his day. Aged thirtysix, Lueger was turning against the liberals, a grouping to which he had once belonged as a city councillor, but he was unsure of how he should oppose them. He had joined a small group known as the Democrats, who campaigned against liberal ‘corruption.’ The Democrats were not, however, an antisemitic opposition to the liberals, as they included in their ranks Jewish doctor Ignaz Mandl, with whom Lueger was said to be close. By attending the meeting, however, Lueger was mixing with those who were openly antisemitic. Lueger later justified his move away from the liberals by claiming that the party had changed and was now just a vehicle for power, and that the press that supported it was simply a means of championing Jewish interests.52 New anti-liberal organisations were emerging into view. One, the Österreichischer Reformverein, gathered members from a number of trade- and guild-based organisations. Although the Reformverein had a peak membership estimated at little more than a thousand, it

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was influential and attracted the attention of the press. Reformverein gatherings set the tone for debates that later took place elsewhere. They provided a platform for the likes of Robert Pattai, first president of the Reformverein, a lawyer and later an MP, who demanded ‘antisemitic action,’ which, in his mind, was action against liberalism. In February 1882, he claimed that Jews would not be in Vienna if it were not for liberalism. He ‘despised’ ‘Manchester theories’ which, he claimed, Jews promoted, and from which Jews profited. He proposed economic reforms that would affect the Jews of the city, something which he believed would benefit the whole country.53 Pattai clearly believed that ‘the whole country’ did not include Jews. The effect of such speeches could be inflammatory. In March 1882, it was reported that one Reformverein meeting had descended into violence because of a dispute over antisemitism.54 The occurrence of a dispute over antisemitism indicates that the Reformverein was not yet, at least, an organisation full of antisemites, even though some saw it as an antisemitic group. The Neue Warte am Inn, a newspaper from Braunau in the west of Cisleithania, reported in 1882 that the ‘pronounced purpose’ of the Reformverein was the ‘protection of Christians against Jewish arrogance.’ It approved that the organisation was now a ‘thorn in the eye’ of the ‘predominantly Jewish press.’55 The Reformverein brought together unlikely allies. Pattai, for instance, while far from being a convinced Catholic, accepted the use of priests as antisemitic activists. Another prominent antisemite and member of the Reformverein, Georg von Schönerer, did not, even though he remained nominally a Catholic until 1900.56 Yet, in 1882, both Pattai and Schönerer were attempting to work together for the objectives of the Reformverein. More remarkably, both also worked with Jews in the production of a manifesto, known as the Linz Programme, which called for the strengthening of the position of German culture in the Empire.57 This suggests that some attitudes towards Jews were still being formulated. Those of Jewish descent who were involved in the production of the manifesto included future Social Democratic leader Victor Adler, who had converted to Protestantism, so perhaps at least some antisemites believed at this stage that Jews could ‘become’ German by conversion. Or perhaps, at this stage, Schönerer and Pattai believed that Slavs were a bigger threat to German interests than



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Jews, something suggested by the proposal in the Linz Programme to secure the pre-eminence of German language and culture by creating a ‘core’ state out of the Empire, without Hungary and Slavicpopulated places such as Galicia and Bukovina.58 Others clearly believed that ‘the Jewish Question’ was the priority, and antisemites were taking their first steps to organise. An 1882 edition of the antisemitic Österreichischer Volksfreund believed that Many are still hesitating to attach themselves openly to the movement … The main cause is being considered intolerant, unenlightened, reactionary, if they attach themselves to antisemitism.59

Antisemites therefore believed that by this year they had developed a movement, but they lamented that its further growth was being restricted, since potential supporters, who privately agreed with their propositions, were afraid of the opprobrium that would attach itself to them if they said so publicly. Yet, in the early 1880s, at least two strands of antisemitism were beginning to coalesce in Vienna: that in the trade associations on the one hand, and that among the clergy on the other. Activists in both used similar language and tactics. They pointed to the rapid growth in the Viennese Jewish population as ‘evidence’ that the German and Christian nature of the capital was threatened. While they described Jews in the worst of terms as a poverty-stricken infestation of lazy ‘parasites’ who stole from ‘honest Christians,’ antisemites saw no contradiction in also describing Jews as rich capitalist exploiters.60 However, if anti-liberals were to make progress beyond being a protest group, they needed to convert their efforts into political success, ideally sustained success, and some, including priests, moved directly into the political arena. Father Ignaz Fürst, for instance, of the parish of St John the Evangelist in Favoriten, to the south of the city, was active in elections in Vienna between 1883 and 1888.61 Political activity was also not restricted to the lower ranks of the Church. In May 1885, Albert Wiesinger used the Gemeinde-Zeitung to challenge liberal complaints that senior clergy were using pastoral letters to support anti-liberal campaigns, arguing that members of the Church had the same political rights as any other citizen.62 Non-clerical figures emerged as prominent and public antisemites. These included Pattai, Lueger and Schönerer who, in 1884, used the concession for the Nordbahn railway, which linked Vienna and

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Bohemia, as evidence of liberal corruption. This concession had originally been sold in 1836, to the Rothschilds, under conditions many saw as too favourable to them.63 When the renewed concession was awarded to the Rothschilds, under similar terms, there was an outcry. Lueger and Schönerer led calls at public meetings for the Nordbahn to be taken into public ownership, and Parliament received a petition of 33,000 names in support of this proposal.64 Schönerer, Lueger and others could agree on their anti-liberalism. They also agreed about the need to defend the interests of the Germans of the Empire, but they were often divided on the question of how their German identity should be expressed, especially after the establishment of the German Reich. This, in essence, created three positions on the right of politics, although these must be qualified as broad-brush definitions, with exceptions for individuals. The first position was occupied by Lueger and others who went on to form the core of the Christian Social movement. They did not believe that national questions were the most serious issue facing the Empire, nor did they see a contradiction between the defence of German interests and loyalty to the multinational Habsburg state.65 Others called themselves German nationalists, Deutschnationalen. They broadly, if reluctantly, accepted the exclusion of Austria from Germany, but they argued for the preservation of a leading role for German people, language and culture in the Empire. They did see the nationalities issue as the major problem, and they resisted concessions to other national groups. Some of their number recognised privately, however, that changes had to come. The favoured position of the German bourgeoisie was unsustainable in the long run, so the bourgeoisie of other nations would have to receive a share of political and economic privileges. On the extreme wing of the antisemites with regard to German identity were the Pan-Germans, Alldeutschen, whose most vociferous representative was Schönerer. Pan-Germans campaigned for all Germans to be brought into the German Reich, and Schönerer brought gasps in Parliament when he mouthed support for such a policy, which bordered on treason.66 The issue was the stuff of street brawls and high politics, and it provoked many shifting positions, as a number of German liberal groups changed their name from ‘liberal’ to ‘nationalist,’ or added the description ‘German,’ as national tensions grew within the Empire.

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Nationalism was a force that was of concern to the Habsburgs, as it ran counter to the basis of their multinational Empire, and the agents of the state monitored its proponents. In 1885, for instance, Schönerer was being observed by police as he took part in Vienna in festivities for the seventieth birthday of Bismarck.67 The event, at the iconic Sofiensaal in the Landstrasse on 1 April 1885, was packed out even before Schönerer and his wife arrived at eight o’clock in the morning. Crowds of those who could not enter the hall gathered outside.68 Inside, the cornflower, symbol of Pan-Germanism, decorated the hall. The opening of the celebrations consisted of Schönerer reading congratulations that he had telegrammed to Bismarck, along with the response from Bismarck. Schönerer was sure that anyone in Vienna who shared a ‘German national spirit’ would welcome the celebrations in honour of the man who had created the German Empire. A few other Austrian MPs added their own words, while letters and more telegrams were read out.69 Police records show that the messages had already been intercepted and did not stray into illegality, with only two telegrams having ‘questionable content.’70 Although the meeting was meant to be non-political, calls came from the floor for universal suffrage and an end to the curial voting system. Shouts also rang out about the Nordbahn scandal. The event did, however, pass off peacefully, except for one brief moment when a man in the crowd was observed to be making notes. This seems to have led those in the hall to believe he was a journalist, causing a surge of people towards him, before swift intervention by the police led to his being extracted from the hall.71 One feature of the event that did alarm police was the size and nature of the crowd. Some 3,000 people attended, from a variety of social backgrounds, among whom were approximately 300 women, even though women were not supposed to engage in any political pursuits.72 Nevertheless, the police did manage to profit from the event in terms of gathering intelligence. Information obtained on the day led them to identify the authors of several Pan-German and antisemitic tracts that had recently been anonymously produced. It was little surprise that the origins of the pamphlets were traced to the Silesia student organisation, with which Schönerer had links.73 The Bismarck birthday event was at least confined to one site, but a month later came a bigger challenge to public order. Elections to the Reichsrat generated campaign meetings and voting at a number

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of locations, amid a tense atmosphere. The Gemeinde-Zeitung looked to the conservative parties to keep the liberals from national power. It believed that, out of government since 1879, liberals had been weakened and were falling back on the slogan ‘German, liberal and united,’ a sign of their increasing national orientation. By contrast, conservatives wanted to be Austrians and to ‘recreate a complete harmony between Church and State.’74 The paper was not uncritical of the conservatives, however, and it asked what the future held for them, since politics appeared to be going through a transitional phase, characterised by a ‘sharper tone,’ the outcome of which might only become clear at a later election.75 This ‘sharper tone’ manifested itself in the form of ‘chaos’ at an electoral meeting in the Alsergrund district. It was seen in a request to police for protection for Jewish residents of the Leopoldstadt, who were enduring antisemitic attacks; and it emerged in disturbances at the Musikverein, where candidates had gathered to address the public.76 The Neue Freie Presse noted participation in election campaigning by a priest from Floridsdorf, Father Rudolf Eichhorn, who later went on to be an MP and a leading figure in the Christian Social movement.77 Long newspaper lists of places where political gatherings were planned show the difficult task for the police in maintaining order.78 Politics was not yet a mass phenomenon in terms of those able to vote, but it was attracting growing numbers to events away from the ballot box. On 29 May 1885, the Neubau district was the scene of simultaneous Socialist and antisemitic demonstrations, which required the police to bring in extra men.79 The sight of large crowds seems to have caused some to panic. The mayor of the Mariahilf district reported to police that Robert Pattai was engaged in ‘secret’ antisemitic electoral activities.80 Pattai was certainly active, but secrecy must have been minimal, since newspapers reported exactly where, and with whom, he was meeting to prepare election ‘battle plans.’81 Although the opposition was gaining some individual successes, the liberals remained the leading political group in Vienna after the 1885 parliamentary elections. Of the twelve Viennese parliamentary seats up for election, eight remained liberal. Pattai was returned as an antisemite, while three Democrats, one of whom was Lueger, won seats.82 Antisemites did not, of course, restrict their activities to political gatherings, and officers continued to monitor any reported antisemitic agitation after the parliamentary elections.

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Antisemitism was by now being aired more and more in public and, while police monitored known activists, they could at times be taken by surprise. One candidate for the Neubau district elections of 1886, Franz Wiedenhofer, only came to their attention when it was believed that he and others had shouted Pan-German and antisemitic slogans at an election meeting. No case was ever concluded, because unrest made it difficult to prove.83 Wiedenhofer found a resonance, as he was elected to the council with only 108 votes.84 It is a further reminder that antisemites did not need to develop a mass movement, but they did need to know where to target their efforts. It also indicates that conventional wisdom that antisemites drew their strength from the third curia, that of the lower bourgeoisie, is generally true, but it is not the whole story.85 Wiedenhofer was elected in the first curia, by the ‘elite’ of Habsburg society. These outcomes raised antisemitic profiles, but antisemites needed to overcome two key liabilities to make a sustained breakthrough. The first was that, although they could agree on their opposition to liberalism, they were divided over what they stood for. For instance, in addition to differences on the importance of the nationalities question, Pan-Germans and German nationalists lined up against other antisemites over the issue of clerical involvement in antisemitic activities. The result was that, in the absence of a shared programme, antisemites stood against each other, splitting the antiliberal vote. The second liability in the mid-1880s was electoral inexperience, as antisemites had not yet learnt to profit from a change in the voting system that potentially benefited them. In 1883, the tax threshold for voting eligibility in national elections was reduced, a change that was to be applied to elections to the Vienna City Council from 1886.86 This brought into the electorate growing numbers of the lower bourgeoisie who were coming to antisemitic rallies, but antisemites failed to mobilise potential supporters even in the relatively low numbers needed to win seats. Although the franchise had been extended, the third curia, the largest in terms of numbers, still contained relatively few voters and, in 1886, the first year that the extended franchise applied, heavily populated districts such as Neubau and Mariahilf still had no more than 4,258 and 3,454 voters, respectively, in the third curia. Turnout in these districts was typical of other parts of the city, at below 40 per cent.87

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Antisemites looked to build support by demonstrating that their views were simply morally sound common sense. The Österreichischer Reformer ran articles that praised the work of German antisemite Paul de Lagarde, including his fight against the ‘privileged position’ of ‘the Jews’ and for a ‘true’ national spirit. The Reformer noted that Lagarde, in his turn, used ideas put forward by Robert Pattai.88 The Reformer also carried advertisements for editions of La France Juive (Jewish France), an 1886 pamphlet by French antisemite Édouard Drumont. Other advertisements showed a wealth of antisemitic materials for sale at the Vienna bookshop of Cornelius Vetter, editor of the Reformer. Unity and breakthroughs In the late 1880s, politics was becoming more organised than it had been. Liberal factions started to work like a party. Their opponents did the same, but personal differences and ego often drove them apart. Then antisemites gradually found a unified front, with two new umbrella groups to bring them together. The first was the United Christians, an informal and shifting set of alliances that came to notice as an ad hoc coalition that unexpectedly won a few seats in the 1887 elections for the Reichsrat and the Upper Austrian Landtag, the regional assembly.89 Friedrich Funder, later editor of the Christian Social-supporting Reichspost, described the United Christians as a broad coalition, with former liberals, Catholics, antisemites, German nationalists and even those who had not been inside a church in years in their ranks.90 The backgrounds of the people who coalesced as United Christians show that they may have had little in common as to their aims, but they shared the targets of their disaffection. Antisemites now began to bury their differences and organised as United Christians to spread propaganda in common. They produced programmes demanding the restriction of state employment for Jews, with calls for controls on occupations where Jews were considered to be making undue progress.91 Such calls were intended to appeal to those parts of the non-Jewish population of Vienna that were inclined to antisemitism; the calls told them that someone was prepared to stand up for their interests, if they were in employment where Jews were making this ‘undue progress,’

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even if this ignored the wider socioeconomic changes that were causing problems for this bourgeoisie. The calls further emphasised how antisemites saw the world: ‘real Viennese’ against Jews, ‘real Viennese’ politicians versus ‘Jewish liberals.’ The lower bourgeois members of the newly enfranchised electorate were now presented with candidates who claimed to understand their particular concerns. A measure of unity began to bring rewards for antisemites. In 1887, the Österreichischer Reformer could write with ‘pride’ that they had made great strides in recent City Council elections. An antisemitic candidate in the Mariahilf district had been elected with two-thirds of the votes cast, and Cornelius Vetter had been within thirty-five votes of election in the Landstrasse.92 In 1888, the second antisemitic umbrella group, the Christian Social Association (Christlich-sozialer Verein), was established. The association worked alongside the United Christians, even under its umbrella, but it was more closely knit, more closely connected to the Catholic Church. Among its founders were antisemitic writer and publisher Ludwig Psenner and Viennese priest Adam Latschka and, according to John Boyer, given the history of bourgeois anticlericalism, it ‘rested on a gamble that antisemitic voters would tolerate Catholic priests as sub-leaders and agitators.’93 This suggests that the association was taking a risk in giving a leading role, at the local level, to men who were somehow divided from the antisemitic electorate and who needed to win its acceptance. This risk must have been relatively low, however. Priests had influence and authority in their parishes or, if they were not attached to a parish, they might be well known across the city. The use of priests as agitators was also not confined to Vienna, nor even to Austria. Priests in France and Germany had successfully taken advantage of public rallies, social work and pilgrimages to promote their views, and those of the Church and their political allies.94 While some risk of rejection by a Viennese bourgeoisie that had a history of anticlericalism may have existed in the late 1880s, the lower bourgeoisie and priests had been learning to work together for some time, as witnessed by the involvement of priests, such as Fathers Fürst, Wiesinger, Eichhorn and others, in anti-liberal election campaigning from 1883 onwards. The priests of Vienna were using proven methods, and the effects of their participation should not be downplayed. Catholic priests were effective political campaigners across Europe well into the twentieth century.95

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German nationalists of different kinds, who were frequently Protestant and anticlerical, may have viewed the Catholic Church with mistrust, but priests wielded significant authority among parts of the population. They were considered as role models and lived among their parishioners as men of the people. Events could reinforce this position. After a fire at the Ottakring parish home, some priests were forced to move into the parish offices, while others found temporary lodgings in private homes in the area.96 Sharing in the daily experience of their parishioners can only have reinforced their authority, which would have been enhanced by their relatively high level of education.97 Such embedding made priests highly visible and credible representatives to spread the antisemitic word. When Father Dittrich turned to politics, he certainly took advantage of his presence in a parish, close to the electorate. He exploited the newfound organisational ability of the antisemites as well as existing social networks. He had long been associated with antisemitic elements in the Church through his involvement with the Kirchenzeitung, but he seems not to have taken part in direct political campaigning while at the newspaper, nor even into the early 1880s, with the entries in his Ottakring Chronik for 1879 and 1882 making only passing reference to the elections of those years. The entry that covers the elections of 1888 is different.98 Dittrich did not make this entry, but the man who did, one of his curates, Father Haberl, shows that Dittrich had turned to active political participation. This was such that the Bürgermeister of Ottakring had complained about the extent of priestly involvement.99 The description that Haberl gave to this involvement was ‘vigorous.’ Dittrich, it seems, had played a full part in the election. He had recognised that while women did not have the vote under the electoral system that prevailed, they did have influence, and he urged the women of the parish to run social events where men were encouraged to vote against the liberals. The 1888 Ottakring campaign also saw the Christian Social Association take part, and the entry by Haberl suggests that its involvement was significant, even though two local businessmen who stood for election under this banner ‘had fallen.’100 That the Christian Social Association was able to field supporters in Ottakring so soon after its foundation indicates that it drew on previous organisations in the area. The association was also recorded as having supported

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electoral campaigning in 1888 in Rudolfsheim, Sechshaus, Penzing, Währing and Neulerchenfeld, just outside the City Council boundaries.101 Even though these were early days in the life of the association, it was becoming a key player in influencing opinion and ensuring that voters turned out. Haberl recorded that he had explained to the Ottakring Bürgermeister that he had not been involved in politics in the nine years he had been at the parish, but this seems to have been an understatement of his role. Haberl was careful to record his thoughts that one liberal who hoped to become Bürgermeister of the Ottakring commune, Herr Dick, was not fit for the role, in part because Dick had tried to pressure commune workers into giving him their votes. In a subconscious slip, Haberl concedes that he had been a more active campaigner than he admitted, when he shows which side he had supported: ‘Who is not with me is against me. We could not prevent our opponents from succeeding in the elections to the communal council.’102 The disappointment experienced by candidates in Ottakring in 1888 was shared by supporters of the Christian Social Association elsewhere in and around Vienna but, while liberals held on to many seats that year, a base had been laid for future antisemitic progress.103 As early as 1888, Vaterland reported from Ottakring that a Christian Social Association meeting at a local inn, addressed by Father Latschka, alongside Pattai, gathered ‘such a crowd of people’ that standing room only was left, despite ‘pouring, incessant rain.’ At this meeting, Pattai said he was confident that the Christian Social Association was the core of the United Christians, possessing the ‘power’ to participate in all political activities.104 Antisemites were drawing significant crowds in the suburbs, whether as Christian Socials or United Christians. Ludwig Psenner addressed a gathering of the Christian Social Association at the Wilder Mann inn in Währing in early June 1888, alongside Karl Lueger, where the attendance was said to be ‘considerable.’105 Such meetings contributed to the success of antisemitic candidates in elections for the third curia that followed in the commune of Währing, where seven antisemitic candidates were successful, compared with three for the liberals.106 The extent of the social penetration that the antisemites of Währing were achieving is highlighted by how the singing group Orpheus was cited by the Neues Wiener Journal as being under the ‘protection’ of one of these successful candidates, Anton Baumann.107

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The most successful antisemitic candidate for Währing communal council in 1888 polled 1,837 votes in the third curia – a small fraction of the total population, but a figure that left trailing the leading liberal candidate, who gathered 945 supporters.108 The antisemites were building support in the same way as had the liberals: by careful, methodical campaigning at the ward level that gradually brought together a coalition of interests. The difference was that the ideology of the antisemites was an exclusionary vision, not one that drew people in. Progress had been achieved by antisemites learning to work together, but appeals continued to be made not to split the antisemitic vote. Among their ranks, Schönerer was extremely volatile and verbally violent, a threat to the image that antisemites were projecting, of being simply typical Viennese bourgeois, guarding traditional Christian values. Despite this, Schönerer was included in many joint efforts, until he went too far. In 1888, he and some of his followers raided the offices of a pro-liberal newspaper in Vienna, seriously injuring some of its workers. Schönerer was imprisoned, had his title of nobility removed and was barred from political activity for ten years.109 This was a blessing for other antisemites in Vienna, who could now work on polishing their image of respectability. By now, priests were a valuable electoral resource, in that they were becoming seasoned campaigners, in a number of ways. They had participated in elections, helping both the United Christians and the fledgling Christian Social Association. They had joined together in their thousands, through the pages of a newspaper aimed at the clergy, the Correspondenzblatt, to petition for changes finally to be brought to their salary, known as the Congrua. The Congrua issue was largely settled in 1885, when the clergy received significant salary increases. Observers believe that these would have resolved any hardships they had and placed them further up the scale in terms of earnings, but this did not temper their anti-liberal activism. The Congrua was an issue around which they could learn to organise and flex their muscle, but it was a long way down their list of grievances with the liberal state, to which they objected in principle. Given the early involvement of priests in generally antisemitic, then specifically Christian Social campaigning, a different picture emerges from that in the statement that ‘Some priests eventually expressed their economic insecurity by adopting the aggressive and sometimes

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antisemitic rhetoric of the Christian Social party.’110 Priests like Deckert and Eichhorn were using antisemitic rhetoric long before any Christian Social movement or party existed. They were templates for Christian Social antisemitism. There was also no divide between many priests and the Christian Socials. It is worth repeating that they were the Christian Socials. In 1889, antisemites made their first major impact on Vienna City Council, using resources they now had to print well-produced propaganda that referred to them collectively as anti-liberals, antisemites and United Christians. They confidently stated that their leaders were ‘famous.’111 For the City Council elections of spring 1889, antisemites now also came up with the name the Bürgerklub, the Citizens’ Club, as a banner under which their electoral coalition could stand. It was a name designed to appeal to the instinct of the lower bourgeoisie for respectability, and it set the ‘citizens of Vienna’ in opposition to the liberals, who were again cast as outsiders against the ‘native’ population. The Bürgerklub emerged with twenty-five successful candidates. About thirty ‘anti-liberal’ members now sat on the Vienna City Council.112 Among them was Father Latschka, who won a seat in the third curia in Alsergrund with 1,177 votes, although, out of a potential electorate of 3,063 for the curia, only 2,150 had turned out.113 Latschka never hid his reasons for going into politics, nor did he deny which constituency he targeted. During his 1889 campaign for the United Christians, an election gathering was called in the Hotel Union, in the Alsergrund district of the city. Invitations printed for the event bore the instruction, ‘No entry for Jews.’ One newspaper exclaimed, ‘A Catholic priest lends his name to such hatred!’ The ‘sharper tone’ shocked even the hardened journalists of the liberal Die Presse.114 1889 was also the year that Karl Lueger moved into the ranks of the Christian Socials. He had hesitated in deciding whether the Democrats or the antisemites stood the best chance of replacing the clearly weakening liberals. But one evening he addressed an antisemitic meeting, after which Karl von Vogelsang, editor of Das Vaterland, made a successful case for Lueger to be leader of the new movement.115 The political journey of Lueger shows the shifting nature of politics of the time; and Lueger was not the only person to transfer allegiances. In the second curia in Alsergrund, liberal candidate Dr Emerich Klotzberg managed to win election in 1889.116 He

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would hold on to his seat in the council chamber for some considerable time, but only by following the same path as Lueger and others, abandoning his liberal colleagues and crossing over to the Christian Socials.117 In the 1889 election, liberals won many of their seats in the higher curiae, where fewer votes were needed. Die Presse estimated that, across all curiae combined, liberals won 15,094 votes, with 14,862 going to the ‘reactionaries.’118 In the third curia, antisemites led with 11,315 to the liberals’ 9,822.119 As the Neue Freie Presse observed, antisemites had failed to penetrate the second and first curiae, which they would have to do if they were to win Vienna.120 But antisemites had given notice that antisemitism had arrived as a political force. Die Presse referred to victories for the ‘antisemites and their consorts,’ while the Deutsches Volksblatt wrote of gains for the United Christians.121 Labels attached to antisemites continued to evolve. A manifesto for a Christian Social Party circulated for parliamentary elections in March 1891, but this was nothing more than a call for support for those who called themselves Christian Socials.122 A formally constituted Christian Social Party was still missing, and a genuine party organisation emerged only in the middle of the 1890s. In 1889, the label ‘party’ indicated a ‘faction’ or ‘group.’ Candidates described as belonging to the party were in reality approved by the Christian Social Association, along with various Catholic political clubs that were based in the districts. These organisations also supported a few candidates, such as German nationalists, if they believed they had a chance of unseating liberals, as long as political and other differences between them were not too great. This was the start of a pattern whereby direct Christian Social affiliates were the major electoral beneficiaries of antisemitic coalitions in Vienna.123 The 1889 elections transformed the Viennese political scene. In 1873, the disunited proponents of antisemitism as anti-liberalism seemed to have little prospect of winning political power. In 1882, the Österreichischer Volksfreund had probably been correct that even some who supported the idea of antisemitic action were too ashamed to say so in public. By 1889, the supporters of political antisemitism were organising, gaining in influence and confidence. This long process was driven by activists in the guilds, among the clergy and among members of associations within the orbit of the Church. For the next six years or so, they set about building the means to take control of Vienna.



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Notes 1 Die Presse, 1 January 1873, p. 1. 2 NFP, 3 January 1874, p. 5. 3 See Anton Drasche, Statistisch-graphische Darstellung der CholeraEpidemie in Wien während des Jahres 1873 (Vienna: Self-published, 1873). 4 For an analysis of the long-term economic downturn in one sector, see Max-Stephan Schulze, ‘The Machine-Building Industry and Austria’s Great Depression after 1873,’ The Economic History Review, New Series, 50:2 (May 1997), 282–304. 5 NFP, 20 March 1873, p. 7, on the ‘tenacious party struggle’ in the Landstrasse. 6 NFP, 22 March 1873, p. 6. 7 See NFP, 25 March 1873, p. 7 for results from the second curia. 8 Neues Fremden-Blatt, 26 March 1873, lists only successful candidates. Vaterland in the relevant period barely mentions the elections. 9 NFP, 16 March 1872, p. 8. 10 Volksblatt für Stadt und Land, 27 March 1873, pp. 3–6 and p. 10, hereafter Stadt und Land. 11 Stadt und Land, 27 March 1873, p. 9 and pp. 12–13. 12 See, for example, Vaterland, 1 May 1861, p. 1 or 23 October 1860, p. 1. 13 See issues of Vaterland for 2 and 5 January 1874. 14 NWB, 6 January 1874, p. 1. 15 NWB, 1 August 1891, p. 12. 16 NWB, 5 May 1875, p. 2. 17 Katholisches Vereinsblatt, 1 January 1895, p. 2. 18 Michael Schmolke, ‘Katholische Journalistik in Österreich vor dem März 1938,’ in Maximilian Liebmann (ed.), Kirche in Österreich, 1938– 1988 (Graz: Verlag Styria, 1990), pp. 194–211, here p. 211, cites the newspaper as having a daily circulation up to 40,000. 19 See examples of this use of Volk in Gemeinde-Zeitung, 4 April 1875, p. 1 and 11 April 1875, p. 1. 20 See Vaterland, 22 July 1870, p. 6. 21 Vaterland, 14 May 1870, p. 3 carries news from the casino in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Stadt und Land reports on casinos in its issues of 2 April, 7 May, 28 May, 15 October and other dates, all 1874. 22 Vaterland, 14 May 1870, p. 3. 23 Wiener Diözesanblatt, 5 (1874, issue not dated), p. 60. Hereafter Diözesanblatt. 24 NFP, 11 April 1874, p. 2. 25 Diözesanblatt, 8, (1874, issue not dated), pp. 85–90. Also cited in Cölestin Wolfsgruber, Joseph Othmar, Cardinal Rauscher (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1888), p. 319.

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26 Die Presse, 11 April 1874, p. 2, Neues Fremden-Blatt, 11 April 1874, p. 2, Vaterland, 11 April 1874, p. 2, W-Z, 11 April 1874, p. 3. 27 Gemeinde-Zeitung, 1 January 1874, p. 18. 28 Vaterland, 2 August 1875, p. 2. 29 Hulesch, Geschichte, pp. 73–74. 30 NFP, 19 February 1876, p. 6. 31 NWT, 5 October 1873, p. 3. 32 Diözesanblatt, 21 (1874, issue not dated), p. 252. 33 See a number of the priests encountered elsewhere in this work. 34 Gemeinde-Zeitung, 2 October 1866, p. 11. 35 Gemeinde-Zeitung, 6 April 1867, p. 14. 36 Diözesanblatt, 21 (1874, issue not dated), p. 252. 37 Vaterland, 31 May 1870, p. 3. 38 Vaterland, 5 January 1871, p. 3. 39 Christine Klusacek and Kurt Stimmer, Währing: vom Ganselberg zum Schafberg (Vienna: Mohl, 1992), pp. 161–162. 40 AEDW WeCk, 1865. 41 Vaterland, 16 October 1872, p. 5. 42 Josef Deckert, Der Sendbote des heiligen Joseph (Vienna: Verlag des Sendboten, February 1876), p. 7. 43 The statutes for the Kirchenbau-Verein are dated 31 October 1880, but are in the AEDW WeCor, box for 1900–10. 44 AEDW WeCk, 1876. 45 Deckert, Sendbote, February 1876, p. 3. 46 Deckert, Sendbote, January 1877, supplement, p. v. 47 Loidl, Erzbistum, pp. 278–292. 48 Bowman, ‘Religious Associations,’ pp. 65–76. 49 http:​//www​.aeio​u.at/​aeiou​.ency​clop.​s/s86​5006.​htm (accessed 24 August 2020). 50 Seliger and Ucakar, Politische Geschichte, Vol. 1, p. 600. 51 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 139. 52 Wistrich, Jews of Vienna, p. 205. 53 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 140. 54 Andrew Whiteside, The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan Germanism (Berkeley: University of California, 1975), p. 90. 55 Neue Warte am Inn, 2 April 1882, p. 6. 56 On the anti-Catholicism of Schönerer, see Pulzer, Political AntiSemitism, p. 203 and p. 332. 57 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, pp. 145–146. 58 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 145. 59 ÖV, quoted in Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 281.

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60 In their published works, two early Christian Social activists, Ludwig Psenner and Father Deckert, provide numerous examples of the kinds of language used in antisemitic circles. See Ludwig Psenner, Das Papsttum und die soziale Frage (Vienna: Publisher name not printed, 1893) and Josef Deckert, Rassenantisemitismus? (Vienna: Verlag des Sendboten, 1895). 61 AEDW StJECk, undated Chronik entry, after death of Fürst. 62 Gemeinde-Zeitung, 21 May 1885, p. 1. 63 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 147. 64 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 147. 65 For the complexities of the relationship between the state and being a ‘German’ in the Habsburg Empire, see Whiteside, Socialism, pp. 9–42. 66 Whiteside, Socialism, p. 73. 67 ABPD 1885 V8, reports between 31 March 1885 and 8 April 1885. 68 Christoph Römer, Die Sofiensäle: Eine Wiener Institution (Erfurt: Sutton, 2004). 69 ABPD 1885 V8, 31 March 1885. On telegrams and letters. 70 ABPD 1885 V8, 1 April 1885. 71 ABPD 1885 V8, 1 April 1885, on events in the hall. 72 Birgitta Bader-Zaar, ‘Women in Austrian Politics, 1890–1934: Goals and Visions,’ in David F. Good and Margarete Grandner and Mary Jo Maynes, Austrian Women In The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (New York: Berghahn, 1996), p. 61. 73 ABPD 1885 V8, 8 April 1885. 74 Gemeinde-Zeitung, 7 May 1885, p. 2. 75 Gemeinde-Zeitung, 14 May 1885, p. 1. 76 Gemeinde-Zeitung, 16 May 1885, p. 2 and 21 May 1885, p. 2. 77 NFP, 22 May 1885, p. 4, and ÖBL, pp. 232–233. 78 Konstitutionelle-Vorstadt-Zeitung (hereafter KVZ), 28 May 1885, to be found in ABPD Gemeinde-, Landtags-, Bezirks- und Reichstagswahlen 1850/1865/1885/1886/1889 (hereafter ABPD GLBRWahlen). 79 KVZ, 28 May 1885. 80 ABPD GLBRWahlen, 29 May 1885. 81 KVZ, 28 May 1885. 82 NFP, 2 June 1885, p. 2. 83 ABPD GLBRWahlen, June 1886. 84 ABPD GLBRWahlen. Copy of official election results poster of 6 May 1886. 85 Pulzer, Political Antisemitism, p. 168. 86 Carl Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Vintage, 1981), pp. 137–138. 87 NFP, 30 March 1886, p. 6.

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88 Österreichischer Reformer, 10 April 1887, ABPD 1887 St4. 89 Pulzer, Political Antisemitism, pp. 164–170. 90 Friedrich Funder, Vom gestern ins heute Aus dem Kaiserreich in die Republik (Vienna: Herold, 1952), p. 94. 91 Pulzer, Political Antisemitism, p. 167, for the 1889 United Christian programme. 92 Österreichischer Reformer, 10 April 1887, p. 4. 93 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 114. 94 David Blackbourn, ‘The Catholic Church in Europe since the French Revolution: A Review Article,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, 33:4 (October 1991), 778–790. See also Margaret L. Anderson, ‘The Limits of Secularization: On the Problem of the Catholic Revival in Nineteenth-Century Germany,’ The Historical Journal, 38:3 (1995), 647–670. 95 See, for example, James Bjork, ‘Nations in the Parish: Catholicism and National Conflict in the Silesian Borderland, 1890–1922,’ in Michael Geyer and Hartmut Lehmann (eds), Religion und Nation: Nation and Religion (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2004). 96 AEDW AOCor, 16 June 1876. The fire took place on the night of 18 February 1876. 97 Bowman, Priest and Parish, p. 107. 98 A later note in the margin of the Chronik indicates that the entry was for 1887, but no election took place in Ottakring that year. Newspapers confirm that these elections were held in 1888. See Vaterland, 10 June 1888, p. 2, and 12 June 1888, p. 5, on Ottakring. 99 AEDW AOCk, 1887. 100 AEDW AOCk, 1887. 101 Vaterland, 15 April 1888, p. 6, 25 April 1888, p. 5, 1 May 1888, p. 6, 15 May, p. 4 and 17 June 1888, p. 13. 102 AEDW AOCk, 1887. 103 Vaterland, 13 June 1888, p. 6 and Vaterland, 21 June 1888, pp. 5–6. 104 Vaterland, 9 June 1888, p. 5. 105 Vaterland, 4 June 1888, p. 4. 106 Vaterland, 9 June 1888, p. 5. 107 Neues Wiener Journal, 29 June 1894, p. 8. 108 Vaterland, 9 June 1888, p. 5. 109 Whiteside, Socialism, pp. 132–140. 110 Bowman, Priest and Parish, p. 139. 111 ‘Die Wiener Gemeinderatswahlen und die Antisemiten,’ ABPD GLBRWahlen, p. 7. 112 NFP, 4 July 1905, p. 10. 113 Die Presse, 19 March 1889, p. 10.

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114 Die Presse, 29 April 1889, p. 4. 115 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, pp. 161–162. 116 DVB, 22 March 1889, p. 4. 117 NFP, 4 July 1905, p. 10. 118 Die Presse, 27 March 1889, p. 10. 119 Die Presse, 19 March 1889, p. 10. 120 NFP, 27 March 1889, p. 7. 121 Die Presse, 19 March 1889, p. 10. DVB, 22 March 1889, p. 4. 122 Whiteside, Socialism, p. 25; Loidl, Erzbistum, p. 276, on the manifesto; Volksfreund, 12 March 1891, p. 1, for the date of the elections. A biography of Psenner records the first Christian Social manifesto as created in 1896, by Psenner. ÖBL, p. 318. 123 Boyer, Radicalism, pp. 226–237, on the origins of the party and for early manoeuvring within and around the antisemitic coalition.

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To the brink of power, 1889–95

From 1889 to the 1891 Viennese elections By 1889, Vienna and its surrounding areas had grown to such an extent that a reorganisation of municipal administration was necessary, and plans to incorporate many of the communes and suburbs around Vienna were being finalised. Ottakring, for instance, which in 1889 lay outside the city limits, was to be merged with several neighbouring communes, forming a new district that would bear the Ottakring name as part of the city. Similarly, Währing was to be merged with other communes to form a new district called Währing. Over thirty suburbs would be consolidated into nine new city districts, bringing the population of the capital to over a million.1 Vienna would have two tiers of local government. The upper level, that of the City Council, would cover the whole metropolis. Each of the nineteen districts that made up the city would also have its own council, but with fewer powers than those of the City Council. The City Council became commonly known as the Gemeinde, each district a Bezirk. Electors would send representatives to the Bezirk and Gemeinde councils through separate elections, beginning in 1891. The city and its suburbs grew rapidly, by absorption and organically. The commune of Währing had expanded from 3,504 inhabitants in 1850 to 40,135 in 1880. Growth came from those escaping increasing property and food prices in the city proper, as well as new arrivals from far afield. Although the main streets of Währing carried the appearance of prosperity, it suffered heavy overcrowding of its dwellings. The 40,000 inhabitants squeezed into 7,680 dwellings that were solely for domestic use, and a further 1,282 shared between

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domestic and business usage. On average, five people occupied each dwelling, the vast majority of which were apartments, and therefore small.2 Vienna was also changing in population composition. By 1880, over 70,000 Jews lived there, and their numbers continued to grow.3 However, they were not the only large minority in the ‘German’ capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even the lowest estimates of Czechs in Vienna stood at over 100,000 by 1900 and, like Jews, although on a different scale, they experienced difficulties from ‘local’ populations.4 Lothar Höbelt has described Viennese antisemitism as a ‘response’ to large-scale Jewish immigration, but antisemites took no account of numbers in adopting their stances.5 As has already been noted, one of their most prominent figures admitted that antisemites acted out of pure prejudice.6 Christian Socials and their allies attempted to exploit the fears that can come from change, but they did not enjoy unbroken progress from 1889 to 1895. The antisemitic coalition was at times shaken by suspicions that potential allies might defect. Some Democrats had turned against their former liberal associates and had gone over to the antisemites, but antisemites feared the renewal of old alliances. Claims surfaced that Democrats in the Neubau district, for instance, should be ashamed that they had allied themselves with liberals in the 1889 elections.7 Karl Lueger had journeyed from the liberals through the Democrats to become the first unquestioned leader of the Christian Socials, adopting and jettisoning particular stances. He had actively supported a programme of the Democrats that all denominations were equal, so it has been claimed that his antisemitism was not sincerely held – that it was solely instrumental, an opportunistic reaction to the mood of the times. His antisemitism was a tool, to be called into use when necessary, for the ‘right’ audiences. He was also said to be ‘not particularly religious.’8 Lueger seems to have convinced his new comrades that none of this was true. Appearing at a Catholic congress in Vienna in April 1889, he was cheered by delegates, about one-third of whom were clergy, who welcomed Lueger and his antisemitism, accepting him as a genuine Catholic.9 The next major political battle in Vienna would be the 1891 city elections, which for the first time included the newly incorporated districts. The liberal Montags-Zeitung believed that the world awaited

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the result of a ‘momentous’ struggle between ‘red and black’ – liberals and the Church – that would determine not just the political, but the cultural, life of the capital. In a strongly worded editorial, it described the United Christians as defamers of the religion that they said they aimed to protect. The United Christians were ‘Judases’ trying to tempt the ‘fools’ of the Viennese public, who were no better than ‘gullible whores.’ Montags-Zeitung does not explicitly name these ‘gullible whores,’ but it implies that they were the voters of the lower curiae, since it claimed that the United Christians would not fool the ‘better’ elements of society.10 It was hardly a way of winning friends to the liberal cause. At this time, the United Christians were creating political structures, putting together cross-Vienna bodies, such as the Central Electoral Committee of the United Christians, which reminded voters of the significance of these elections.11 At the district level, too, the strength of antisemitic groups was being consolidated. Bodies labelled ‘Christian Social’ were developing local electoral committees, and these used local connections to spread the antisemitic word. For the April 1891 elections, the United Christians turned to allies in the press. Vaterland called for support for the United Christians.12 The Deutsches Volksblatt, edited by antisemitic agitator Ernst Vergani, praised those who turned out in numbers ‘far greater than expected’ for an anti-liberal demonstration in central Vienna.13 The Catholic Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt did not formally endorse candidates from any one party, but it hoped that the electorate would choose men who would aid the middle classes, who were being driven to ruin by cheap, imported foreign goods. This reflected one of the main points of the antisemitic programme.14 During these elections, some political campaigns became heated, while others barely caused a stir. One liberal candidate was attacked on the street in Hietzing, while attempts were made to snatch voting slips from the hands of electors in Währing.15 The Neuigkeits-WeltBlatt described the liberals in Hietzing as having a large number of vehicles and an ‘army’ of agitators, while it claimed that the ‘antiliberals’ also put out a ‘commendable’ number of supporters. This was hyperbole. Only 1,366 voters turned out, about 200 per polling station. In addition, in working-class districts such as Favoriten, where very few could vote, almost no interest was aroused in the campaign.16

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The final outcome of the third curia elections to the City Council matched the most pessimistic liberal predictions. Thirty seats fell to the antisemites, with only thirteen going to the liberals. Liberal morale must have hit rock bottom as the third curia results for the Bezirk councils came in. Liberal candidates were in the majority in the third curia only in the Innere Stadt, Leopoldstadt and Fünfhaus. In sixteen districts, antisemites emerged with majorities.17 Liberals therefore now focused on the second curia elections, and their efforts paid off. As Die Presse put it, ‘there no longer needs to be concern that the communal representative bodies will be handed over to the anti-liberals.’18 One newspaper calculated that the second curia returned thirty-nine successful liberal candidates to the City Council, against five for the antisemites. The results for the district councils brought similar liberal victories.19 Die Presse expressed satisfaction that the results had exceeded expectations, and it now looked to first curia elections through which, it believed, liberals would retain their control of the City Council.20 This turned out to be the case.21 In the City Council chamber, the liberals held ninety-six seats, compared with forty-one for anti-liberal candidates.22 Despite their defeat, antisemites had consolidated their hold on the third curia of the City Council, and they had made inroads into the second curia. They had also demonstrated that they existed in numbers.23 Their success with a bourgeois electorate showed that they were not on the edges of society. Die Presse announced that the advance of the antisemites had been checked, not reversed. It was aware that the voters of the second curia had made liberal victory possible, and it cautioned candidates elected because of them to meet the expectations of these voters.24 If rewards were not forthcoming, these voters could easily change sides. The appeal of the antisemites It has long been recognised that antisemites achieved their first electoral successes by targeting disaffected occupational groups, appealing to their self-interest. Antisemites convinced these groups that they would be able to protect, or even to improve, their status in a rapidly changing world.25 Friedrich Funder later argued that these appeals were welcomed by craftsmen who could hardly earn enough to support themselves and their families. Distress existed, in his view, because liberal economic

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policies had destroyed a ‘corporate and feudal’ world that had existed before liberalisation of markets and the rise of large-scale industry.26 Funder also proposed that liberal secularisation policies were a second assault on these people, who were mostly loyal Catholics. In his view, liberals wanted to ‘conquer’ the religious views of ‘the people.’27 Funder amplified this line to suggest that the affected groups formed a broad movement, who sprang from a new world that had created ‘a people tormented by the bitterest need.’ In his view, [the people] raised itself and directed its gaze with hope towards men who had put themselves at the head of a struggle against the ‘arch enemy,’ the economic and social oppressor, Liberalism.28

Funder defined the Christian Socials as a movement of rebellion, despite its bourgeois make-up. According to him, ‘the people’ had hoped for assistance from the Church, but they had found the upper hierarchy remote and uninvolved with their problems. In contrast, by taking matters into their own hands with efforts to address the problems of ‘the people,’ the priests of Vienna created a conflict between older Catholic conservatives, as represented by the upper hierarchy, and younger Christian Socials.29 However, the case put forward by Funder was just another addition to the founding myths of the antisemites. Funder, and others, argued that their involvement in politics was a necessary response to the ‘Social Question.’ But, as John Boyer has observed, the word ‘social’ in the name Christian Social Party extended only to efforts to revive the Viennese bourgeoisie, not ‘the people.’30 The Christian Socials made no significant efforts to tackle mass poverty. Equally, it is hard to distinguish Christian Social economic policies in action from those of the liberals. They provided next to no help for small enterprises, a constant complaint from owners of this kind of business into the twentieth century.31 Christian Social leaders may have claimed to promote a new brand of politics that corresponded to a ‘sharper key’ than the old liberal politics, but they were constrained in their allegedly rebellious aims. After all, they appealed first to the gentile lower bourgeoisie, who did not want an overthrow of the old order, just a larger share of its rewards. At some point, the Christian Socials would have to appeal further up the social scale if they wanted to win over the higher curiae. Revolution would not win much support from this sector of society.

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Christian Socials were also inherently not truly revolutionary. They were loyal to the Emperor, who symbolised the stratified society that they favoured. They did not reject an entire system of ‘liberal cultural, political, and social values.’32 They were, rather, a Viennese instance of how, in the context of the franchise systems of the late Empire, scope existed for bourgeois activists to participate in politics. In Bohemia, for instance, national disputes made national identity a focus of a dissatisfied German stratum of society. The Christian Socials and their antisemitism formed a phenomenon that matched the particular political, social and cultural circumstances of Vienna.33 Catholic priests and the early days of political antisemitism Among histories of the antisemitic movement, certain ideas have become a standard part of narratives concerning the activist clergy. It has been said, for instance, that this was a group of men who, in their early days as activists, conducted single-handed campaigns against liberals. They then grew in numbers but remained, collectively, weaker than powerful liberal opponents. They have been said to have then progressed to a point where they succeeded in waking their fellow priests into campaigning action, the ‘achievement’ of ‘a group of energetic clerics in Vienna.’ These men challenged the ‘passivity’ of the senior Austrian clergy with regard to the social and economic policies and actions of the Austrian state, which remained essentially liberal, even under conservative governments in the 1880s and 1890s. This challenge then led the senior clergy, for a number of reasons, to oppose the activism of the lower clergy.34 The research undertaken for this work does not chime with these conclusions, especially with regard to the opposition that the senior clergy are said to have mounted to clerical activists. This finding, in turn, raises questions about the attitudes, roles and responsibility of the senior clergy for the spread of antisemitism as an organised and political phenomenon. Later in this chapter follows an examination of a mission that the senior clergy sent to Rome, and which is frequently cited as part of attempts to discipline the lower clergy. Three key Viennese activist priests are also examined here, as a way of assessing their activism and as a way of assessing their relationships with the senior clergy. First, however, one priest who has been held up as being opposed in his activism is reassessed.

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Father Joseph Scheicher operated in the diocese of St Pölten, which reported into the Archdiocese of Vienna. He contributed much to Viennese clerical antisemitism before and during the time of the Christian Socials. He is said to have led ‘a small Catholic political revival’ in the mid-1870s. This was ‘largely because of the singlehanded leadership’ of this ‘young Catholic cleric … who started a meagre associational movement (a few casinos, a constitutional Verein, etc.).’ Scheicher is described, in a different context, as a ‘simple priest.’ He is also said to have run into the opposition of the Bishop of St Pölten, Matthäus Binder, in his political activism.35 Scheicher, however, was no isolated and opposed priest, and even in the early 1870s, he had connections and enjoyed admiration. Bishop Binder took over at St Pölten in October 1872, by which time Scheicher was mapping out a career, just three years after his ordination, that would give him status and influence. Bishop Josef Fessler, predecessor to Binder, had sent Scheicher to a Catholic theological institution in Vienna where, after three years of study, he was awarded a doctorate.36 During his time there he entered the political arena, and he was a frequent speaker for anti-liberal candidates. In October 1873, Scheicher addressed an electoral meeting of the Constitutional People’s Union in Ybbsitz in Lower Austria, alongside representatives from a Catholic casino in Waidhofen. Scheicher addressed the ‘swindler economy,’ an analysis of the ‘promises’ made by liberals before they entered government, the outcome being ‘misery and need.’37 Later that month, Scheicher addressed an electoral meeting in Weyer. His theme was again liberalism, and its alleged lack of honour. Scheicher was described as ‘one of the best known and favourite’ speakers, so he had a public profile, even when he had not long turned thirty.38 This confirmed another report from that month of a Catholic casino meeting in Waidhofen, which described Scheicher as the ‘most famous’ of all the guests.39 Scheicher addressed the Waidhofen Catholic Casino again, on 8 March 1874, when members approved the sending to Bishop Binder of a message of their loyalty.40 The political activities of Joseph Scheicher are an important indicator of the position of the upper Church hierarchy, who could have ordered Scheicher to stop at any time. Boyer at one point argues that Scheicher indeed ‘met with opposition from his bishop.’ But, at another, he makes the general observation that Catholic political

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associations were thin on the ground in the 1870s and, where they did exist, ‘as in St Pölten, they existed at the tolerance of Bishop Binder, not because of his support.’41 Since Boyer also concludes that political Catholicism in St Pölten emerged from the ‘single-handed’ activity of Scheicher, he is here suggesting that Scheicher was tolerated by Binder, not opposed. Scheicher lacked neither resources nor influence. By 1877 he was editor of a local newspaper, the St Pöltner Bote.42 He was appointed professor of theology at the St Pölten seminary for boys in 1878.43 His 1884 work, Der Klerus und die soziale Frage, has been described as a ‘slim volume,’ but it consists of 150 tightly printed pages. More significantly, it was published in a series to which Catholic thinkers from various parts of Europe contributed, so it was not just a single, isolated volume. Scheicher went on to become an MP in the 1890s. It is acknowledged that Binder stood in the way of moves by Scheicher to stand for the Reichsrat, the Parliament, but this was not a blanket ban on political activity by Scheicher. The extent of the opposition that Binder raised to Scheicher in his political endeavours must be qualified, or it gives misleading impressions as to the intentions of the bishop. Scheicher was allowed to contribute to anti-liberal campaigning in many forms from the 1870s onwards, addressing meetings and writing books and newspaper articles. He was also directly involved in politics, sitting in the Lower Austrian Landtag from 1890, alongside Bishop Binder, and on the St Pölten town council from 1891.44 He was not punished for his exertions, and he was not leading a solitary battle. This indicates that any ‘opposition’ he encountered from Binder was about approach, not about substance. Binder was simply following the line adopted by Cardinal Rauscher in Vienna, that any direct opposition to the government was to come from the senior hierarchy, not the lower clergy. Any ‘ban’ on standing for the Reichsrat was no blunt opposition to Scheicher. After the death of Binder, a small piece appeared in a St Pölten newspaper, denying that Binder had banned Scheicher from standing for Parliament. Binder had advised Scheicher not to stand, and Scheicher, out of respect, had complied.45 Politics did not impede priests, but clerical misdemeanours did. Father Carl Dittrich, encountered earlier, had attracted the favour of the upper hierarchy, but his status did not prevent a fall. Dittrich had staff to help run his parish, but he left them to their own devices, and some fell prey to temptation. The result was a scandal, in which

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his assistants took fees for weddings and funerals at which they contracted to have a certain number of attendants, but failed to provide the agreed number. They then pocketed the difference between the fees charged and the amounts they paid out. Dittrich was not involved, but he was ‘removed from office’ in 1889 for failing in his duties and moved to the parish of Altlerchenfeld.46 His political activism had not brought Dittrich down, and political activism was becoming more common. By the early 1890s, antisemites spread beyond Vienna, into Lower Austria, the region of which Vienna was part. Priests were elected in towns such as WienerNeustadt, Wöllersdorf and Hochwolkersdorf.47 The liberal Freies Blatt complained that priests were ‘everywhere’ at the head of Christian Social activities.48 These were not just a few rogue priests, avoiding the discipline of their diocesan superiors; this was a widespread movement of clergy. Three key Viennese priests Three activist priests stand out: parish priests Josef Deckert and Adam Latschka, and a man identified by Friedrich Funder as key in the growth of antisemitism, Father Heinrich Abel. All three have been examined in other works, to some extent, but placing them together, and re-assessing their words and actions, shows that their roles in making antisemitism an everyday occurrence were just as important as those of secular political activists. They, and other priests, were active with the knowledge and the approval of the Ordinariat. Father Deckert reached a peak of propagandistic activity in the 1890s. Pamphlets rolled out of Weinhaus, the products of evening speeches that he converted into printed materials designed to build hatred against Jews. Deckert seems to have achieved considerable success in sales of these pamphlets. He certainly possessed an income which other priests did not, whatever its source, as he had undertaken long pilgrimages, first to Italy and later to the ‘Holy Land.’ On the latter, he took in, among other places, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, before returning via Constantinople [sic] and Budapest.49 The level of sales of his pamphlets shows that, when Deckert recorded that he had given talks at an overflowing church, he was not being fanciful.50 The impact of such activity has been downplayed, with comments along the lines that few people were reached by propaganda from the

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small suburban churches of the time.51 Individual audiences for talks in Weinhaus could have reached barely a thousand, even if the church had been full, but speeches were given more than once, and talks were only one clerical activity within antisemitic networks. Even a few hundred voters converted to the antisemitic cause might be key to electoral success. Deckert knew that he could play a part in winning these voters round, as shown by his boasting of his ties to antisemitic district council members.52 The offensive, repetitive language in his pamphlets deployed common antisemitic metaphors. Deckert talked of ‘Jewish threats,’ and claimed that Jews were as much of a menace to Vienna as the Turks who had laid siege to the city two centuries earlier.53 He accused Jews of usury.54 He rejected calls for the antisemitic movement to align with the Pan-Germans, but he also criticised Catholic conservatives for attempting to portray themselves as having a monopoly on patriotism, when Christian Socials were equally patriotic.55 Deckert was also clear in his mind that antisemitism was not hatred, but a scientific statement of differences between Jews and Christians. That was why he declared, ‘We too, therefore, are racial antisemites.’56 A second priest who deserves close attention is Father Adam Latschka. Latschka, who was born in 1847, became a priest in his midtwenties and showed considerable energy when he took up his first position, in 1872, as a curate at Perchtoldsdorf, just outside Vienna. He reinvigorated a parish that had become moribund in terms of religious activity. Attendance at mass was low, often restricted to older parishioners, and others participated solely for baptisms, weddings, funerals and significant feast days. Latschka brought in Jesuits for missionary work, he visited people who did not attend mass and he organised work for the unemployed. Church attendance rose, and he fulfilled his aim of a spiritual revival.57 In 1880, Latschka assumed a junior post at the prestigious Viennese Votivkirche. He later wrote contemptuously of himself that pride had persuaded him to take an almost entirely ceremonial and undemanding role.58 It allowed him, however, to undertake in Vienna the kinds of charitable and missionary work he had carried out in Perchtoldsdorf. In particular, Latschka concerned himself with the welfare of women who were working in factories in the city. He was frequently sighted in the Alsergrund district, the site of the factory of the tobacco monopoly, where he campaigned for better conditions for workers.59

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Latschka became well known to the police, who recorded his presence at a political meeting at this time.60 His political involvement then assumed a different dimension after his election to the City Council in 1889. After the tobacco factory relocated to Ottakring, Latschka now also developed close ties with that area, where a completely new building was constructed between 1893 and 1898. Latschka ensured that this factory had facilities for personal hygiene and health, for both the men and women who worked there.61 These involvements again showed that Latschka mixed the practical with the religious, as he did when he became patron of a shelter for young women and of several religious associations.62 Latschka changed the direction of his clerical career in 1897, when he applied to take on the parish of Ottakring after Father Wilhelm Pokorny, who had succeeded Father Dittrich, left the parish under a cloud.63 Father Pokorny had been accused of ‘intimacy’ with the daughter of his housekeeper, and had been blackmailed by her husband. At trial, the version of events given by Pokorny was believed, and the blackmailing husband and wife were sentenced to hard labour. Under these circumstances, and given the previous scandal under Father Dittrich, it might have been expected that the new appointment to the parish would be a safe pair of hands, but this did not happen. The outcome of the selection process indicates that other factors came into play, and the application that Latschka submitted for the post adds to the case that he and other clerical antisemitic activists were not a rebellious band of whom their superiors disapproved.64 Rather, his application shows his belief that he had a good relationship with those who would be making the appointment, which included members of the Ordinariat. Latschka pointed to his charitable endeavours and to his religious writings, but he also made explicit reference to his political activities, for which he hoped the panel would treat him favourably.65 Latschka faced a field of fifteen other candidates, a number of whom had experience of running a parish, when Latschka had none. This should have been an important consideration, given that this parish had tens of thousands of parishioners and a number of curates to manage, yet Latschka was appointed.66 This puzzled another candidate, Father Johannes Pax, who did eventually take over at the parish. Pax noted that he could not understand how he, a man with excellent

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references, had been beaten to the role by a curate three years his junior.67 Pax was implying that Latschka enjoyed special favour and, given their relative experience, it is hard to come to any other conclusion. In 1899, the parish of Ottakring was split in two, its 100,000 parishioners too many for one parish priest. Ottakring was to be renamed Alt-Ottakring, and a church that had just been built in the district would become the base of a new parish of Neu-Ottakring with a potential congregation of 45,000.68 Latschka now applied to be priest at this parish, but he recognised that he had not really been long enough at what was to become Alt-Ottakring before applying for another parish.69 However, the committee that made the appointment included fellow city councillor Prince Alois von Liechtenstein, the principal sponsor of the new church, and Latschka was appointed first parish priest at Neu-Ottakring.70 The foremost concern of Adam Latschka was to redeem souls, and he saw his political activities as no distraction from that mission; rather, they were an integral part of it. This can be seen from his decision to record his version of the rise of the antisemitic movement in the Chronik of each of his parishes. At Neu-Ottakring, in 1899, he launched directly into the recent history of the capital, writing of how ‘the enemy,’ the liberals, had earlier taken control of Vienna. Like others, he conflated Jews and liberals, and he portrayed Jews as alien to the city when he described the United Christians as a riposte to ‘the threat’ that ‘the Jews’ presented to ‘his people.’ He painted a picture of life where wealthy Jews exploited the ‘indigenous’ Christian people and placed them under robot, forced labour. Liberal Vienna was therefore to be toppled, for its economic policies and for its secularising aims. Latschka saw ‘the Jew’ as the Achilles heel of the liberals, and he conceded that prejudice was the glue that bound the coalition, when he accepted that many among the United Christians were only nominally Christian, but they were ‘at least not Jews.’71 The entry in the Neu-Ottakring Chronik is not quite the same as the entry made two years earlier at Alt-Ottakring. Latschka has changed the ‘threat’ that faces Vienna from ‘the Jews’ to the more personal ‘the Jew.’ He has also inserted the idea that Christians were subject to robot, something not in the 1897 Chronik.72 Latschka was not motivated to antisemitism by the cliché that Jews were responsible for the death of Christ. He had posed the question, in a prayer book for children, ‘Who killed my Saviour?’ to which he

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replied, ‘Who else but I and my sins?’73 He believed that the loss of influence of the Catholic Church could be reversed because, in his mind, this was a consequence of liberal, Jewish, policies, rather than the outcome of broad social change. His principal calling to a political life was his religious mission. Latschka was not content to hope that the poor would eventually return to the Church of their own volition.74 He believed that the Church had to reach out to the poor, in religious, social and political terms, or their souls would be lost. Latschka, alongside other priests, shows that the view that ‘serious Catholic politics simply did not exist until the late 1880s and that at this point priests immediately became an appendage of Christian Social antisemitism’ needs to be approached with caution.75 Certainly, Catholic politics, in the form of coordinated and organised activity, took off in the late 1880s, but it was, in part, a new start and, in part, a development of the kinds of activities that priests such as Fathers Deckert and Scheicher had been conducting since the mid-1870s. Catholic priests did not then become an appendage of Christian Social antisemitism, they were at its heart, and the societies they frequented were the networks through which antisemitism was transmitted. This is not to overplay the importance of priests. Political and guild activities that have been described elsewhere were vital in the development of antisemitism, but priests also laid the basis for political antisemitism.76 Adam Latschka liked to antagonise political opponents through open-air meetings at his church, where guest speakers used ‘the harshest of antisemitic language, at some of the stormiest meetings in the suburbs.’77 Among those he invited was Heinrich Abel, the third priest to receive close attention here.78 Abel was born in Bavaria in 1843, becoming a priest in 1874. In 1878, he moved to Kalksburg, just outside Vienna, but he became active within the city.79 With Father Dittrich, he attended celebrations in Margareten for the anniversary of the founding of a Catholic workers’ union.80 He was a skilled speaker, who could address a gathering of apprentices in the Leopoldstadt, but also guild meetings that brought together ‘masters and workers.’81 Abel moved to Vienna in 1891, unattached to a parish, so he was able to accept invitations to numerous events, reaching as many people as possible. In January of that year, at the Augustinerkirche in central Vienna, he addressed a meeting of the Marianische Congregation

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für Kaufleute, a society for Catholic businessmen.82 In February, he addressed a meeting of the St Severinus Association.83 Although the numbers who turned out are unclear, Vaterland claims that other Severinus meetings were well attended. Numbers, however, were not the only significance of meetings of Catholic associations, which gave campaigning priests access to people of status and influence. At a February 1891 Severinus meeting, Abel mixed with aristocratic priest Count zur Lippe, Princess Rohan, Countess Wilczek, Countess Jankovic and Count Strachwitz.84 Abel became involved in a pilgrimage to the Marian site at Mariazell, in Styria, where he was disappointed to find that only forty men participated compared with 400 women.85 This echoed repeated complaints by priests that far more women than men supported church activities, something Abel attempted to remedy through meetings for men only.86 He publicised himself as the ‘apostle’ of Viennese men.87 This self-description came in part from the relationship between Abel and the Marianische Congregation, where Abel was described as its spiritual leader.88 This eventually proved to be a fruitful link for his activities, after Abel invited the members of the Congregation to tell their contacts that an all-male pilgrimage was being planned.89 He recognised that his appeal would reach men who had not attended church for years, except perhaps for weddings and funerals, so he announced that no one would be forced to pray or sing.90 The recruiting campaign succeeded, and in 1893, the first year, a thousand made the journey to Mariazell. Similar numbers were recorded for 1894.91 On a weeknight before pilgrimages, preaching took place at the Augustinerkirche. Detailed records do not exist for the preaching of each year, but the sermon for 1895 must have been typical. As others had done, Abel pictured ‘the Jew’ as a modern-day Turk. A ‘crusade’ was now needed against outsiders who disguised themselves with false identities. In case anyone was in doubt as to the target of this accusation, Abel referred to newspaper editor Moritz Szeps as ‘Moses Szeps.’92 Then he described how loyalty to the Habsburg state benefited all ‘Aryans.’ The troubles shaking the Empire were, according to him, caused by Jews who destroyed the earlier mutual trust of nations.93 This appeal to prejudice helped Abel to recruit pilgrims to the extent that special trains were chartered from Vienna to Mariazell, and discounts were obtained through block bookings with inns and

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guest houses.94 Christian Social women’s groups lent support to the all-male pilgrimages, turning out en route to cheer on the men. Frau Maresch, of the Christlicher Wiener Frauenbund (Christian Viennese Women’s League), greeted the men on their return to Vienna in 1898.95 Attendance at the 1899 Augustinerkirche gathering was estimated at 6,000, even though another antisemitic demonstration filled the Rathaus that evening.96 It is difficult to verify these figures, but Abel reached a large audience: print runs of his talks ran to up to 20,000 copies.97 Abel was not opposed by the upper reaches of the Viennese Catholic hierarchy. He had access to the churches of the archdiocese, and he mixed with a number of priests who espoused the most extreme antisemitic attitudes. A work commemorating the Mariazell pilgrimages, and the speeches that Abel made before them, was published in 1907, ‘with the approval of the Ordinariat of the Prince Archbishop of Vienna.’98 Friedrich Funder described Abel as a ‘priestly renewer of religious life,’ who possessed a ‘magnanimous gentleness.’99 It is highly unlikely that any Jew experienced such a thing from Father Heinrich Abel. From the elections of 1893 to the summer of 1895 Along with Father Deckert, Heinrich Abel was singled out by the liberal Freies Blatt as a ‘Christian Social hater,’ a preacher of hatred (Hetzcaplan), as priests took the lead in spreading prejudice against Jews.100 In spring 1893, partial elections to the City Council were scheduled to take place, and the liberal press was pessimistic about the hopes of the candidates it supported. The Wiener-Montags-Journal complained that splits at the national level between various progressive factions prevented a united liberal front. It observed that, partly because of this, the coming City Council elections would be a test of the ability of liberals to ‘resurrect’ themselves after previous setbacks.101 Anti-liberal candidates made progress, but at a rate that must have disappointed them. Liberals retained their control and, at the end of the elections, they held ninety-two seats to the forty-six now taken by anti-liberal candidates, barely changed from the results of 1891.102 The 1893 City Council elections, possibly because they were only partial, passed with far less excitement than those of 1891. In Wieden, the antisemites did not even field a candidate for the second curia.103

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The City Council results on their own hardly suggest that the liberal position was under imminent threat, but a different picture emerges from elections that took place for the councils of each of the districts of the city. Some districts were abandoned by the liberals. In Hernals, for instance, not a single liberal candidate was fielded in any of the curiae, which led to very low turnouts. In the third curia, for instance, antisemitic candidates succeeded with 438 votes from a potential electorate of 1,833.104 Signs were also appearing that liberal control of the first and second curiae was slipping. In February 1894, the Verband der Wiener Beamten (Association of Viennese Officials) placed a notice in Reichspost appealing for votes for antisemitic candidates in Bezirk elections for the second curia in the Landstrasse district.105 Their appeal proved unsuccessful, but this was a new development. These were Viennese officials, and their names appeared in public, calling for support against their employers in Vienna.106 It was a sign that liberals could not expect unconditional loyalty from the upper curiae, something confirmed in elections in Ottakring in March 1894, when an antisemitic candidate took a seat in the first curia, giving antisemites seventeen of the eighteen seats in the Ottakring Bezirk.107 Liberals were losing support among voters in the second curia for a number of reasons, not least because they undermined their own positions. Internal disputes gave them the appearance of a ‘divided house,’ and allegations of general incompetence were common.108 Liberals also failed to cement the loyalty and to address the concerns of those who had earlier voted for them. Officials in the employ of the City saw their salaries undermined by the inflation of the 1880s and 1890s.109 And it was not just public employees who were disaffected. Tradesmen were unhappy at what they perceived to be their declining living standards, which they blamed on liberal economic policies, not least a failure, in their eyes, to clamp down on ‘Jewish pedlars.’ By 1895, discontent had reached boiling point.110 In April of that year, elections were held across the city for the second curia, as well as for the first curia in a few districts, and antisemitic activists stepped up their efforts, with priests again to the fore. From the pages of the Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt, Father Scheicher appealed for electors not to forget ‘our German people, our Christian people; who must be made to fear God and obey his laws.’111 The first day of the elections shocked liberal sympathisers. Die Presse recorded that the outcomes exceeded

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the expectations of the antisemites and severely disappointed the liberals, who lost thirteen second curia seats and faced run-off elections in a further seven. The next few days brought further liberal losses, and then confusion as to how many seats the parties had.112 Reichspost estimated that only fifty-two to fifty-four of the 138 councillors were liberal, as against sixty-four antisemites, with about twenty independents sitting in the chamber.113 Die Presse gave the liberals seventythree seats to sixty-five for the antisemites.114 Both papers expected the situation to evolve, as ‘uncertain elements’ on the liberal side decided whether to jump ship to the antisemites.115 Antisemitic activity intensified, and notices of the gatherings of Christian Social associations filled the pages of the Viennese Catholic press. Among them were associations of Christian Social voters, scattered across the districts.116 Christian Social workers’ associations sprang into life, although their memberships seem to have been low.117 Associations for Christian Social women, and for charitable groups, came into existence.118 When Father Abel boasted in July 1895 of our ‘Christian Social Vienna,’ even before the party seized control of the City Council, this was the city he contemplated.119 This was the environment that protected Father Deckert when Count Windischgrätz used the parliamentary stage to call on the office of the archbishop to act against him.120 This was the Catholic sub-culture of the city where clerical activists were rewarded for their efforts, as in Grinzing, where the district council bought and cleared land next to the parish church, to free up space for it.121 The Social Democratic Arbeiter-Zeitung noted that it was hard to imagine that a sensible man would support the antisemites; but no social barriers any longer existed that would prevent the ‘respectable man,’ if so minded, from voting for them.122 Opposing the lower clergy? At the beginning of 1895 a reminder came that: Lueger’s enemies were more numerous than merely his electoral rivals or the press. He had also … to face the hostility of established authority, such as the [upper Church] hierarchy, and the aristocracy.123

While this statement needs some qualification – for instance, members of the aristocracy such as Baron Stillfried and Prince Liechtenstein

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lent their support to radical anti-liberal campaigning – a row had been brewing for some time between the politicians of the Christian Social Party and the senior hierarchy of the Viennese Catholic Church. While Christian Socials portrayed themselves as rebels fighting for the ‘outsiders’ of the lower middle classes, the bishops, who occupied seats in the Herrenhaus (House of Lords), were close to the conservative governments of the time. The bishops considered themselves pillars of state, and they saw the support of the state as equally vital for the Church. While the bishops talked of restoring the status of the Church to that of the time of the concordat, both they and the government believed it was not possible to reverse the constitutional settlements that emerged in the 1860s; nor did either group believe that they could intervene effectively in the social and economic problems of Austria, areas in which the Christian Socials promised their constituency they would act, if given the means to do so. Christian Social politicians repeated claims that the bishops supported what was, in essence, a liberal state, despite its conservative governments. In 1891, Lueger had stated in Parliament that the ‘bishops and great prelates are mostly liberals,’ adding that Cardinal Anton Gruscha, Archbishop of Vienna, had ‘greatly disappointed’ him. This was a clever piece of politicking. Lueger was attacking the bishops and their stance of remaining close to the state. He was indicating that he was more radical, and that he would not follow the policy of the bishops, of ‘adaptation’ to the state. He was indicating to the lower clergy that he, like them, opposed what has been described as the ‘apathy’ of the bishops with regard to matters such as the restoration of the concordat.124 Yet, the political situation meant Lueger had no chance of delivering a concordat. His radicalism was, rather, a rallying call, letting the lower clergy know that he was on their side. It was an astute move, since Lueger needed their support, as Austrian officials noted the increased political involvement of the lower clergy between 1887 and 1897.125 His attacks also cemented into the Christian Social mindset the longterm aspiration of placing the Catholic Church at the centre of social rules, something that would be fatal in the 1930s for an Austria based on pluralism. While the bishops resented personal attacks on them, it has been said that they were also concerned about the level of radical activism that was being displayed in the Christian Social ranks, including by the lower clergy.126 The bishops were concerned that this

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radicalism was reflecting badly on the Church. Christian Social activists were also rubbing shoulders with German nationalists, and the antisemitism they used in their campaigning bore similarities with that of the Pan-Germans. An incident then occurred that has been used as evidence of attempts by the senior clergy to oppose the activism of the lower clergy. In 1895, the bishops of Austria sent a mission to Rome, through which they requested a papal condemnation of the Christian Social movement. The bishops complained that the Christian Social movement displayed growing ecclesiastical insubordination, political subversion and addiction to excesses such as antisemitism.127 The senior Viennese clergy could have raised complaints regarding these matters with their own clerics, but, by this time, they seem to have been in a weakened position in terms of enforcing discipline. Both the lower clergy and Christian Social lay activists had made a close ally of the papal nuncio in Vienna, Antonio Agliardi, who approved of their activities.128 Agliardi was well connected at the Vatican, and he and other Vatican officials had developed a habit of direct intervention in the affairs of the Austrian Church.129 The Viennese episcopate therefore believed that any attempts they made to discipline the clergy themselves would be doomed to failure, since Agliardi would become involved and take the side of the lower clergy. So, early in 1895, the episcopate went over the head of Agliardi, and made their appeal directly to the Pope. At the same time, the Austrian government reported their own concerns to the Pope.130 However, Agliardi deployed his contacts to present a case favourable to the Christian Socials, who played their part, arguing that they defended the established order against revolution, that they were loyal to authority and that they rejected ‘extreme’ antisemitism. The mood at the Vatican was not, anyway, one to favour the episcopate, the prevailing view being that the bishops were too close to the Austrian government and ineffective in defence of Catholic interests.131 The outcome of the mission was not, therefore, a condemnation of the Christian Socials, but a papal blessing for their newly founded newspaper, Reichspost, and for a congress they planned to hold to represent Christian interests.132 In return, the Christian Socials were instructed to make a public statement of loyalty to all legitimate authority in Austria, including the bishops, which they did in May 1895.133

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This was an incident about which commentators have reached no consensus, especially concerning the purpose, timing of and motivations for the mission. No answer has satisfactorily been given as to whether the bishops were attempting to rein in the lower clergy, lay Christian Social politicians or both. It may simply have been that the Church was being supportive of its allies in the Catholic Conservative party and did not want to legitimate a new challenger for the backing of the Church. From 1890, the bishops had, after all, required priests to ask in advance for approval for any protests they wished to raise against the government.134 If the senior clergy were acting against politicians, who had been attacking the senior clergy for some years, the timing of their mission might be explained by an escalation of tensions in 1895, when a serious dispute took place between leading Christian Socials Prince Alois Liechtenstein and Albert Gessmann, on the one hand, and Bishop Doppelbauer of Linz, on the other. The apparent support of a large number of the lower clergy for Liechtenstein and Gessmann indicated that insubordination was out of control.135 Equally, it has been suggested that the government had urged the bishops to act, in support of the similar mission to Rome that it was assembling.136 This is certainly an argument worth considering, since the Vatican has been said to have regarded the bishops ‘as merely emissaries of the government.’137 A serious dispute certainly occurred between senior clergy and lay politicians, stirred up by the abusive tone of the politicians, but action against the lower clergy could have been taken long before 1895 if there had been a will to do so. This was at least five, possibly ten, years or more, according to different interpretations, after priests had taken to politics en masse in support of the Christian Socials. Whatever the reason for the mission, bishops and lay politicians came to a speedy mutual understanding after it, and started to work together. Gruscha donated to Christian Social election funds, and he told Erich von Kielmansegg, Statthalter of Lower Austria, that increased attendance at Viennese churches was because of ‘Lueger and his people,’ so this may have been some attempt at conciliation and gratitude.138 From the overall evidence concerning the actions of the bishops at this time, nothing points to a serious attempt to punish the lower clergy for undertaking political agitation. Treating in isolation the attempt by the bishops to secure a papal condemnation of the

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Christian Socials as evidence that the senior clergy opposed the lower clergy is to ignore numerous other pieces of evidence indicating the favourable treatment given to members of the lower clergy. As has been pointed out, a priest who came to be involved with politics would ask himself whether his bishop would support him, and whether such involvement would help or hinder his career.139 Many examples in this work indicate that the involvement of the lower clergy in Christian Social politics did not hinder their careers. The bishops had, rather, quietly praised the lower clergy and supported them. As Adam Latschka wrote in his application for the post at the parish that became Alt-Ottakring, he was not expecting to find disapproval of his political activities. The only case that has been presented of a politically active priest being prevented from taking a post is that of Rudolph Eichhorn, whose appointment to the parish of Floridsdorf in 1888 was blocked. This, however, was the result of a veto by the local Statthalter, rather than an intervention by the senior clergy.140 If the incident of the mission to Rome is evidence that the senior clergy opposed the lower, opposition was half-hearted, at most. September 1895: on the brink of power A papal blessing for the Christian Socials meant that their opponents could no longer describe them as simply a vulgar protest movement. Such a blessing gave them respectability. Perhaps this is what the Arbeiter-Zeitung had in mind when it had contemplated that there was, in 1895, nothing to stop ‘the respectable man’ from supporting them. It certainly contributed to how, as Peter Pulzer has commented, the ‘poacher [became] gamekeeper so quickly and so successfully.’141 In the summer of 1895, liberals retained a narrow majority in the council chamber, but antisemites were sufficiently numerous to hinder the smooth running of the business of the city, so elections to resolve this situation were called for September 1895. Campaigning was conducted in an atmosphere of extreme bitterness, with antisemitic insults having become a standard part of anti-liberal propaganda.142 These elections brought the end of liberal Vienna, with the halving of liberal representation. The antisemitic coalition finally won a majority of seats on the council, of which an estimated two-thirds went to Christian Social candidates.143

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In order to understand the scale of the victory, a careful analysis of votes cast in the election is needed. If all of the votes cast for Bürgerklub candidates are added together, across all constituencies and all curiae, a total of 110,534 supporters could be interpreted, against 73,249 for the liberals.144 However, constituencies frequently returned several members, and electors therefore voted more than once. One approach that contemporaries took when estimating how many people voted for a given list was to take the total number of votes cast in a constituency for that list, then to divide this by the number of mandates available. The antisemitic Deutsches Volksblatt calculated that support for the Bürgerklub across the three curiae had leapt from over 26,000 votes in 1891 to over 42,000 in 1895.145 The Neue Freie Presse set the figure higher, at 43,776, with liberals trailing far behind on 22,868.146 This was an impressive jump in percentage terms, attributed to a combination of newly enfranchised voters and those who deserted the liberals, but this was a small fraction of the population of the city of one million or so at the time. Despite the claims later made by Friedrich Funder, this was not a victory for ‘the broad mass of the people’; this was a victory for a privileged minority within a minority.147 It was a victory that owed much to the agitation of one group of men. The Freies Blatt was not alone in complaining about priests being ‘everywhere’ at election time, and numerous complaints were made about clerical involvement, such as at an election meeting in the Hietzing district of Vienna, where liberal City Council candidate Wenzel Richter singled out the ‘provocative’ participation of the priests who campaigned in these elections.148 It is impossible to quantify the effect that their campaigning had, but, based on an estimate that 300 priests took part in these elections, and 42,000 people voted for the Christian Socials, each cleric needed to reach only 140 voters to exert influence on the whole antisemitic electorate. Over many weeks of campaigning, it is unlikely that they failed to reach most of their targets. This is not to say that priests were the only factor when antisemites cast their votes. The winners of the election formed a broad coalition, and some would have voted for it despite the presence of the priests, not because of it. The Arbeiter-Zeitung talked of a city now controlled by a clerical, German nationalist, Christian Social, antisemitic ‘mishmash.’149 Regardless, supporters of the coalition celebrated.

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In Währing, Father Ignaz Aumann wrote that the liberals had been ‘shot through,’ in no small part due to the ‘efforts and magnificent agitation’ of Lueger.150 In Schottenfeld, Father Stern praised the ‘true Christian disposition’ of Lueger.151 Antisemites even managed a clean sweep in the third curia in the Innere Stadt, a former liberal stronghold. Father Wiesinger was the last of seven candidates on the antisemitic list, but he too was elected here, his 974 votes ahead of the highest-ranking, but still unsuccessful, liberal, on 898 votes.152 On 18 September, Reichspost celebrated success with the headline ‘Victory!’ but this was premature, as the antisemitic triumph proved to be incomplete.153 The assent of the Emperor was required for Lueger to be confirmed as Mayor of Vienna, and Franz Josef refused to provide it. Instead, Cisleithanian First Minister Kasimir Felix, Count von Badeni announced in Parliament that Lueger ‘lacked “objectivity” and rationality,’ and an administration led by a public servant, Hans von Friebeis, was appointed to run the city.154 The Christian Socials were on the brink of power, but not yet over the line. Notes 1 For population figures, see Barea, Vienna, p. 332. 2 Gemeinde Währing, Statistischer Bericht (Vienna: Carl Gerold’s Sohn, 1887), pp. 3–4. 3 Rozenblit, Jews of Vienna, p. 17. 4 Monika Glettler, Die Wiener Tschechen um 1900 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1972), p. 538, gives an estimate of 103,000. 5 Lothar Höbelt, Kornblume und Kaiseradler: die deutschfreiheitlichen Parteien Altösterreichs 1882–1918 (Munich: Oldenburg, 1993), p. 25. 6 See the Chronik entry of 1897 for Father Latschka at Ottakring, Chapter 4 of this work. 7 DVB, 15 April 1889, p. 5. 8 Schorske, Vienna, p. 139 and p. 143. 9 NFP, 30 April 1889, p. 3. 10 M-Z, 30 March 1891, p. 2. 11 Vaterland, 7 April 1891, p. 4. 12 See, for instance, Vaterland, 29 March 1891, p. 8 or Vaterland, 7 April 1891, p. 4. 13 DVB, 1 April 1891, pp. 1–2. 14 NWB, 1 April 1891, p. 1. 15 Die Presse, 3 April 1891, p. 8.

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16 See also Die Presse, 3 April 1891, on ‘stormy agitation’ in Landstrasse and Währing. 17 Vaterland, 4 April 1891, p. 5. 18 Die Presse, 9 April 1891, p. 10. 19 Vaterland, 9 April 1891, p. 5. 20 Die Presse, 9 April 1891, p. 10. 21 Vaterland, 14 April 1891, p. 4. 22 Die Presse, 14 April 1891, p. 11. 23 DVB, 28 September 1895, p. 3 compares 1891 and 1895 elections. 24 Die Presse, 9 April 1891, p. 10. 25 Boyer, Radicalism, pp. 40–121, on the growth of organised antisemitism among the artisans. 26 Funder, Vom gestern, pp. 93–94. 27 Funder, Vom gestern, pp. 89–90. 28 Funder, Vom gestern, pp. 93–94. 29 Funder, Vom gestern, pp. 82–83. 30 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 225. 31 Ottakringer Rundschau (hereafter Rundschau), 16 December 1906, p. 2; Unentgeltliche Nachrichten der organisierten Ottakringer Hausbesitzer, December 1926, pp. 2–3. 32 Pieter M. Judson, ‘John Boyer’s Work in a Comparative Context,’ Contemporary Austrian Studies, 6 (1998), 175–188, here 181–182. 33 Judson, ‘John Boyer,’ 180. 34 Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 144 and Boyer, Radicalism, p. 139. 35 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 138 and pp. 343–344. 36 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 140, on Fessler. Stadt und Land, 25 March 1875, p. 5, for the award of the doctorate. 37 Stadt und Land, 8 October 1873, p. 11. 38 Stadt und Land, 15 October 1873, p. 12. 39 Stadt und Land, 13 October 1873, p. 6. 40 Stadt und Land, 19 March 1874, p. 12. 41 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 138 and p. 143. 42 St Pöltner Bote, 22 March 1877, p. 8. 43 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 141. 44 Binder and Scheicher took seats in the Landtag: St Pöltener Bote, 9 October 1890, p. 2. The political involvements of Scheicher are shown in Manfred Eder, ‘Scheicher, Josef,’ Neue Deutsche Biographie, 22 (2005), 630, online version: https​://ww​w.deu​tsche​-biog​raphi​e.de/​pnd12​06457​ 77.ht​ml#nd​bcont​ent. 45 St Pöltener Zeitung, 9 November 1893, p. 5. The paper notes that St Pölten came under the jurisdiction of Cardinal Gruscha. 46 AEDW AOCk, 1889 and Vaterland, 30 April 1889, p. 1.

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47 NWB, 17 September 1890, p. 2. 48 Freies Blatt, 17 September 1893, p. 7. 49 AEDW WeCk, 1898. 50 AEDW WeCk, 1894. 51 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 119. 52 AEDW WeCk, 1894. 53 Josef Deckert, Türkennot und Judenherrschaft (Vienna: Verlag des Sendboten, 1894). 54 Josef Deckert, Arbeit, Lohn und Wucher (Vienna: Verlag des Sendboten, 1894). 55 Deckert, Rassenantisemitismus?, p. 8. 56 Deckert, Rassenantisemitismus?, p. 43. 57 Franz Loidl, Msgr Adam Latschka – Politisch-sozialer, vor allem Arbeiterinnen-Seelsorger und erster Pfarrer von Neu-Ottakring (Vienna: Publisher name not printed, 1962), pp. 4–5. 58 AEDW AOCk, 1897; AEDW NOCk, 1899. 59 Loidl, Latschka, pp. 6–7. 60 ABPD 1890 St3, 14 September 1890. 61 G. Hajos, Ottakringer Industriebauten (Vienna: Schober, Undated). 62 Loidl, Latschka, p. 23, and Loidl, Erzbistum, p. 289. 63 Neues Wiener Journal, 12 February 1897, p. 5. 64 Whiteside, Socialism, p. 148. 65 AEDW AOCor, 29 March 1897. 66 AEDW AOCor, 1897, list of applicants. 67 The comments are in Pax’s 1899 application for the post. AEDW AOCor, 31 January 1899. 68 Loidl, Erzbistum, p. 289. 69 AEDW AOCor, 29 March 1897. 70 Boyer, Radicalism, pp. 70–71. 71 AEDW NOCk, 1899 and Loidl, Latschka, p. 7. 72 AEDW AOCk, 1897; AEDW NOCk, 1899. 73 Adam Latschka, Der kleine katholische Christ (Vienna: St Robertus, 1904), p. 76. 74 AEDW AOCk, 1897. 75 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 143. 76 See Chapter 7 of this work for evidence from Popp. 77 NFP, 4 July 1905, p. 10; W-Z, 4 July 1905, p. 4. 78 AEDW NOCk, 1899. 79 Stadt und Land, 28 August 1884, p. 2. 80 Vaterland, 18 April 1887, p. 4. See also 16 April, p. 5. 81 Vaterland, 1 August 1887, p. 3. 82 Vaterland, 27 January 1891, p. 4.

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83 Vaterland, 12 February 1891, p. 6. 84 Vaterland, 17 February 1891, p. 5. 85 Johann Lola, Pater Abel S.J. und die Wiener Männerfahrten nach MariaZell (Vienna: Hamburger, 1907), Foreword. 86 Vaterland, 19 March 1891, p. 3 or Vaterland, 23 March 1891, p. 2. 87 See Heinrich Abel, P. Heinrich Abel S.J. der Wiener Männer-Apostel (Vienna: Verlag der Reichspost, 1899). 88 See Vaterland, 20 April 1891, p. 2, or Vaterland, 6 September 1891, p. 9. 89 Lola, Abel, Foreword and Funder, Vom gestern, p. 111. 90 Lola, Abel, p. 7. 91 RP, 11 July 1894, p. 3. 92 Lola, Abel, p. 28. 93 Lola, Abel, p. 28. 94 Lola, Abel, p. 17. 95 Lola, Abel, p. 96. 96 Heinrich Abel, ‘Los von Gott?’ Vier Conferenzreden des hochwürdigen Herrn P. Heinrich Abel, S.J. (Vienna: Verlag der Reichspost, 1899), p. 3 and p. 19. 97 Abel, ‘Los von Gott?’ title page. 98 From the title page of Abel, ‘Los von Gott?’ 99 Funder, Vom gestern, p. 110. 100 Freies Blatt, 23 June 1895, p. 4. The word was used earlier. See, for instance, Die Presse, 21 September 1882, p. 2. 101 Wiener-Montags-Journal Extrablatt, 3 April 1893, p. 1. 102 NFP, 19 May 1893, p. 6 for seats won. 103 Vaterland, 14 April 1893, p. 9. 104 NFP, 26 May 1893, p. 7 and Vaterland, evening edition, supplement, 25 May 1893, p. ii. 105 RP, 16 February 1894, p. 5. 106 NFP, 20 February 1893, p. 6. 107 NFP, 22 March 1894, p. 6. 108 John Boyer, Karl Lueger (1844–1910) (Vienna: Böhlau, 2010), pp. 143–147. 109 See Boyer, Radicalism, pp. 349–354. 110 Boyer, Lueger, pp. 155–162. 111 Katholisches Vereinsblatt, 1 April 1895, p. 1. 112 Die Presse, 4 April 1895, p. 10, for results of run-off elections. 113 RP, 6 April 1895, p. 3. 114 Die Presse, 4 April 1895, p. 10. 115 RP, 6 April 1895, p. 3. 116 See, for instance, RP, 21February 1894, p. 5. 117 RP, 5 January 1895, p. 4. 118 See Chapter 4 of this work for more details.

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119 Lola, Abel, pp. 31–32. 120 NFP, 23 March 1901, pp. 24–25. 121 AEDW GrCk, entries for 1893 to 1895. 122 A-Z, 17 September 1895, p. 1. 123 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 173. 124 On the attacks by Lueger, see Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 306 and DVB, 9 February 1891, evening edition, p. 3. Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 63 and p. 144, on the bishops, their alignment with the state and claims of episcopal ‘apathy.’ 125 Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 145. 126 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 174. 127 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 177. 128 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 340. 129 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 346. 130 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 175. 131 Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 329. 132 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 177. 133 Norbert Miko, ‘Zur Mission des Kardinals Schönborn im Jahre 1895,’ Römische historische Mitteilungen, 5 (1961/2), 182–224, here 224. 134 Leisching, ‘Die römisch-katholische Kirche,’ p. 100. 135 Miko, ‘Mission,’ p. 185. 136 Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 324. 137 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 177. 138 Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 321. 139 Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 47. 140 Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 56–57. 141 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 182. 142 Boyer, Radicalism, pp. 362–363. 143 Höbelt, Kornblume, pp. 100–101. 144 Seliger and Ucakar, Politische Geschichte, Vol. 2, pp. 944–945. 145 See DVB, 28 September 1895, p. 3 for the method of calculation used in this newspaper to derive total votes cast per electoral list. 146 NFP, 27 September 1895, p. 6. 147 In 1895, less than 6 per cent of the Viennese population was entitled to vote. Seliger and Ucakar, Politische Geschichte, Vol. 1, p. 575. 148 NFP, 5 September 1895, p. 6. 149 A-Z, 15 October 1895, p. 3. See also Seliger and Ucakar, Politische Geschichte, Vol. 1, p. 585. 150 AEDW WäCk, 1895. 151 AEDW ScCk, 1895. 152 NFP, 18 September 1895, p. 6. 153 RP, 18 September 1895, p. 1. 154 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 377.

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4 A Christian, socially engaged movement? 1896–1914 The antisemitic coalition behind Lueger was just a small part of the city. Even Reichspost conceded that it was not the people of Vienna who had brought about this outcome in September 1895, but its limited electorate. It was a victory for ‘the Christian people.’1 Nevertheless, under the rules of the time, the Christian Socials had an overwhelming majority of seats in the council chamber, and in May 1896 the Emperor agreed to replace Hans von Friebeis as Mayor. Christian Social Joseph Strobach was appointed, with Lueger as one of his deputies. Lueger had to wait for his prize, but his party began the process of running committees and managing the resources of the city. Christian Socials took control of the largest and most important city in the Empire, but this was only a beginning. They set about consolidating their hold on Vienna through their own campaigning and through the strengthening of alliances. They had won votes from those who had never before participated in elections, and they had tempted former liberals to support them. Now, they appealed to more of those who had been in the liberal camp to join what has been described as a bourgeois crusade.2 This was vital work for them, as a large part of their triumph was down to a voting system that denied electoral success to the numerically superior Social Democrats. In preparation for the day when this system might change, they aimed to win as much bourgeois support as possible, although this naturally excluded the Jewish bourgeoisie.3 They did so through straightforward political activity, but hundreds of associations across the city also spread the Christian Social message. These included many Catholic societies that thrived in Austria as part of an explosion of bourgeois public activities. A thin dividing

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line separated Catholic societies from Christian Social groups, and the members of both often repeated the Christian Social message. The priests that ran them addressed and motivated activists, and they organised women for the spreading of propaganda and to encourage male voters in the antisemitic cause. These groups acted in ways that confirm the observation by Peter Pulzer that societies were significant politically after 1900, in that they adopted some of the functions usually associated with parties in terms of mobilising support – and not just at election times.4 Consolidating and expanding political power Until 1896, Christian Socials and their allies had run a few Viennese suburban districts, as the political embodiment of a protest movement – albeit one that was well connected – that had led vigorous campaigns against liberal corruption. Victory in the City Council elections provided the springboard for a rise to national prominence, and Karl Lueger seized the opportunity to begin the business of enhancing the position of his party, as he waited to take over from Strobach as Mayor.5 First, in further municipal elections in 1896, he led the Bürgerklub as it consolidated its strength on the City Council at the expense of four of the remaining liberals. Then Lueger set about turning the Bürgerklub into an organisation whose principal beneficiary was the Christian Social Party. Allies such as German nationalists soon found that a formidable Christian Social electoral machinery either cowed them into following a Christian Social line in the council chamber, or pushed them out of that chamber altogether.6 Franz Josef continued to deny Lueger access to office, but his resistance was weakened as the antisemitic alliance consolidated its position through further electoral success. The Emperor was persuaded that a constitutional crisis would follow if he repeatedly rejected the decision of the voters of Vienna. A case was also made by Kielmansegg that for all his antisemitic rhetoric, Lueger was really just a typical bourgeois politician – a protector of the status quo.7 In April 1897, Franz Josef relented, Imperial assent was given, and Lueger became Mayor. He had risen to the highest elected office in the gift of the city. Christian Socials began to explore the new, if limited, political power available to them. While they controlled a significant workforce

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and major budgets, and ran a number of municipal enterprises, they were nowhere near the national government. They could not take the measures that had been called for at public meetings before their election. They were unable to restrict foreign competition, or to return monopolies to trade guilds, or to ban Jewish door-to-door salesmen, but this first phase of real power could make them feel that they were on the way to further and bigger victories.8 For the moment, Christian Social control offered those with the right connections the prospect of jobs with the city and its municipal enterprises. Support for ‘appropriate’ businesses might come through the awarding of contracts for public works. Even if there was no likelihood of the repeal of the 1874 laws on religion, marriage and education, the Church too might find material support, at a time when it was seeking funds for a relatively large-scale church building programme. But many supporters expected to build on these initial successes in the mission to create the conditions that would lead to fundamental change. Catholic associations and their circle Individual Catholic societies, often small in terms of members, and in particular active members, had no direct political power. They did, however, have access to a number of resources. For instance, their work was supported by donations from non-members.9 According to Father Hulesch of Döbling, five-sixths of funds for the local Vincent de Paul society came from non-members. Associations had the ability to engage in joint action with other groups, to make an impact they would otherwise not have achieved alone. They took part in Viennawide activities with groups of the same kind from other districts, but they also came together with Catholic groups of other kinds for public rites, celebrations and spectacle. They stood alongside groups that were explicitly Christian Social. This gave them, collectively, the appearance of a mass movement, as well as some of its attributes. Associations also had one very important, intangible, commodity: influence. They gained influence through their links with prominent, prestigious and powerful people, who acted as their patrons or who attended their events. They used this influence at the local level, where they portrayed themselves as significant factors in the life of the city. They used influence to exercise peer pressure, to make people conform

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with their views, which they presented as those of the mainstream. They returned the patronage of politicians, mobilising support at times of elections, promoting Christian Social visions of the world and attacking enemies of the movement. Priests were central to Catholic and Christian Social associations, as can be seen from their presence, or that of their assistants, on associational managing committees. This centrality is confirmed by the Katholisches Vereinsblatt, whose print run of 9,000 copies went mostly to the priests of Austria. Although not an official Church publication, its Viennese base was on the same street as the office of the archbishop. One of its editors, Johann Heindle, had moved in Church circles for years, and had been awarded the Papal Cross for service pro Ecclesia et Pontifice. Heindle had also run, unsuccessfully, for the antisemites in the Innere Stadt elections in September 1895.10 The paper was a source of news, and it was also a paper of record concerning life among the Catholic associations of Austria. It published the founding statutes of numerous associations across Austria, as well as extracts from annual reports by established associations such as a Catholic casino in the Josefstadt district of Vienna.11 The newspaper recognised associations as far more than simply social or charitable in purpose when it commented that the annual report from the Josefstadt Casino provided both interesting information for those who ran associations and a piece of history, as the casino ‘has taken a position on all questions of the time.’12 In November 1895, the newspaper focused on the political purpose of associations, and of priests, reminding its readers that now was the time to ‘organise the people’ for general elections in 1896.13 The Vereinsblatt reflected how antisemitic attitudes circulated in the Catholic associations of Vienna. In September 1896, the ever active Father Scheicher contributed a long front-page piece for the Vereinsblatt, entitled ‘Us and Hungary.’14 The piece began as an exploration of the ‘difficult’ relationship between the two parts of the dual monarchy, but it soon descended into a series of antisemitic attacks. According to Scheicher, ‘true Magyars,’ ‘hospitable and tolerant,’ would have better relationships with the rest of the Empire if it were not for those in control of Hungary, who are the ‘new Hungarians,’ Jews who have taken Hungarian nationality. Jews were accused of being ‘Judeo-Magyars,’ whose aim was to harm the Germans of the Empire. According to Scheicher, Hungary had become the ‘promised land’ of

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Jews and freemasons. The tone of these comments was not untypical of the antisemitism that appeared frequently in the Vereinsblatt and in the Catholic press in general, but such comments had no relevance to societal life. They were simply antisemitic propaganda.

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Mutual endorsement The wide circle of Catholic and specifically Christian Social organisations provided numerous opportunities for gatherings, public spectacles and official ceremonies. These could be relatively small in scale but still attract a prestigious audience. In 1901, at the church of the Allerheiligsten Dreifaltigkeit in Reindorf, in the Rudolfsheim district of Vienna, a ceremony for the blessing of flags of associations linked with the church attracted the attendance of Father Abel and district councillor Koch, but also Lueger and his deputy at the time Josef Neumayer.15 On 13 October 1903, Lueger and another member of the City Council, Dr Suchomel, were again present in the district, this time at the dedication of a new school.16 Such endorsements could assume a grander scale. On Saturday 6 August 1904, a welcoming ceremony was held for Father Johann Stöber, new priest at the Kalvarienberg church in Hernals. From the Gürtel – a ring road that ran between the outer limits of the Vienna of the 1850s and many of the districts that had joined the city in the expansion of the 1890s – crowds filled the main road in the district, Hernalserhauptstrasse, to the church, a distance of a kilometre or so. Nearby houses were decorated for the occasion. Representatives of the city and district councils, members of the local school board and delegates from the police joined the celebrations. Stöber was vacating a position at the Stefansdom in central Vienna to move to Hernals, and city councillor Oppenberger, speaking on behalf of Lueger, greeted him as a man who was well known to those attending because of the position he had held.17 Other attendees included members of the local volunteer fire brigade and delegates from the district Christlicher Wiener Frauenbund. Prince Schwarzenberg and Baron Phillipovic were present as representatives of the Military Veterans’ Association, alongside delegates from the Catholic Youth League of Hernals, the Catholic Young Ladies’ League of Hernals, the Mariazellerverein pilgrimage group of Hernals and the Christliche Familie association. Their parade flags

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added to the spectacle. Next day, Bishop Marschall, one of the most senior clergy in Vienna, presided at the formal installation of Stöber as priest at his parish church. Again, representatives of civic bodies were present to greet Stöber, and a celebratory meal was later taken at a nearby venue, Schwandner’s Hall.18 Another group with numerous representatives at the Saturday celebrations, the Bürgervereinigung, had been set up in 1900. Membership of this group was open to men [sic] who had been granted citizenship of Vienna.19 ‘Citizens’ needed to have been resident in the city for ten years, to pay direct taxes and to prove that they possessed sufficient wealth or earnings to support themselves. Those granted this status were obliged to swear an oath to uphold the ‘German character’ of Vienna, although nothing about the ‘Christian’ nature of the city was mentioned. After 1896, the Christian Socials increased the number of such citizenship awards, from a previous average of 338 per year to 650 per year in the period from 1896 to 1910. During the years that the Christian Socials controlled the city, not a single Jew was elected to this status. This was an attempt to keep the balance of electoral power in favour of the Christian Socials, since citizenship achieved via this route conveyed on individuals the right to vote in the second curia, the curia in which the Christian Socials had only just made electoral breakthroughs against the liberals.20 The presence at the installation of Father Stöber of so many organisations that surrounded the Church lent a celebratory air to proceedings, but it was again also a visible endorsement of particular views on life. The installation saw the coming together of ‘rituals, symbols, images, and slogans, designed to convey a particular kind of Christian Social vision of Vienna and its people,’ as a means to embed this vision in the conscious and sub-conscious perceptions of those present.21 The installation should also not be seen as a one-off event. The associations present participated in networks where, time and again, the topics of meetings revolved around political and social matters where speakers could promote what they considered to be ‘traditional’ Austrian values. In many cases, this meant ‘non-Jewish.’ One group that greeted Father Stöber at Hernals, the association Christliche Familie, had branches in a number of the districts of Vienna.22 These branches acted collectively and published an annual directory of Christian businesses in the city and surrounding areas. This guide, printed by Ernst Vergani, was in its eleventh year in 1899,

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when 20,000 copies of the 120-page booklet were produced. The directory advertised everything from alpaca goods and amulets to materials for the production of matches, through to boarding houses with rooms to rent. In order to reach a significant number of people, the guide was distributed free of charge, and funded by advertising. There was an injunction to people to say that they came to a business because of the guide, so that advertisers knew that their money was well spent.23 The guide contained twenty-four pages of advertisements, as well as a directory of many small tradespeople. Among them were the owners of inns and restaurants. The trade directory contained a supplementary list of lawyers and doctors, presumably to help Christians find the ‘right kind’ of assistance in professions that antisemites frequently portrayed as being under ‘Jewish domination.’ The guide was described as being for the support of hard-pressed Christian businessmen, many of whom were said to have produced the goods they sold ‘through their own sweat.’24 This was not an innocent statement of praise for effort, but another means to distinguish Christians from Jews in the antisemitic mind. Antisemitic activists repeatedly described Christians as using ‘honest’ labour to earn a living, while Jews were described as making money through deceitful means and exploitation.25 A broad spectrum of antisemitic publications advertised under the heading of newspapers.26 The Deutsches Volksblatt, published by Vergani, started the list. Vaterland and Reichspost were included, alongside the Deutsche Zeitung, which described itself as a ‘Deutschnational antisemitic daily paper.’ The Währinger Bezirksnachrichten, a local newspaper published by the Christian Social Party in Währing, as well as Father Deckert’s Sendbote were also listed, as was the Wiener Familienfreund, the organ of Christliche Familie. Catholic societies were also participants at events that marked the passing of time. Thousands were said to have lined the streets of Weinhaus, from ‘clerical and Christian Social clubs from all of the districts of Vienna,’ after Father Deckert died, aged fifty-seven, in March 1901.27 Deckert had expended considerable energy on his campaigns of hatred. He had also managed to amass a sizeable fortune. His will shows an estate of over 200,000 crowns in cash, savings and property, a more than considerable sum for the day.28 In intangible terms, however, he left behind much more than this as he became a posthumous figure of admiration, a role model for antisemites. No

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matter how extreme his antisemitism, no matter what form it had taken, the ‘great and the good’ of Christian Social Vienna lined up to praise Deckert at his funeral, conducted at the rear of his own parish church in Weinhaus: the sponsor of the parish, Prince Czartoryski; members of the upper Church hierarchy; and Mayor Lueger.29 This set the tone for how Deckert was to be remembered. He was commemorated through charities named after him, and praised as a ‘true priest, full of living belief,’ by Father Joseph Pachmann, his immediate successor.30 Arbeiter-Zeitung took a very different view of Deckert, describing him as having been among the first of the ‘hate priests,’ who used his pulpit as if it was the podium of a public house. It remembered him for his campaigns against Jews, his frequent appearances in court and the role he played in a raffle for a house in Währing, which was won by Deckert. ‘Naturally,’ the paper continued, not bothering to hide its sarcasm, ‘the honourable man was decorated by the City Council with the great Golden Salvator Medal.’31 Just a few years later, in 1905, Deckert’s fellow agitator in the early antisemitic movement, Adam Latschka, also died.32 Reichspost described Latschka as a ‘social priest,’ and it singled out his involvement in numerous Catholic and Christian Social associations, including youth and women’s groups, and the charitable Vincent de Paul society.33 Reichspost claimed that Latschka was known to thousands in Vienna and that he had done much for the working classes. Latschka may have been known to many but, given the limited reach of the Catholic societies that are examined later in this work, his impact on the condition of the working classes would have been negligible, unless his societies were atypical for the time. Proposals that he tabled in the Vienna City Council or at meetings of Catholic societies, such as subsidised mortgages or mutual savings associations, would likely have been more for the benefit of the lower middle classes, or highly skilled workers, rather than the masses.34 This is a view confirmed by how the Arbeiter-Zeitung reported the death of Latschka, although the tone of the report is surprisingly sympathetic in manner, given that Latschka campaigned against the Social Democrats. Describing him as a ‘well-known priest and Christian Social agitator,’ the paper argued that he was never a ‘preacher of hatred,’ at least in the manner of many of his contemporaries. Rather, he maintained ‘relatively respectable’ relationships with many of his adversaries. Arbeiter-Zeitung opined that, although

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Latschka had served on Vienna City Council for a number of years, he had never ‘stood out’ in this role. It recognised that Latschka had tried to engage with social issues, earning himself, among Christian Socials, the nickname of ‘the social priest,’ and had formed a number of societies for workers, especially for females, but Arbeiter-Zeitung believed that these groups had achieved nothing of significance, whatever the ‘fuss’ that was made about them.35 The Neue Freie Presse focused on a different side to Latschka and recalled his importance in the development of Viennese politics and attitudes towards Jews. It noted that Latschka had taken a leading role in the development of clerical associations at the local level in Vienna. He had also determined that the mobilisation of anti-liberal forces could take many forms, and he had ‘recognised the importance’ of women in the fight against liberalism and had harnessed women’s groups to the antisemitic struggle.36 The importance to him of these associations is shown by how, through the long-term illness he suffered towards the end of his life, which forced him to abandon his seat on the City Council, he never renounced his part in the Christian Social associations of the city. Unlike Deckert, Father Latschka left behind a very modest sum, sufficient for the costs of his funeral and for an annual mass to be said in his memory, with small amounts for close family; but, like Deckert, he inspired a considerable legacy of loyalty. On 3 July 1905, the day of Latschka’s death, a curate at his Ottakring parish, Father Brunner, sent two letters to the Ordinariat. The first was factual, and informed the Ordinariat simply that Father Latschka had died that morning. The second, sent immediately after the first, was much more personal. Brunner resigned as spiritual provisor for the parish, a role he had undertaken during Latschka’s illness. Latschka, although ill, must have helped Brunner in some way, as Brunner gave as the reason for his resignation his inability to meet the demands of the role without the support of Latschka.37 This loyalty was personal, but the extended circles of Catholic Vienna also paid their respects when crowds turned out for the burial of Father Latschka, among them high-ranking Christian Social politicians from the city and local councils, members of the local volunteer fire brigade and representatives of the Bürgervereinigung and the Frauenbund.38 While some of the older generation of antisemitic priests were coming to an end, some antisemitic priests from the 1890s and earlier

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would continue their activities for decades to come, and they attacked Jews on a wide range of matters. Speaking in 1902, Father Scheicher even blamed Jews for national tensions in the Empire. The only solution, for the defence of the ‘German people,’ he said, was to return Vienna to the Viennese, Austria to Austrians. Laws were needed regarding ‘those who were and are foreign among us,’ a clear reference to Jews.39 Latschka, Deckert and Scheicher were significant figures in making antisemitism respectable and, unlike the case put forward in some quarters that they were rebels against the Catholic establishment, they were not confined to the outer reaches of the Christian Social movement. At least one archbishop of Vienna later paid his respects at Deckert’s grave.40 Scheicher was a prominent figure in the movement for over thirty years, occupying roles such as campaigner, author and politician.41 Catholic associations: intent and reality Catholic societies aimed to cement the links between the faithful and the Church, or to help those who had left the Church to return to it.42 Many of these societies also claimed to put charitable endeavour at their heart, as a socially engaged movement that would relieve the mass poverty that was caused by ‘Jewish capitalism.’ Some were inspired to engage in the struggle with poverty by priests who wrote articles in the press, urging Catholics to action.43 Others took their lead from Pope Leo XIII who, in his encyclical of 1893, de rerum novarum, and in other writings, called on Catholics to take an active part in helping to resolve the ‘social question.’44 Many Catholics would have felt the need for social engagement when they witnessed conditions first hand in Vienna itself. While some Catholic organisations adhered to religious and charitable aims, others were covertly, and often overtly, political, and most Catholic groups, in some way or other, contributed to the Christian Social movement. Their members saw social engagement as the foundation for their mission to construct a Christian and German Vienna. In 1906, a total of 30,774 social or charitable associations were registered in Cisleithania, of which 3,544 were based in Vienna alone.45 The exact number of specifically Catholic societies is unknown, but it has been estimated that while 100 Catholic societies existed in Vienna in 1880, the 1890s alone saw more than 200 foundations.46

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Associations of Catholic writers, groups for the dispensation of charity, Catholic constitutional societies, school clubs and many others occupied visible places in the life of the city. A number of societies that stood at a slight distance from the Church nevertheless moved in its orbit: volunteer fire brigades, singing groups, volunteer ambulance and rescue groups, all of whose activities were praised in the Catholic press.47 Yet, a stark contrast existed between the stated social objectives of Catholic associations and their actual achievements. The annual report for 1905 of the Association of Catholic Working Women in the twelfth district of Vienna, Meidling, is a dismal indicator of this conclusion. The report begins with an explanation of how the association had come into existence, in response to ‘the pressures of the modern economy,’ which ‘weigh down on the workers.’ As a result, many societies had been formed, ‘whose aim is to improve the material and social conditions of their members, on a Catholic basis.’48 Among these, associations for young female workers were said to have taken on an outstanding position, and the work of these associations was appreciated ‘by those who know the dangers of the capital.’49 By 1905, the Meidling association had existed for ten years. Its aims included protecting women from the ‘moral dangers that may take them away from Catholicism’ and providing them with a home of their own – a hostel is implied – where they might spend their free time. The author of the report expressed gratitude to the former president of the association, Father Philip Hönigschmied, a ‘tireless’ promoter, who had moved to another parish the previous November. The new president and vice-president of the association were also priests. If its connections had been indicative of its capabilities, the association should have been well positioned to achieve its aim of building a home. Its 1905 report listed nine benefactors, thirty-six supporting members and sixty-three ordinary members. Its fifty-eight donors included Mayor Lueger, fifteen patrons with the rank of count or countess, five princes or princesses and sundry barons and bishops, but many donors gave what were, in reality, token amounts. While, between 1904 and 1905, the funds of the association increased in size by almost a quarter, from 8,476 crowns to 10,362, the aim of building a home was, as the author of the report admitted, ‘far from achieved.’50 Efforts by Catholic associations to assist in mitigating the ‘social question’ fell far short of what was needed to resolve the economic

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conditions that afflicted large parts of Vienna as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth. This can be seen in the reports of the prominent Catholic charitable association, the Vincent de Paul society, which had numerous local associations, known as Konferenze, or conferences, part of a worldwide network of over 6,000 groups. No evidence of antisemitism emerged from the records of the activities of the society, despite many antisemitic parish priests being involved with them. However, much proof did come through of the meagre impact of Catholic charitable activities. The conference for the church of the Most Holy Trinity at Reindorf in the Rudolfsheim district recorded its efforts in 1904.51 The conference gave assistance with food and household necessities, but would give money only in exceptional circumstances, so the figures in its report show the full extent of the aid it provided. For the whole of 1904, this comprised 7,550 loaves, 1,044 portions of flour, thirty-five portions of fat, 170 kilograms of potatoes and 1,031 portions of meat. While these efforts were well intended, looked at as weekly contributions to life in the district they take on a different perspective. They amounted to fewer than 150 loaves per week, twenty portions of flour, less than one portion of fat, three kilograms of potatoes and nineteen portions of meat. In 1906, the group recorded that its receipts were down, and it was able to offer just 132 loaves and twenty-five kilograms of potatoes per week. In 1907, it recorded three woollen shirts and fifty kilograms of peas among donations. In 1909, its total spend fell again, and the author of the conference report noted that the contrast between rich and poor was growing ever greater. He added that the public authorities were charged with the care of the poor, but experienced statesmen looked ‘with shudders’ on the ‘dispossessed’ masses and could do nothing to resolve their plight. The solution that would be chosen by the Vincent de Paul society could only come from the Bible – ‘love thy neighbour.’52 Similar levels of support were provided by the conference at the Most Holy Trinity in subsequent years through to the beginning of the First World War. Even taking into account that there was at least one more conference in the district, the Konferenz zur ‘Unbefleckten Empfängnis,’ these efforts were to help feed the population of an entire district. These were not isolated situations. Vincent de Paul conferences existed across Vienna, and confirmation of their limited impact can be

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gained by looking at the efforts of the Conference for Saint Lambert, in Ottakring, between 1906 and 1910. This conference, which was founded in 1903, was the second in the parish, and Father Johannes Pax, at Neu-Ottakring, was its honorary president. The conference had eleven active members, including the committee and a local policeman. In 1906, its charitable work enabled it to support twentyfour families per week, on average, while several one-off small awards were made in the course of the year. Its pastoral activities led to four minors being baptised, while three children whose fathers had left them were taken into care. Given the often openly aggressively antisemitic line taken by many priests in other associations, a surprising name appears among the donors: local businessman Moritz Kuffner, from the well-established Jewish business family, and son of a former mayor of Ottakring, made a donation of seventy-three crowns. This was in the last parish held by leading antisemitic priest Adam Latschka, a year after his death. Kuffner donated regularly in subsequent years, but his support made little difference to the ability of the conference to deliver tangible aid to many in need. The conference report for 1907 stated that seventy-five poor families a month were assisted, and three children of a widow were taken into care. In 1908, approximately twenty families a week received a charitable donation. These, in total, amounted to seven loaves of bread a day, four kilograms of potatoes, very small amounts of meat and a few coal parcels. Given that the parish of NeuOttakring comprised around 50,000 people, and the area covered by the conference was approximately half of the parish, these efforts were to support around 25,000 people. Another group that has already been encountered, the Frauenbund, was frequently mentioned for its charitable efforts in papers such as Reichspost.53 In 1900, it held what was described as a ‘monster gathering’ of 4,000 women at the Rathaus. The meeting was attended and addressed by a number of high-ranking Christian Social politicians, who praised the group for its work in general, but also commended it for its activism in campaigning for the coming City Council elections. Deputy Mayor Neumayer gave the usual exhortations to read only the Christian press and to buy only from Christian businesses.54 In 1904, Reichspost reported on the Christmas meeting of the Vienna-wide Frauenbund, also held at the Rathaus. While the vice-president of the group, Frau Ruzizka, focused on its charitable work and reported that

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groups across the city had assisted a total of over 1,000 poor families that year, other speakers, including Prince Liechtenstein, took a more political line and urged members to maintain unity in their struggles.55 This was only one occasion at which Liechtenstein praised female activists for their part in the rise of the Christian Socials.56 The local branch of the group in the Landstrasse district has left relatively detailed records of its activities.57 Between 1907 and 1908, these indicate that its activities were strictly limited. It made a contribution of twenty crowns to the Women’s Benevolent Society and four crowns for the celebration of a silver wedding. Ninety-five crowns were spent on club rule books, but only a little under three crowns ‘for a poor woman.’ On the other hand, over 300 crowns were spent on participation in Christmas festivities, and 106 crowns were donated to the central organisation. Despite this low level of charitable activity, the annual general meeting of the Landstrasse association, held in April 1908, still attracted the attendance of a local priest and a Vienna city councillor. Similar patterns of spending are to be found in subsequent years, although in 1910 a donation of 1,000 crowns was made to the Josefinum, a Viennese Catholic school for girls.58 The 1910 annual general meeting included two talks, one entitled ‘What Vienna owes the Christlicher Wiener Frauenbund,’ the other from Herr Karl Stepanek on ‘The Christian Press.’ This latter talk was an opportunity to remind listeners that, in the antisemitic world view, the Christian press lined up against the ‘Jewish’ press. These small local groups should not just be considered in isolation. At least nineteen branches of the Frauenbund were known to have existed in Vienna around the turn of the century.59 It was an organisation that was well respected and well connected. The chair of its umbrella organisation, Frau Maresch, has already been encountered meeting Father Abel and his pilgrims on their return to Vienna.60 Political intent and the aim of promoting Christian Social and antisemitic attitudes among the populace show clearly in reports of other Catholic groups.61 The Katholischer Volksverein für Niederösterreich, for instance, was described as a non-political Catholic organisation, but a report on a group meeting held in October 1906 in the hotel Post in Vienna makes that description difficult to justify.62 The meeting featured elected members of the City Council, teachers, Baron Albin Spinette in his capacity as general secretary of the Catholic Central Organisation and a priest, Augustin Count Galen, of the Order of

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St Benedict. Father Galen set the tone in a talk entitled ‘The JewishFreemason Struggle against the Schools.’ The meeting heard of a conspiracy by a coalition of ‘ethnic-religious’ and ideological enemies. Father Galen described the enemies of the Church as being responsible for attacks ‘on political, social and religious grounds,’ aiming to ‘tear our people away from their faith.’ For Galen, though, these attacks were only the most visible signs of a much bigger struggle that aimed at the ‘systematic destruction of our people.’ This struggle, in which the Social Democrats were ‘ready and willing’ slaves of the liberals, eager to serve, was, according to Father Galen, part of a ‘Jewish-international’ conspiracy to assist German nationalists, such as those in the Los-von-Rom movement, in their efforts to bring down the Habsburg state.63 Although Father Galen did not explain how such an unwieldy coalition of allies came into being, let alone how it stayed together, his was far from being a lone voice making such claims. Over the years, other priests would portray the enemies of the Church lined up against it in similar formations. Other Catholic groups were politically active in different ways. While the Katholischer Männerverein in Reindorf was a Catholic, and not explicitly Christian Social, group, its 1912 reports show that politics were very much to the fore. The Christian Social Party had recently suffered some setbacks in elections in Vienna, and so the political purpose of this Catholic group came through. The programme for its June 1912 meeting exhorted: ‘Catholic Men! Learn from the results of the elections.’ The programme went on: ‘Organise yourselves, Catholic men, unite against the enemy. You have the holy right to be honoured and esteemed as Catholics.’ The programme reminded readers of how, at the May meeting, a number of speakers, including a priest and a member of the Landtag, had commented that a long-term campaign was now beginning for elections to the Vienna City Council.64 Yet again, the idea that the Catholic press could help was clear. At the bottom of every page of programmes for meetings of the Katholischer Männerverein was the call, ‘Buy and ask only for Christian newspapers.’ There was even a call for the establishment of a Catholic local newspaper for the Rudolfsheim district, to match those elsewhere in Vienna.65 The July 1912 meeting of the Reindorf Männerverein heard one speaker, Herr Hofer, attack their ‘enemies’ and their use of slogans.66 Hofer recognised the power of the everyday experience and

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of repeated propaganda. He shared his view that if messages such as ‘the separation of Church and State’ and ‘religion is a private matter’ were reiterated often enough, then they could seem to be ‘common sense.’ To counter this possibility, Hofer called for ‘political schooling’ to help the men of Reindorf to stand firm by their banners, so that it could be said that the members of the Katholischer Männerverein were truly the children of the Christian Social Party.67 Meetings of the Katholischer Männerverein heard calls to encourage political activity and to endorse Christian Social views at the social level.68 Joint efforts were made to raise funds with other groups. An ‘edifying’ play, produced in collaboration with the men of the Christian Social workers’ group of the district, was staged at the Raimund theatre, a large commercial venue in the Mariahilf district of the city, in June 1912. This raised over 500 crowns for each group. It is not known how the funds were spent, but nowhere in the meetings of the Katholischer Männerverein that were examined was charitable activity mentioned. From 1896 to 1914, Catholic and Christian Social associations operated across multiple fronts. They endeavoured to act as a force for social engagement, at least with the bourgeoisie; they worked for the protection, or even in some views the re-creation, of Christian Vienna; and they functioned as mobilisation points for Christian Social Party electoral campaigns. But the task they faced in trying to assuage poverty must have been insurmountable for volunteers alone, and deprivation in Vienna threatened to fuel open revolution from social divisions. In 1911, for instance, riots erupted across Viennese working-class districts, as stagnant wages and unemployment coincided with escalating food price inflation. Violence was extreme, the army was called in and shots were fired. At least four people were left dead, with fifty-two wounded, and 263 arrests were made. The Arbeiter-Zeitung described these events as ‘demonstrations of despair’ and ‘the protests of the despondent.’ It was clear that, however the violence started, the ‘moral originators’ of the problem were the Christian Socials, in their role as administrators of Vienna.69 Volksblatt für Stadt und Land registered its more bourgeois observations about excesses in Ottakring, with attacks on businesses, trams and ambulances, and with makeshift barriers erected. The newspaper, with its illustrations of mass gatherings of workers at the Rathaus, reflected bourgeois fears of proletarian

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revolution.70 An easing of inflation, however, gradually helped to restore some sort of social peace until 1914. It is not to denigrate the efforts of those who distributed food, clothing or fuel, but such riots show that far more was needed than piecemeal resolutions to the problems of Vienna. Priests either did not, or could not, understand this. The comments of Father Wilhelm Hulesch, as organiser of a Vincent de Paul conference in Döbling, sum this up, when he wrote in 1897 that ‘poverty and misery and need are nowadays the catch-words of mankind.’ Father Hulesch seemed resigned to having limited aims: perhaps, he wrote, if parishioners could not make a donation, then they could share a meal with the needy.71 The passage has the air of profound desperation. If they failed to make a serious impact on mass poverty, associations did consolidate among the limited electorate a prominent place on the social and political agendas for their vision of a Christian Vienna. More often than not, however, this vision was defined in a negative sense, that Vienna was not liberal and, naturally, that it was not Jewish. On the electoral front, the associations were able to mobilise sufficient support to be an invaluable aid to the Christian Social Party. Association meetings provided platforms where Christian Social Party candidates spoke, and where they could embed themselves in local communities. Associations planted propaganda and publicity for the right candidates and, at election times, helped to turn out voters. These groups should also have been able to focus on working towards their charitable objectives but, occasionally, even Christian charity, in the sense of love, was jettisoned. Instead, those who ran these groups forgot that their purpose should have been to reach out to those who were receptive to their message, and they became little more than means by which men or women – groups were usually single sex – could show themselves to be members of the ‘respectable’ middle classes. In a world where people could easily slip out of the bourgeoisie and into the proletariat, these charitable groups, at times, showed little sympathy to anyone who suffered this plight, and people who ‘failed,’ in economic terms, could be ruthlessly excluded. As the Landstrasse branch of the Frauenbund noted, any member who had fallen two years behind on her subscriptions would, on death, ‘lose your right to a wreath and to the participation of members with a flag at your funeral.’72 Not much love was to be found here, and acceptance would

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only be granted if the correct payments were made. Even beyond death, these charitable groups demanded that the superficial criteria of worldly success and bourgeois belonging be satisfied.

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Notes 1 RP, 28 September 1895, p. 1. 2 Boyer, Radicalism, pp. 385–403. 3 For a discussion of this point, see Steven Beller, ‘John Boyer’s Fin-deSiècle Vienna,’ Contemporary Austrian Studies, 6 (1998), 189–201, here 190. 4 See Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 182, or Hans Haas, ‘Politische, kulturelle und wirtschaftliche Gruppierungen in Westösterreich (Oberösterreich, Salzburg, Tirol, Vorarlberg),’ in Helmut Rumpler and Peter Urbanitsch (eds), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, Vol. VIII: Die politische Öffentlichkeit, Part 1, Vereine, Parteien und Interessenverbände als Träger der politischen Partizipation (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2006), pp. 227–395. 5 See Boyer, Radicalism, pp. 403–410, for details on the period between the first antisemitic victory and the appointment of Lueger. 6 Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 196. 7 Boyer, Lueger, p. 155. 8 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 62. 9 Hulesch, Geschichte, p. 76. 10 RP, 25 September 1895, p. 2. 11 See Katholisches Vereinsblatt, hereafter KVB, 15 November 1895, p. 4 and p. 9 and KVB, 15 December 1895, p. 3. 12 See KVB, 15 November 1895, p. 9. 13 KVB, 15 November 1895, p. 3. 14 KVB, 1 September 1896, p. 1. 15 AEDW ReCk, 1901. 16 AEDW ReCk, 1903. 17 Vaterland, 7 August 1904, p. 9. 18 RP, 9 August 1904, p. 10. 19 Ernst Bruckmüller, ‘Wiener Bürger: Selbstverständnis und Kultur des Wiener Bürgertums vom Vormärz bis zum Fin de Siècle,’ in Ernst Bruckmüller (ed.), Durch Arbeit, Besitz, Wissen und Gerechtigkeit (Vienna: Böhlau, 1980), pp. 43–68. 20 Bruckmüller, ‘Wiener Bürger,’ p. 45. 21 Judson, ‘John Boyer,’ p. 185. 22 See, for instance, Mitgliederverzeichnis und Jahrbuch der Ortsgruppe Josefstadt des Vereines ‘Christliche Familie,’ 1905, available in WBiR.

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23 See KVB, 15 November and 15 December 1895. 24 ‘Verein “Christliche Familie,”’ Wegweiser. Verzeichnis Christlicher Geschäfte (Vienna: Self-published, 1899). 25 See, for instance, NoCk 1899. 26 ‘Verein “Christliche Familie,”’ Wegweiser, p. 175. 27 NFP, 23 March 1901, pp. 24–25 and 26 March 1901, p. 6. 28 AEDW WeCor, letter of 18 June 1904. The final monetary estimate of his estate set his legacy at 286,000 crowns. Klusacek and Stimmer, Währing, p. 162. Deckert’s will was also disputed by his sisters, to whom he left nothing, despite the huge sums involved. See RP, 11 July 1902, p. 11. 29 Vaterland, 26 March 1901, p. 3. 30 AEDW WeCk, 1901. 31 A-Z, 24 March 1901, p. 6. 32 The death of Latschka was marked in, for instance, NWT, 4 July 1905, p. 9. 33 RP, 4 July 1905, p. 5. 34 Loidl, Latschka, pp. 30–31. 35 A-Z, 4 July 1905, p. 6. The phrase used for ‘preachers of hatred’ was ‘Hetzpfaffen.’ 36 NFP, 4 July 1905, p. 10; W-Z, 4 July 1905, p. 4. 37 AEDW AOCor, 3 July 1905, for both letters. 38 RP, 7 July 1905, p. 5. 39 Joseph Scheicher, Rede des Abg. Dr. Jos. Scheicher gehalten am 21. Februar 1902 (Sankt Pölkten: Self-published, 1902), p. 28 and p. 39. 40 See Chapter 8 of this work. 41 ÖBL, Vol. 10, p. 61. 42 Lola, Abel, p. 7. 43 Loidl, Erzbistum, pp. 275–277. 44 RP, 3 July 1894, p. 1, carried a short commentary on the encyclical on its front page. Other comments can be found in Vaterland, 16 August 1892, p. 2. 45 Rundschau, 21 October 1906, p. 3. 46 Walter Sauer, Katholisches Vereinswesen in Wien: zur Geschichte des christlichsozial-konservativen Lagers vor 1914 (Salzburg: Neugebauer, 1980), p. 40. 47 See for instance, NWB, 4 August 1891, p. 15, for news from various associations. 48 Rechenschaftsbericht des Vereines der Katholischen Arbeiterinnen in Wien XII Bezirk, 1905, hereafter Katholische Arbeiterinnen. Pages not numbered. 49 Katholische Arbeiterinnen. 50 Katholische Arbeiterinnen.

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51 Rechenschaftsbericht der Konferenz ‘zur Allerheiligsten Dreifaltigkeit’ Reindorf, 1905. 52 The report for 1908 is dated 1909. 53 The Frauenbund was recognised for its efforts in, for instance, RP, 9 August 1898, p. 9 or 14 August 1898, p. 10. 54 NWB, 13 December 1904, p. 12. 55 RP, 13 December 1904, p. 4. 56 See Alison Rose, ‘Gender and Anti-Semitism. Christian Social Women and the Jewish Response in Turn-of-the-Century Vienna,’ AHYB, 34 (2003), 173–189. 57 Christlicher Wiener Frauenbund, Ortsgruppe III, Rechenshaftsberichte 1907–1908 (Vienna: Self-published, 1908), hereafter Ortsgruppe III. 58 Ortsgruppe III, 1909–1910. 59 Sauer, Katholisches Vereinswesen, pp. 89–91. 60 Lola, Abel, p. 96. 61 Katholischer Männerverein Reindorf, Vereins-Nachrichten des Katholischen Männervereines Reindorf 1912 (Vienna: Self-published, 1912). Hereafter MVReindorf. 62 RP, 11 October 1906, p. 9. 63 RP, 11 October 1906, p. 9. 64 MVReindorf, June 1912. 65 MVReindorf, June 1912. 66 MVReindorf, July 1912. 67 MVReindorf, July 1912. 68 MVReindorf, August 1912. 69 See A-Z, 18 September 1911, p. 1, 20 September 1911, p. 1 and 21 September 1911, p. 1. 70 Stadt und Land, 24 September 1911, pp. 3–6. 71 Wilhelm Hulesch, Jahresbericht der Conferenz zum Hl. Paulus in Döbling, 1897 (Vienna: Self-published, 1897). 72 Ortsgruppe III, 1909–1910.

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5 A German movement? 1896–1914 Czech-German relations: the Badeni Crisis Alongside their Christian character, Christian Socials displayed their credentials as a German movement, frequently proclaiming their ‘duty’ to protect the Volk.1 They stated that this did not pit them against other nations – Jews excepted – and they sometimes extended their mission to cover the protection of ‘the Christian people’ of the Empire. These Christian and German aspects were not incompatible, but the nationalities clashes of the Empire did not bypass the largely Vienna-based Christian Socials of the late 1890s, and, at times, choices had to made as to which was the priority: their Christian side, their German side or their self-professed status as the Staatsvolk, loyal to the Empire. Christian Socials were faced with these decisions at a practical and daily level, since Vienna was a cosmopolitan city. Much of its late nineteenth-century population was made up of people who had migrated from across the Empire.2 For instance, in Währing in the late 1880s, increasing numbers of marriages were contracted between people who were neither born in that area, nor even in Vienna or Lower Austria, but who came from further away in the country. Many non-German speakers from other parts of the multinational state integrated into the German-speaking life of the city, as seen in the Slavic origins of the surnames of politicians who championed ‘German values’: Bielohlawek, Mataja and Kocka, for instance. The same applied to businesses run by those called Swoboda, Skarda, Janauschek and Kral, who advertised in Christian Social newspapers.3

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Many arrivals in the city came from Bohemia and Moravia. Some were German speakers, but the native language of many was Czech. Exact numbers are difficult to determine, since census respondents could give only one language when asked which they used in daily life. Native Czech speakers who worked in German-owned factories, for instance, were expected to reply ‘German’; but even so, not all of these Czechs wanted to integrate fully. They might wish to use their own language at home, perhaps in public, to celebrate and pass on their culture and traditions. These Czechs were seen by some Germans as a threat to ‘German Vienna,’ and this perception was not limited to those who described themselves as German nationalists. From the 1880s, the chambers of Parliament, the Vienna Rathaus and Viennese district councils hosted debates on the Czech presence in the city, particularly regarding attempts to establish educational institutions based on the Czech language. Liberals, nationalists and Christian Socials alike resisted such moves.4 When Karl Lueger was finally sworn in as mayor of Vienna on 20 April 1897, disputes between Germans and Czechs were in full swing in Bohemia.5 This was barely two weeks after First Minister Count von Badeni had made a political miscalculation with disastrous consequences for Austrian politics and for relations between Czechs and Germans. The minister attempted to bypass Parliament and to decree into law the Badeni Language Ordinances, which, by 1903, would require anyone working for the public services in Bohemia to have a command of both German and Czech. A supplementary decree aimed to extend the principle to Moravia. This would have disadvantaged Germans in these areas, jeopardising their employment, as they were far less likely than Czechs to know both languages.6 Czechs in Bohemia celebrated; Germans protested on the streets.7 The reaction of many in Vienna was hostility, despite the ordinances affecting only Bohemia and Moravia. The liberal Neue Freie Presse displayed its German credentials when it claimed that the ordinances ‘exceed anything seen before’ and confirmed its fears as to the direction Bohemia was taking.8 Czech politicians stoked matters, with announcements that the ordinances had changed Bohemia for ever.9 Radical German nationalists countered with immediate plans to make life difficult for Badeni. Schönerer, back in Parliament after his ten-year ban expired, immediately began parliamentary obstruction alongside other Pan-German politicians. They gave filibuster

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speeches, interrupted business and generally disrupted proceedings, making government difficult to execute. Observers gauged the mood of the German electorate at public meetings and concluded that these tactics were winning support for the Pan-Germans. Perhaps spurred on by this, the liberals, in nationalistic mode, also began obstruction on 14 April.10 Reichspost reported sympathetically on ‘countless announcements against the ordinances … from the German local and communal authorities, not simply from Bohemia but also from other crownlands.’ The paper questioned whether officials would now have to learn Italian or Slovene in other linguistically mixed parts of the Empire.11 Christian Social politicians, however, shied away from obstruction. They would find it difficult to reconcile obstruction with the image of loyalty to the Empire that they had been constructing, especially as parliament needed to set military budgets and agree a renewed Ausgleich with Hungary. The Christian Socials also hoped that they might yet attract Christian Slavs to their side, at least as allies.12 Christian Social leaders attempted to steer a middle course, appearing to indicate that revised ordinances might win their support. On 11 May, Reichspost pointed to the effect the ordinances would have on those German communities in Bohemia where only a small minority of the population were Czech speakers, suggesting that it might be acceptable to apply the ordinances in Czech majority areas.13 Other German groups struggled to find a response to Badeni. The leaders of the largest German nationalist parliamentary grouping, the Deutsche Volkspartei, had already recognised privately that change was necessary.14 However, at stormy public meetings in Styria and Carinthia, their supporters called for the ordinances to be resisted.15 Fearful of losing support to Pan-German rivals, the leaders of the Volkspartei also began obstruction on 18 May. The Christian Social position now also changed, at least publicly. On 20 May 1897, Christian Socials on Vienna City Council unanimously issued a statement that the ordinances must be withdrawn.16 Four days later, the Christian Social parliamentary group began obstruction.17 The Arbeiter-Zeitung did not believe that the Christian Socials had suddenly moved to oppose the ordinances, and called this coming out as an actively German party hypocrisy, believing that the Christian Socials really wanted to ‘lame’ the campaign against the ordinances.18 Others, too, argued that Badeni could

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count on Christian Social support, despite claims in Reichspost that the Christian Socials were firmly among ‘other German opposition parties.’19 On 25 July, Reichspost made a claim that Christian Socials would repeat for decades: that it was possible to be a good German and a good Austrian. Christian Socials, it said, were prepared to fight the ordinances but, unlike some, they were not prepared to do so by ‘sedition.’20 As 1897 progressed, Germans took to the streets of the cities of Cisleithania, including Vienna, prompting the government to dilute its proposals. Czech counter-riots followed, and a cycle of violence set in. In November 1897, a German student was shot by troops during disturbances in Graz.21 This was the last straw, and Badeni resigned. His plans were abandoned by his successors, but his attempts had stoked the fires of long-running resentments. Order was gradually restored, but Czech-German relations were bloodied. The Badeni crisis had lasted little more than seven months, but it strongly affected those parties that had a predominantly German electorate. It initially seemed to provide a platform for the PanGermans to grow their support in the capital, as they were the first to make forceful objections to Badeni, but the repositioning of other German parties stole their thunder. The Pan-Germans, apart from a brief secondary surge around 1900, faded in Vienna.22 Their importance to Austrian politics, and especially to Viennese politics, should not be overstated, since Schönerer had regained his seat in 1897 with just 236 votes. Some successes followed in 1901, but mainly in Bohemia and Moravia.23 It might not have seemed so then, but this was the last chance for Schönerer. He was never going to be a major player, even under the restricted franchise of the Empire, since his appeal was handicapped by his attacks on the Habsburgs and his anti-Catholicism.24 In 1907, by which time voting rights had been extended, Schönerer won 909 votes to 4,380 for the Social Democrats in his home constituency. Even the Agrarian candidate scored over 1,600. Schönerer was finished as a parliamentarian.25 The Badeni crisis had given Schönerer his moment in the spotlight, but he should not be accorded undue attention. The ‘extremely radical Schönerianer’ were ‘a pretty marginal group in terms of numbers – if not rhetoric.’26 The crisis had more profound long-term effects on those who led the so-called moderate German parties, and who had previously been



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prepared to make concessions on national rights. They would now find this difficult. This included the Christian Social Party. Before 1897, its leaders could fend off descriptions of it as a purely German party. Their alignment with other German parties over Badeni made avoiding such a description near impossible thereafter. Hernals – 1899 On 29 April 1897, in the early weeks of the Badeni troubles, Czechs in Vienna met for a celebratory evening in honour of their MPs, held at the Czech House in the Fünfhaus district. The Czechs invited other Slavic groups to join them, and ninety-one MPs, including Poles, Slovenes, Croats and ‘Ruthenes’ – that is, Ukrainians – expressed their solidarity with the Czechs and their struggle.27 One leader of a nationalist political party, the Young Czechs, talked of how Poles and Young Czechs had once been rivals but were now united in matters of common interest. Not all was harmony, however, as one Ruthenian delegate said he would not discuss the sufferings of his people in the presence of Poles, a reference to Polish-Ruthenian disputes in Galicia, where the local aristocracy was overwhelmingly Polish.28 Speakers talked of the significance of the Slavic peoples for the ‘condition and future’ of the Empire. Count Palffy won applause for his praise of a Czech language school in Vienna.29 Prince Friedrich Schwarzenberg thanked all who had contributed to the building of a Czech cultural centre in Vienna, and a guard of honour was formed for non-Czechs as they left.30 Newspaper reports of the event indicate a peaceful occasion, without protests by Germans at the holding of such a high-profile Slavic celebration in the middle of Vienna, even as tensions grew over Badeni.31 Little more than two years later, however, a less prestigious but more visible Czech event in the capital would unleash violence that lasted for weeks, and which said much about how some Germans viewed the rules that they believed governed the behaviour of non-Germans in the city. In mid-July 1899, members of the Sokol, a gymnastics association closely linked with Czech nationalism, gathered in Vienna, at Stalehner’s inn, in the Hernals district. Invitations to this event, for the founding celebrations of a Sokol group called Fügner, had been issued to ‘all the Slavic bourgeois associations of Vienna, and especially the nationalist associations of the Czechs.’32 The group was named

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after Jindřich Fügner, who had begun life in Prague as the German Heinrich Fügner, but who had become involved in the Czech national movement.33 Fügner, a co-founder of the Sokol, epitomised a deep fear of some nationalists that Germans might abandon their culture and become Czech.34 Antagonism erupted in certain quarters, as Arbeiter-Zeitung reported: Outbreaks of chauvinistic barbarism, which are the order of the day in Bohemia, found a childish imitation in Vienna yesterday. Vienna’s Czech clubs were staging a quite harmless festival, which they are of course perfectly entitled to celebrate. Even the announcement of this event has unleashed a Teutonic fury, and just those people who never grow tired of emphasising the German character of Vienna … seemed suddenly to be seized by a panic that, overnight, they might be ‘Czechified’ by a couple of Sokol activists.35

The police, however, did not consider this a ‘harmless festival.’ They announced in advance that the celebrations would be held indoors, with a police presence. The nationalist Ostdeutsche Rundschau opined that, wherever the event was held, Germans reserved the right to stand by the police and observe. The cautious police approach proved wise, as demonstrators, a large number of whom were said to be ‘nationalist students,’ began to gather near Stalehner’s from five o’clock onwards.36 At this point, numerous police officers blocked access to the establishment, and to part of Jörgerstrasse, the street where it was located. Between five and six o’clock, guests for the event, including ‘members in Sokol costume,’ began to arrive. The number of demonstrators must have been considerable, since the Arbeiter-Zeitung, hardly sympathetic to the German nationalist cause, recorded that, at seven o’clock, a few hundred protesters managed to penetrate the police cordon, moving closer to Stalehner’s.37 Several Sokol clubs arrived in carriages, with their banners aloft, bringing stormy shouting from the students. Police pushed the attendees for the event into Stalehner’s but, as the night wore on, the crowd of demonstrators grew ever bigger, even spilling into the hall and garden of another local establishment, Mandl. Groups of Sokolists, each about forty strong, continued to arrive, met by shouting and whistling. At nine o’clock, police tried to clear the inn where the demonstrators had gathered. They closed off all access except for a narrow

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gap in the fencing that surrounded the building. Through this gap, about twenty police officers entered the Mandl inn. The police clearly expected to find trouble inside, and they were backed up by a nearby cordon of mounted officers. However, once inside the inn, they found the students sitting down at their tables, behaving completely peacefully, giving the officers no reason to take any action.38 This was by no means the end of disturbances, however. A short walk away, further Czech guests were arriving by public transport, at the Währingergürtel, close to Stalehner’s. They were met by large bands of German nationalists, some of whom dished out violence. However, back in Jörgerstrasse, things seemed to settle down, at least according to the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and the event was able to begin at nine o’clock. By ten o’clock, it reported, ‘everything was peaceful.’39 This may have been the case when the Arbeiter-Zeitung went to press, but the Deutsches Volksblatt picked up the story later into the night.40 The police had managed to clear the hall of the Mandl inn, but a number of students seized the open-air stage in the garden, shouting out their views regarding the ‘goings on’ of the Czechs. This drove the crowd to louder cheers and ‘raucous’ behaviour, to the point that the police had to intervene. The students then refused to vacate the garden, at which point the police forcibly ejected the students and pushed them into neighbouring streets. The demonstration, unfortunately, took a turn for the worse. Onlookers gathered, many of whom joined in, swelling numbers to between 3,000 and 4,000.41 Even allowing for exaggeration by the Volksblatt, which was sympathetic to the demonstrators, other newspapers confirm that a large crowd had gathered.42 Amid cries of ‘Away with the Czechs,’ arrests were made. When Czechs began to leave Stalehner’s, at about eleven o’clock, the inevitable brawls broke out.43 After further clashes between students and police, and with a heavy police presence at Stalehner’s, the Sokol event finished around midnight. However, sporadic outbreaks of violence continued through the night. Next day, while members of the Sokol finished their event, peacefully, in the garden at the Hernals brewery, several hundred German nationalist students returned to Stalehner’s, where they sat for up to two hours, taking only one beer each, and without causing disturbance.44 Presumably, this was to hit Herr Stalehner in his pockets by limiting his sales. The verdict of the Volksblatt on events of 15

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July was that the ‘Czech gentlemen’ would think twice before committing further ‘provocations.’45 German nationalists, whether students or journalists, were not the only people to take offence at the Sokol event. On 18 July, the Christian Social Reichspost echoed the Volksblatt in thundering against a ‘Czech provocation in Vienna.’46 It was particularly offended that a procession of participants in Czech national costume, with Czech banners, could take place in ‘German Vienna.’ It noted that German nationalist counter-demonstrations had thwarted similar, earlier, events planned for Vienna, but this time, a heavy police presence had enabled the gathering at Stalehner’s to take place. Reichspost, offering open support for a position that violence, or the threat of violence, was a legitimate tactic for the protection of German Vienna, suggested that the Czechs, with their ‘proverbially thick skulls,’ should not have proceeded with their evening at Stalehner’s.47 On 21 July, Reichspost then suddenly distanced itself from the violence, saying that ‘without wishing to advocate’ the tactics of those it now described as ‘Schönerian students,’ the German reaction at Stalehner’s was a consequence of Czech excesses in Prague against Germans.48 On 22 July, another Christian Social-supporting newspaper, Vaterland, noted that calls had been made for a boycott of Stalehner, after his betrayal of the German Volk.49 The paper then began to lead a Christian Social about-face and rescue of Stalehner. It announced that ‘with true Czech guile,’ three Sokolists, using ‘essentially German’ names, had tricked Stalehner by telling him that the event was for a German group. When he found out, Stalehner had tried to pay to revoke the agreement, but the Czechs refused. Stalehner pronounced himself truly penitent and innocent of the charge of ‘betrayal of the German people.’ Vaterland declared him to be an unintentional ‘martyr of the German cause.’ This shift may have been encouraged by news that some were finding events at Stalehner’s far from helpful for business. An association of inn-keepers had experienced ‘enough’ of political brawling intruding into their premises, preventing them from earning a living and damaging their good names.50 The event continued to have repercussions, and Christian Socials and their allies persisted in identifying Czechs as the root cause of the problems. Public statements were issued from representatives of the ‘united antisemitic parties’ of Hernals, who also condemned the event as a provocation. They wrote on behalf of the ‘German-thinking

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and German-feeling’ population of the district, who were mindful of Czech attacks on Germans in ‘Czech territory.’ They called on the government to prevent any such future Czech gatherings in Vienna, as they were an assault on the German character of the city and might damage the ‘hitherto peaceful relations between the Viennese and their Czech fellow citizens.’51 This portrayed Czechs firmly as outsiders, who could not be Viennese and remain Czech. Christian Social newspapers, by publishing such a statement, supported a policy of zero tolerance regarding displays of the culture of other peoples of the Empire. The statement also completely ignored the reality of CzechGerman relations in the capital, which had been anything other than peaceful in certain quarters.52 Some German nationalists continued with demonstrations outside Stalehner’s.53 One final significant flare-up came on the night of 16 August 1899. At about ten-thirty, after a meeting of the Hernals German Nationalist Association at another inn nearby, people were encouraged to demonstrate outside Stalehener’s.54 About 500 participants gathered and began loud booing. Protestors forced their way into the inn, bringing a halt to a performance by a musical band. In the street, a number of police attempted, but failed, to prevent further protestors from entering the hall. The demonstrators inside the hall then tried to make their way out, scuffling with the staff of the establishment, during which window panes were shattered. After about ten minutes, police reinforcements arrived, but by this time, demonstrators had filled the whole street outside Stalehner’s, shouting ‘Down with Stalehner! Down with the Czechs!’ The police now intervened ‘more energetically.’ The spiked helmet of one policeman was knocked from his head, arrests were made, people grew even more excitable and protestors grabbed those who had been arrested, freeing them from the police.55 Further police contingents now surrounded the inn, until the intervention of a police Commissar, who negotiated with the protestors, brought some calm. Eventually, the demonstrators, singing nationalist songs, were persuaded to move under police escort to another inn, Zur Linde; but matters had still not reached their conclusion. At a quarter to one, a group left Zur Linde and began a new protest at the police station where their comrades were held, demanding their release. Instead, this latest batch of protestors was broken up, and the night finally settled into order.56

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Remarkably, disputes over Stalehner’s then subsided quickly. Apart from a couple of further German nationalist attempts to demonstrate at the inn, which were rebuffed by police, business returned to normal.57 Christian Socials clearly no longer had a desire to punish the ‘betrayal’ of the Volk by Stalehner, whose family-owned business was typical of those of many who moved in their circles. Even after the Sokol event, this was a place where the Christian Social Workers’ Reform Union met, as did other Christian Social groups, and Stalehner’s was a business that still advertised in the pages of newspapers associated with the Christian Social movement.58 Court cases were brought against those who had been involved in the events of 16 August. Regardless of initial press reports, not all protestors by any means had been students. They included a journeyman lathe operator, who was detained for three days, and a master wallpaper hanger and a machine operator, who were both found guilty of fighting but were released.59 Others, including a building foreman, were given sentences ranging from one week’s detention to two months’ hard labour.60 Finally, Stalehner’s disappeared from the newspapers as a point of contention. Apart from occasional backwards looks to the events of summer 1899, references in the press were restricted to advertisements for the establishment and for a sister business, the Hotel Stalehner; news of social evenings; and the report of a theft from an insurance salesman.61 In their response to the events at Stalehner’s, the Christian Socials had shown that they had very different feelings concerning German identity when it came to Vienna, as opposed to in Bohemia. When it came to a Sokolfest in their home city, no ground was to be given. The Christian Social press talked of ‘provocation,’ and justified the violence shown in the first few days of the incident as a response to similar treatment of Germans in ‘Czech areas.’ The Stalehner incident shows that, while Viennese political institutions had long provided the scenes for debates on the Czech presence in the city, a radicalisation in reactions to national conflicts occurred in some quarters between 1897 and 1899. In April 1897, just as the furore over Badeni was building, the high-profile event at the Czech House had passed off without incident. The reaction to Stalehner’s was completely different. Changes in views on one of the speakers at the Czech House event also show how opinion had hardened.

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Prince Friedrich Schwarzenberg was a member of a highly placed aristocratic family. He was an MP, and a promoter of Czech rights. In June 1897, Vaterland reported that he was a supporter of the advancement of Czech teachers within the context of ‘a true patriotism.’62 By 1898, Schwarzenberg poured scorn on those who embraced both German and Czech culture, pronouncing that everyone should decide to be either Czech or German, rather than being an ‘amphibian.’63 Schwarzenberg demonstrated his loyalties, letting it be known that he preferred to be known as Bedřich, rather than Friedrich. It was under these circumstances that Reichspost in 1899 felt it justifiable to talk of ‘German renegades of the cut of Prince Schwarzenberg.’64 Bourgeois societies and German identity An attachment to German culture was part of life in many Viennese bourgeois circles. Local singing groups, for instance, frequently manifested their devotion to their German heritage and their role in preserving it. The author of a history of the Ottakringer Liedertafel wrote that, while singing was the primary activity of these groups, they had a wider significance as guardians of a tradition at the heart of German values. The author argued that these groups were akin to the small objects held in a museum, which are ‘the most valuable indicator of the cultural condition of a people,’ rather than more grandiose or larger-scale items that went on display.65 While its German side was important, this was only one aspect of the collective identity of the Ottakringer Liedertafel. It interacted with, and helped to make up, middle-class society, mixing with members of the city and district councils and participating with groups such as volunteer fire brigades in events which finished with a ‘Hoch!’ to Franz Josef.66 These showed the bourgeois side of the group, as well as its loyalty to the multinational Empire, which was no contradiction with the pride it displayed in ‘German values.’ It operated across wide and prestigious networks and was well connected. On 6 October 1898, the group performed at the dedication of the new church at Neu-Ottakring in the presence of its first priest, Father Adam Latschka, and the church’s patron, Prince Liechtenstein. The prestige and significance of the opening of a new church are confirmed also by the presence of the Emperor.67 Similarly, the sixty performing members of the Josefstädter Männergesang-Verein provided music at numerous venues across the

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city in the 1890s. The places where it performed confirm the complexity and interlocking nature of the Viennese German bourgeois world. The annual celebration of the foundation of the group took place in the Catholic Piaristenkirche, in its home district, the Josefstadt, but it also performed in the evangelical church in central Vienna, at a wedding for one of its number.68 The group also performed frequently at Stalehner’s. The writer of its annual report for 1899 believed that German song was ‘not a science’ but something that ‘requires soul and devotion to ideals.’69 This German dimension took centre stage when, on 18 July 1899, an extraordinary general meeting was held at the request of several members, including choirmaster Carl Pfleger. One agenda item concerned events at Stalehner’s, which had only broken out a few nights before this meeting. A long debate took place, where there was a considerable difference of views between the chair of the group, Herr Fikar, and a number of members, about public opinion and the ‘unpleasant events’ that had recently occurred at the venue. Although the author of the report does not give details of the disagreement, differences were sufficiently serious for Fikar to resign his position. A week later, choirmaster Pfleger also resigned, but the report gave no reason for the resignation, since a full investigation of the ‘affair’ had yet to take place.70 Favoriten and the Church: 1897–1900 Events at, and reactions to, the Sokolfest were by no means the only evidence of long-running German-Czech tensions within the capital itself. Even the Catholic Church in Vienna was drawn into these disputes and, despite not neglecting the needs of its Czech constituency, ultimately supported a German vision of the city. This can be seen in the Favoriten district, where the church of St Johann der Evangelist was a frequent target for protests against alleged Czech ‘infiltrations’ into the capital.71 In the 1880s, the Favoriten district council, then in liberal hands, had successfully petitioned the City Council and the Ordinariat to prevent the then parish priest, Father Ignaz Fürst, from preaching in Czech.72 The liberals of the district announced that they ‘rejoiced’ when his successor, Father Eduard Karabaczek, ‘solemnly declared’ on his arrival in May 1895 that he was attached to his German culture (Deutschtum) with ‘all the fibres of his heart.’73

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Rejoicing did not last long, as Father Karabaczek reintroduced ‘mass in Czech’ shortly after his installation. The district council repeatedly protested to the priest but without effect, so, in May 1897, Johann Schindl, leader of the Favoriten council, petitioned the City Council for action.74 Schindl, who had a chequered political career, during which he stood for election variously as an antisemite, as a liberal and under other banners, was at this time in the camp of the liberals.75 He was, from 1893, a member of the building committee for a new church that was to be constructed in Favoriten.76 Schindl reminded his correspondents that the church where Karabaczek was based had been built and ‘finely decorated’ through gifts of ‘German money,’ on land donated by Vienna City Council.77 This had been in 1875. The implication was that the Czechs were not going to be allowed to seize the new church, and Schindl made the point that he was writing with the full backing of the district council. Schindl continued that the ‘home-loving German population’ had welcomed Czechs into their midst but were now besieged, witnesses to creeping Czech influence. He wrote that the Czechs were no longer satisfied with just having their own church in Vienna, a reference to the church of Maria am Gestade, in the Innere Stadt, which was closely associated with the Czechs of the city. Nor were they content just to use that church to raise their children in ‘Czech national fanaticism,’ nor to drive German businesses into the ground through boycotts. Now, they wanted to seize the ‘holiest’ of all goods of the German people, the ‘German church.’ The City Council passed this correspondence to the Ordinariat, which sought clarification on matters from Father Karabaczek. He gave assurances that the use of Czech in church was simply the result of acting in accordance with ‘the express wish’ of Cardinal Gruscha that this should happen, provided that it did not interfere with any German services. These wishes had been confirmed by the Ordinariat in September of that year. Mass in Czech was celebrated on Sundays and holy days, in the evening, half an hour after the ending of mass in German, to ensure no disruption to the German service. Karabaczek explained that ‘mass in Czech’ consisted of a sermon, a series of prayers from the pulpit, with responses from the congregation, then a blessing from the priest. Given that the Catholic mass of the time was celebrated in Latin, it is a reasonable assumption that these were the only differences from the mass for German congregations. Karabaczek

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added that ‘not a single parishioner of the German tongue’ had complained, with the more ‘insightful and law-abiding’ praising it.78 By the time Karabaczek made his defence, in August 1897, political change was in the air in the district. Favoriten was one of the last places in Vienna to resist the Christian Socials and their allies, but elections in November of that year brought the district under their control.79 After 1897, no record of any protests from Favoriten council against Father Karabaczek is found, although others continued campaigns against him. The Freies deutches Volksblatt pressed the Ordinariat into asking Father Karabaczek to respond to several charges, such as changing German forenames on birth certificates into their Czech equivalents, thereby ‘corrupting’ them, but Karabacek assured the Ordinariat that these charges were as ‘mendacious’ as those that had been made against him earlier.80 Father Karabaczek must have experienced the attacks against him as an unwelcome and unnecessary distraction from his heavy daily duties. His parish was, at that time, the biggest in Vienna, with over 100,000 parishioners, nominally, at least, and he would have had many calls on his time.81 He had acted with propriety, and he had ensured that none of his parishioners was excluded from the sacraments, although it is puzzling that officials from the Ordinariat seem to have been unaware of the instruction from Cardinal Gruscha that some religious celebration should be held in Czech. Yet the Church in Vienna still leant heavily towards those with a German identity. That this was the case at its highest levels can be seen from the appointment process for a second church for the Favoriten district, that of St Anton von Padua, which was being built at the time. In December 1900, Father Matthias Eisterer, then priest at Wiener-Neudorf, was summoned to Vienna for a meeting with Cardinal Gruscha, where he was informed that he was under consideration for the role of parish priest at this new church. It was made clear, however, that his appointment would depend on his meeting certain conditions.82 Gruscha ‘issued the most gracious command that the German character of this new parish church should forever be retained.’ Gruscha was, in fact, quite specific about where he thought attacks on this German character might originate. He believed that Czechs in the district had a ‘stated desire’ that the ‘new, large and beautiful parish church be declared a Bohemian national church for Vienna,’

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and that they would turn for support to two prominent Czech aristocrats, Count Harrach and Prince Lobkowitz, who were active on the Viennese political scene. Eisterer was told to resist any such attempts. Eisterer ‘pledged’ the necessary guarantees, but neither his nor Gruscha’s actions should be taken simply as a straightforward attack on the rights of the Czech-speaking parishioners of the area. Given the linguistic make-up of the parish, it was agreed with Father Eisterer that he would benefit from ‘the continuous employment of two curates with a thorough oral and written command of the Czech language, such that his future Czech parishioners could receive the Holy Sacrament of penance in their mother tongue.’83 Eisterer then left Gruscha, in order to inspect his new parish, on a ‘cold and damp December evening,’ travelling by horse-drawn tram into Favoriten for the first time. From the end of the line, he completed his journey by foot to Bürgerplatz, now Reumannplatz, from where he saw ‘the superb main façade of the church.’ The church was unfinished, and Eisterer made his way to the entrance over planks covering mud. Eisterer was full of ‘trepidation’ at the thought of the considerable work that awaited him.84 Regardless of whether the size of the new parish, estimated at over 58,000 in 1901, or the thought of his role as a protector of its German character occupied him, a few weeks later, on 31 December 1900, Matthias Eisterer celebrated his first mass in the parish.85 German Vienna? In the years immediately after the 1896 City Council elections, the Christian Social Party grew, both organically and through mergers with groups with shared interests, such as the Tyrolese Catholic conservatives. In 1907, Christian Socials entered the Cisleithanian cabinet. From 1907 to 1914, bourgeois governments came together, made up variously of so-called moderate German parties, Czech nationalists and Christian Socials. Alliances were not easily formed and, when they were, they proved difficult to keep together.86 The outcome was a series of shifting alliances, crossing ideological and national boundaries. These alliances could break apart over a range of issues, from anticlericalism to the language of teaching in schools, or be triggered by more minor concerns. In 1909, for instance, nationalist Germans

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rioted in Lower Austria, including in Vienna, over Czech ‘intrusions’ into German territory. These ‘intrusions’ turned out to be little more than pleasure-boat trips on the Danube by parties of Czechs, but German nationalists used them as ‘evidence’ that Czechs were active in ‘naturally German’ areas.87 They were also highlighted as ‘proof ’ that Czech boldness might even lead to places such as Lower Austria being declared a ‘bilingual area.’ To head off this perceived threat, German nationalists proposed a law declaring that German be the only language used in schools in Lower Austria, a move supported by the Christian Socials. While there may have been some truth in Christian Social claims that they supported the introduction of the law as a means of pacifying German rioters, the result was that the Czech cabinet ministers resigned. Christian Socials had again shown where their party and movement stood when it came to national struggles.88 This was one of the last controversies in which Karl Lueger played a part before his death in 1910. Father Stöber at Hernals was not the only priest to record the demise of a ‘much loved … German patriot.’89 Lueger, he wrote, had benefited the city and the whole Empire, and the church at Hernals held a requiem for him. For Stöber, and many other Christian Socials, Lueger embodied Catholic values, German culture and loyalty to the Empire. His death, however, exposed cracks in the Christian Social Party. It had merged with other, conservative parties, in an effort to grow as a national force, but mergers with other parties had also created factions. A struggle for power emerged, the party drifted for a while, and it lost some of its electoral touch. In national elections in 1911 – the elections that subsequently occasioned much discussion about unity, at the Reindorf Katholischer Männerverein in 1912 – it had performed well in the provinces, but poor policy decisions and internal disputes opened the way in Vienna for some successes for the less extreme German nationalist parties and for the Social Democrats.90 Some Christian Socials were stung by criticisms from fellow Germans that they were ‘less national’ than they should have been, but this was wrong.91 Christian Socials never lost sight of their German dimension. Christian Socials placed great emphasis on the German side of their identity, as can be seen from their reactions to the Badeni ordinances and to the events at Stalehner’s: for them, non-Germans who came to the city should either quietly remain in the background, part of a ‘national other,’ or become ‘genuine Viennese,’ assimilated into German culture. Cardinal Gruscha’s instruction that the German

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character of a parish should be preserved shows the expected limits on Czech cultural aspirations in Vienna. That the Ordinariat required Father Karabaczek to respond to complaints about Czech masses demonstrates that the Church was tolerant of the presence of Czechs, rather than accepting of them as a legitimate Viennese community. Vienna was a predominantly German-speaking city, but it reflected the Empire of which it was capital. It was a nationally and linguistically cosmopolitan city. It was also a city with a large number of nonbelievers, which was a constant source of regret for Catholic priests.92 Christian Social activists who claimed to be protecting ChristianGerman Vienna were, in reality, attempting to construct it. Christian Social politicians and city officials used their positions and influence to exclude, where possible, those who did not conform to their vision of being Viennese. It is a correctly damning statement to suggest that Christian Social control of Vienna City Council meant that everyone was accepted as a candidate for employment there, provided they were not ‘a Social Democrat, a pan-German, a Jew, or a person who had officially rejected membership in a recognized religion.’93 This, however, was no comprehensive list, and would have extended to independent-minded Czechs, for instance. When activists spoke of being German, however, they did not forget their Christian side, and both added up to a vision that excluded Jews. When the speaker at the Reindorf Katholischer Männerverein talked of promoting Christian Social values ‘at the social level’ he was making an appeal for all of the views that the Christian Socials supported to be promoted in every possible way, not just through politics.94 By 1914, the view of Vienna as being a place that was German and Christian was well embedded in the mindset of Christian Socials, as was its antisemitic dimension. The world in which Christian Socials tried to define German identity was, however, about to undergo a revolution. Significant change was expected at the end of the reign of Franz Josef, who had already reached eighty, and his intended successor, Franz Ferdinand, let it be known that he would restructure the Empire when he acceded to the throne.95 His plans, however, remained hypotheses when, in June 1914, the gun of a Serbian nationalist murdered Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, bringing war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Soon, the Empire itself, and the whole world in which it existed, would be thrown upside down.

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Notes 1 See, for instance, Albert Wiesinger in Gemeinde-Zeitung, 4 April 1875. 2 Währing, Statistischer Bericht, p. 10. 3 RP, 25 May 1897, pp. 10–12 and RP, 27 May 1897, p. 8. 4 Glettler, Wiener Tschechen, p. 495 and p. 510. 5 RP, 21 April 1897, p. 1. 6 The ordinances had been issued on 6 April 1897. NFP, 7 April 1897, p. 1. 7 Berthold Sutter, Die badenischen Sprachenverordnungen von 1897 (Graz: Böhlau, 1965), Vol. 2, pp. 11–49. 8 NFP, 6 April 1897, p. 2. 9 RP, 28 April 1897, p. 1. 10 Whiteside, Socialism, p. 164. 11 RP, 15 April 1897, p. 1. 12 Whiteside, Socialism, p. 170. 13 RP, 11 May 1897, pp. 1–2. 14 Whiteside, Socialism, p. 164. 15 Whiteside, Socialism, p. 166. 16 See NWB, 22 May 1897, p. 5 and Höbelt, Kornblume, p. 167. 17 Whiteside, Socialism, p. 170 and p. 350. 18 A-Z, 21 May 1897, p. 1. 19 Badener-Zeitung, 17 July 1897, p. 2. RP, 18 July 1897, p. 1. 20 RP, 23 July 1897, pp. 2–3. 21 Whiteside, Socialism, pp. 184–185. 22 Höbelt, Kornblume, Statistischer Anhang I. See Whiteside, Socialism, p. 282, for the effective end of Schönerer’s political career. 23 F.L. Carsten, Fascist Movements in Austria from Schönerer to Hitler (London: Sage, 1977), pp. 21–22. 24 Carsten, Fascist Movements, p. 23. 25 Carsten, Fascist Movements, p. 24. 26 Judson, ‘John Boyer,’ p. 181. 27 Vaterland, 30 April 1897, p. 2. 28 RP, 1 May 1897, p. 5. 29 None of the newspaper sources gives a first name. 30 Vaterland, 30 April 1897, p. 2. 31 RP, 1 May 1897, p. 5. 32 A-Z, 16 July 1899, p. 4. 33 See Claire E. Nolte, ‘Choosing Czech Identity in Nineteenth Century Prague: The Case of Jindřich Fügner,’ Nationalities Papers, 24:1 (1996). 34 Pieter Judson, Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 37–38. See also Mark Dimond, ‘The Sokol and Czech Nationalism,’ in Mark Cornwall and R.J.W. Evans (eds), Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist

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and Fascist Europe, 1918–1948 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 185–205, p. 186. 35 A-Z, 16 July 1899, p. 4. 36 A-Z, 16 July 1899, p. 4. 37 A-Z, 16 July 1899, p. 4. 38 A-Z, 16 July 1899, p. 4. 39 A-Z, 16 July 1899, p. 4. 40 DVB, 16 July 1899, p. 9. 41 DVB, 16 July 1899, p. 9. 42 NFP, 16 July1899, p. 8; W-Z, 16 July 1899, p. 4. 43 DVB, 16 July 1899, p. 9. 44 A-Z, 17 July 1899, p. 3. 45 DVB, 16 July 1899, p. 9. 46 RP, 18 July 1899, p. 4. 47 RP, 18 July 1899, p. 4. 48 RP, 21 July 1899, p. 2. 49 Vaterland, evening edition, 22 July 1899, p. 1; DVB, 22 July 1899, p. 4. 50 Vaterland, 26 July 1899, p. 7. 51 DVB, 26 July 1899, p. 6; RP, 27 July 1899, p. 3. 52 DVB, 26 July 1899, p. 6; RP, 27 July 1899, p. 3. 53 Vaterland, 11 August 1899, p. 6. 54 Vaterland, 17 July 1899, evening edition, p. 3. 55 Vaterland, 17 July 1899, evening edition, p. 3. 56 Vaterland, 17 July 1899, evening edition, p. 3. 57 For these last protests, see A-Z, 28 August 1899, p. 2 and DVB, 30 September 1899, p. 18. 58 DVB, 3 September 1899, p. 17 for news of the gathering of the Christian Social Arbeiter-Reformverein. For other groups at the venue, such as the Christian Social charity Austria, see DVB, 3 September 1899, p. 18. For advertising by Stalehner, see DVB, 7 September 1899, p. 15 or 5 October, p. 15. 59 RP, 2 September 1899, p. 10. 60 DVB, 26 October 1899, p. 8. 61 See A-Z, 8 November 1899, p. 6 and in M-Z, 13 November 1899, p. 4. 62 Vaterland, 11 June 1897, p. 2. 63 Eagle Glasheim, Noble Nationalists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 28–29. 64 RP, 4 November 1899, p. 1. 65 Anonymous, Festschrift zur Feier des 50-jaehrigen Bestandes des Maennergesang Vereins Ottakringer Liedertafel (Vienna: Self-published, 1908), pp. 55–71. 66 Anonymous, Jahresbericht der freiwill. Feuerwehr Ottakring (Vienna: Nekham, 1908), p. 80.

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67 Anonymous, Festschrift, p. 32. 68 Julius Reiter and Franz Hofmann, Jahresbericht des Josefstädter Männergesang-Vereines, 1898–1899 (Vienna: Self-published, 1899) pp. 11–12. 69 Reiter and Hofmann, Jahresbericht, p. 2. 70 Reiter and Hofmann, Jahresbericht, p. 7 and pp. 16–17. 71 AEDW StJECk, 1897. 72 Glettler, Wiener Tschechen, p. 112 and AEDW StJECk, 1897. 73 AEDW StJECk, 1897. 74 The correspondence of all participants in the debate is transcribed in AEDW StJECk, 1897. 75 According to the NFP, 10 April 1891, p. 6, Schindl was elected in Favoriten as an antisemite. The Wiener Abendpost, 24 January 1895, p. 3, reports that Schindl was chosen as Bezirksvorsteher as a liberal. Vaterland, 31 March 1898, p. 9, shows Schindl as a compromise candidate for German Nationalists and liberals against the Christian Socials. 76 W-Z, 31 March 1893, p. 3. 77 AEDW StJECk, 1897. The church had opened in 1876. 78 AEDW StJECk, 1897. 79 See Vaterland, 30 November 1897, p. 6 and DVB, 26 January 1898, p. 19. 80 AEDW StJECk, 1897. 81 Glettler, Wiener Tschechen, p. 114. 82 AEDW StAPCk, 1900. 83 AEDW StAPCk, 1901. 84 AEDW StAPCk, 1901. 85 See Glettler, Wiener Tschechen, p. 114, for the size of the parish, and Vaterland, 31 December 1900, p. 3, for the first mass. 86 See Höbelt, Kornblume, ‘The Domestication of the Radicals, 1901–1904,’ pp. 187–199. 87 John Boyer, Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna: Christian Socialism in Power, 1897-1918, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 220–223. 88 Boyer, In Power, pp. 211–235. 89 AEDW HeCk, 1910. 90 See Boyer, In Power, pp. 258–267, for an analysis of the elections. 91 MVReindorf, programme for July 1912. 92 See Latschka’s comments in AEDW AOCk, 1897. 93 Boyer, In Power, pp. 164–165. 94 MVReindorf, July 1912. 95 Boyer, In Power, pp. 364–365.

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6 War and the end of empire, 1914–18 The first weeks of the war On 28 July 1914, Emperor Franz Josef gave instructions to his Minister President, Graf von Stürgkh, to notify the ‘royal Serbian government’ that a state of war existed between ‘the monarchy and Serbia.’1 Next morning, the front pages of the Viennese newspapers were given over to a statement from the Emperor, appealing ‘to my peoples’ for unity in a war that was to be fought in the cause of exacting justice for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. The declaration of war was a huge risk, in many ways, and the appeal for unity was telling. While the biggest risk seemed to be that Russia, the closest ally of Serbia, would likely retaliate with its own declaration of war against the Empire, testing its military strength, internal tensions and disunity were also potential threats to the Austrian war effort. Disputes between some of the nationally inclined political parties of the Empire were still unresolved at the outbreak of war, and cooperation between, say, the Germans of the Empire and its Slavs might be difficult to achieve. Members of the largest political movement in Vienna, the Social Democrats, were ferociously republican in their outlook and nominally pacifist: it was therefore unclear whether they would work for the war effort at all. And Vienna had also seen food riots in recent years: it was unknown if these might return if the war caused shortages on the home front. Against the expectations of many, the appeal that Franz Josef issued found some early resonance.2 Crowds gathered on the streets of cities to cheer the news, and a number of the previously bickering national interest groups rallied behind the dynasty. It is

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not known how far, if at all, censorship played a part in the reporting of events, but ‘patriotic gatherings’ at the Vienna Rathaus were covered without criticism by the Arbeiter-Zeitung, a newspaper that was usually sarcastic, at the very least, about such things.3 Czech-language newspapers in Prague and Brünn declared that, while they sympathised with pan-Slavic ideals, that is, the notion of the common interests of all Slavic peoples, the Serbian government was at fault, and Czechs should support the Empire in maintaining its integrity against threats from abroad.4 A peace that broke out between rival civilian political factions – the so-called Burgfriede, or citizens’ peace – allowed war credits to be approved in Parliament. Even the Social Democrats backed the war effort, although the enthusiasm of some Socialists was criticised by fellow party members.5 It was no surprise, however, that the Church in Vienna, one of the strongest supporters of the Habsburgs, dashed to give the Emperor its allegiance and to call on others to do the same. On the day that the declaration of war was issued, Cardinal Friedrich Gustav Piffl, archbishop of Vienna, issued a statement that the ‘much-loved Emperor’ had acted in self-defence, taking up his sword against neighbouring states that wished to tear land from the Empire for themselves. Piffl, almost conversationally bringing his fellow Austrian citizens towards him, asked if there was any ‘among us’ who was not convinced of the ‘justice’ of the cause. Expressing his full confidence in this cause, for which sons and brothers were going to war, he asked, ‘If the Lord is with us, who is against us?’6 Piffl went on to say that he believed everyone on the home front would double their efforts and sacrifices in the prosecution of the war. It soon became clear, in different ways, that a doubling would be the minimum that was required. In Vienna, for no discernible reason other than profiteering, food prices began to surge in the very first days of the war.7 Fears grew that war would be protracted, rather than a swift punitive strike against Serbia, when, within a week of the Austrian declaration of war, Russia, Germany, France and Great Britain all made their own entry into the conflict, as a system of international alliances that pitched blocs of countries against each other compelled states to live up to their treaty commitments. AustriaHungary and Germany, the Central Powers, lined up against Russia, France and Great Britain, the Triple Entente, who supported Serbia.

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Others would also be drawn into the conflict, as war engulfed most of Europe and even spread beyond the continent. Rumours and reality both brought uncertainty to Austria. At the end of August 1914, the Diözesanblatt carried an enjoinder from the Ministry of Agriculture for priests in rural areas to counter rumours which, it said, were likely to circulate in the circumstances of a state of war, and which might cause unrest in the minds of certain people. One such rumour, that the funds held by agricultural cooperatives might come under threat as banks felt the strain of war, was to be countered by priests, who were to reassure farmers that such talk held no substance. No doubt in order to prevent any runs on banks, farmers were to be told that it was in the interests of everyone that they should not withdraw their funds, but should instead leave them with the banks.8 In September 1914, as the effects of war began to bite, priests were directly affected by austerity measures, when the Lower Austrian Statthalterei announced that financial restraint was necessary to secure funding for the national defence in extraordinary circumstances. The Statthalterei placed a ban on all work on church buildings, including repairs, unless absolutely necessary for day-to-day operations. This restriction was to apply to work that had already started.9 In addition to this check on their activities, priests found later that month that, because of the partial requisition of public buildings, including schools, the government announced a temporary reduction in the weekly hours of education, including religious instruction, although this situation was soon reversed.10 Refugees Constraints on the activities of priests, and the tasks that they were called to perform, were signs that the world had changed, but they were in reality minor. Far more significant changes were about to leave lasting marks on Vienna, on Christian Social thinking and on the outlooks of antisemites, especially when refugee crises soon came to the fore. After the first major military advance of the war in the east, in September 1914, when Russian armies invaded the Austrian border province of Galicia and inflicted heavy defeats on Habsburg forces, civilians fled west in huge numbers.11 Great masses of people overwhelmed the cities that received them, notably Vienna, and the

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fervour that had accompanied declarations of war was now well and truly stifled. The Viennese press was full of reports of incomers filling the streets of the capital, at a time when news of the scale of Russian victories and the speed of Russian advances would have caused anxiety among the civilian population of Vienna.12 Reichspost ran stories on how refugees had been left destitute in their haste to leave.13 In response, individuals and groups hurried to provide some relief, and the Neue Freie Presse reported on, and even organised, gatherings ‘for poor refugees from Galicia and the Bukovina,’ and carried appeals for donations of shoes and clothing.14 The paper reported that a committee had been set up, headed up by government ministers and members of parliament, to help ‘refugees of all nationalities and confessions’ from those regions. This committee, the paper continued, was being given ‘the warmest support’ by Vienna City Council.15 Enormous problems were caused by the arrival of huge numbers of people and, even at this early stage in the war, in the autumn of 1914, not everyone extended the hand of friendship. An anonymous correspondent for the Deutsches Volksblatt believed that some who reached the capital from the east were not legitimately seeking shelter from war and its consequences. This correspondent suggested that a line should be drawn on a map, and only those who lived east of that line should be found shelter in Vienna and other cities. The argument was that offers of assistance were encouraging people to head west.16 The antisemitic rhetoric that frequently came from the Volksblatt would have made the subtext of the article clear to its readers: the claim that Jews were exploiting the system. Resources to support refugees were soon under pressure. One charity, the Jüdisches Asyl für Obdachlose ( Jewish Shelter for the Homeless), which had been established in January 1914, and which provided accommodation for people of all religious backgrounds, managed to provide more than 500 beds, but funds ran out in October. Newspapers carried appeals for donations to the group, but the scale of the crisis put it beyond the capabilities of small voluntary organisations, even collectively.17 The press now reported that efforts were being made to take refugees to places other than Vienna, since the city could no longer cope with the influx.18 Despite this, refugees continued to reach the capital in large numbers and, by November 1914, officials estimated that up to 80,000 refugees had arrived there. Unofficially, the figure was much higher.19

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If some newspapers were to be believed, people were pulling together, and life in the capital was near to normality. The Neuigkeits Welt Blatt, a mouthpiece for some of the most virulently antisemitic Christian Socials for nearly forty years, now carried reports of a charity concert at the Vienna Konzerthaus for the benefit of Galician refugees, many of whom would have been Jews.20 On the next page of the newspaper, Richard Weiskirchner, Mayor of Vienna since 1913, responded to the ‘lies’ of ‘the foreign press’ concerning the condition of Vienna during the war. Weiskirchner had written a pamphlet denouncing rumours that Vienna was seeing high unemployment, a collapse of business activity and food shortages. All of these, he said, were untrue.21 This statement ran counter to all the evidence that Weiskirchner must have seen every day with his own eyes. Food shortages, unemployment, inflation and other difficulties multiplied, and refugees were an easy scapegoat for everything that was going wrong. The fact that prices had surged in Vienna even before the arrival of any refugees was conveniently forgotten.22 Government help was insufficient, and the city did suffer because of the consequences of the refugee influx. The situation triggered multiple recriminations: Weiskirchner blamed the government for failing to provide adequate resources to cope with the emergency, while many of the residents of the city in turn blamed Weiskirchner for allegedly lining his pockets from the crises. Mutual recriminations and tensions increased across the city, and across Austria in general. The lack of reliable and clearly truthful sources of information did not help to calm matters. Much of what passed as news from official sources was clearly propaganda, and was equally clearly inaccurate at the least, sometimes ridiculous, including content that was completely unbelievable and at odds with visible evidence. From the early days of the war, much of the propaganda output was driven by the military, with no involvement from civilians, and therefore produced without regard for what might have helped morale on the home front.23 Against this background, rumours gained traction. Many of the people of the city blamed Jews for inflicting suffering on the population. They accused refugees of consuming resources that were needed by others, and they accused local Jews of profiteering, often using ‘code words connoting Jews.’24 Refugees were placing considerable strains on specific parts of the city as they arrived at the Nordbahnhof

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railway station, in the Leopoldstadt, and tended to stay there or in neighbouring Brigittenau. Even discounting antisemitic feelings, it was little surprise that police reported from both districts that locals felt ‘invaded.’25 The public front that was being displayed by politicians – that all was well, despite difficulties, and that everyone was pulling in the same direction – was contradicted by the reality that scapegoats were being sought for problems in Vienna. Antisemitic diatribes in the press early in 1915 made it clear that the Burgfriede had proved to be short-lived.26 The Church: supporting the existing order At a time of turbulence, the Catholic Church missed no opportunity to make public its backing for the existing order. In Austria, this meant being seen to support the war effort, while encouraging others to do the same. From the pages of the Diözesanblatt, in October 1914, for instance, priests in rural areas were reminded to encourage farmers not to hoard money that was being earned from the increased prices that war brought for their products. Instead, they were to be instructed to use some of this money to buy tools and other useful objects from Austrian industry, which was struggling under the strains of conflict. Farmers should be told that this use of their earnings was both a patriotic duty and a step in their own interests, a tangible investment for a time when the war was over.27 Such patriotic appeals were routinely made by representatives of the Church in Austria, at many levels, and they were expressions of total belief in the justice of the Habsburg cause, reiterating that the Church stood fully by the throne in its waging of war. In the same month as the appeal for farmers to buy tools made in Austria, Cardinal Piffl made a speech, which was read out in all of the churches of the Empire, in which he described the iniquitous behaviour of the Russian opponents of the Empire and, therefore, by extension, he was spelling out the potential consequences that defeat would bring. Among other misdeeds, he related that the Greek Uniate Archbishop had been kidnapped in Russian-occupied Galicia and taken into Russia. At the same time, Russian Orthodoxy had been proclaimed as the predominant religion in the province, something which would have been shocking for the Catholic audience listening to Piffl.28

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Piffl made an appeal to raise money for the war effort, and said that Austrians should work hard alongside each other: calls of ‘All for one and one for all’ should go out. But Piffl also took the opportunity to spell out a bigger picture of what was at stake in the war. The speech was made as part of celebrations for the name day of Franz Josef, a significant occasion. Bells rang in churches across the Empire, and Reichspost estimated that the speech by Piffl attracted an audience of 10,000 to the Stefansdom in central Vienna. Listeners heard Piffl launch into a near hagiography of the Emperor, for whom, he claimed, all its peoples shared ‘love, inner gratitude and deepest honour.’29 These same feelings, according to Piffl, bound the rulers and peoples of the Empire into an organism with an unconquerable life force: ‘In the awesome, heroic figure of our Emperor is the idea of state that unites all peoples.’ This was a direct statement of support for the Habsburg Staatsidee, the idea behind a particular form of organisation of state and society: a monarchical and aristocratic, hierarchically organised, world, with rulers and subjects and, in this case, a multinational state of many peoples. Given who he was, and where the speech circulated, Piffl did not need to state that religion should also be at its centre. Within a month of making this speech, Piffl would find explicit support for his views on how society should be organised in the pages of a papal encyclical, ad beatissimi Apostolorum (To the Most Blessed Apostles), issued from Rome by Pope Benedict XV.30 Benedict had only recently acceded to the position of Pope, in September 1914, following the death of his predecessor, Pius X, in August.31 On 3 November 1914, Reichspost carried reports from its correspondent in Rome, dated 30 October, that Benedict was preparing his first encyclical and had read a draft to senior Church figures, to determine if this was an appropriate time for publication and whether his words would find ‘authoritative acceptance.’ It was understood that this was not an appeal for peace, but a simple pastoral letter to the ‘flock’ which was entrusted to him.32 When, on 1 November 1914, ad beatissimi Apostolorum was issued, it may have contained no appeal for peace, but it did very bluntly state where the causes of the war lay. In essence, Benedict used the encyclical to attack what can be described as the founding ideas of liberalism and democracy. He suggested that the war was nothing more than a symptom of what he saw as the disorder of the modern world. Benedict lamented that ‘the

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authority of those who hold power in their hands is no longer holy to the mass of the people.’ He regretted that this came from the idea that ‘the origin of all human authority [comes] not from God, but from the free resolution of people.’ He continued that the bonds that tied together ‘superiors’ and ‘subordinates’ had loosened to the point that they appeared to be broken. As with the speech by Piffl, this was a clear statement of the position of the Church, that society should be hierarchically organised, that people should know their place and that authority, since it was God-given, should be exercised by those who received it. It was therefore a statement from the Church that it saw no validity in reforms that would make fundamental changes to the existing order of society. When Benedict continued that he had no need to repeat the teachings of the Church on the errors of socialism, he was simply pointing to the fact that the Church had issued many condemnations of modernity, in documents such as the Syllabus of Errors, from Pius IX, in 1864, a document which, in turn, pointed to further statements that condemned ideas such as liberalism, freedom of religion, civil marriage without a church ceremony and school education without Catholic content.33 It was as if, even in the early days of the war, the turmoil it brought threatened to undermine the values that underpinned the old order in Europe, and Benedict was preparing Catholics for the positions they should take in these circumstances. Ad beatissimi Apostolorum, as well as other statements by the Church in Vienna during the war, would later have a heavy influence on the political and social thinking of Viennese Christian Socials. Long-term problems for Austria Part of the larger strategy of the Entente powers was to deprive Germany and its allies of the resources they needed to fight a war. Entente naval forces therefore mounted naval blockades that prevented supplies reaching Germany, in the north, and Austria-Hungary, in the Mediterranean.34 This affected both military resources and supplies for civilians. Food supplies continued to drop, frequently to extremely low levels, and fuel was at a premium. The Viennese public looked for people to blame, and not just among their enemies. Hungarians, for example, were the target of much ire. Hungary was expected to provide much of the agricultural produce needed in the city, but its

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politicians, as well as its administrators and farmers, were routinely accused of starving the imperial capital, either through keeping an unfair share of food for their own population, or by charging extortionate prices for the produce they did deliver. Profiteers were a target of even greater anger. The supply situation seemed to deteriorate daily, not just in Vienna, but across Austria.35 In January 1915, Cardinal Gaspari in Rome relayed how Pope Benedict looked ‘with profound grief on the horrors of war which, like a tempest, broke through families and cities, wrecking the prosperity of all.’36 Benedict called for a day of prayer, to take place on 7 February 1915. The appeal was carried in the pages of the Wiener Diözesanblatt, which also announced that plans were in place for orphaned boys to be accepted at the seminary at Oberhollabrunn, just outside Vienna. The conditions for entry were for the boys to have a keen desire to become a priest, to have good physical and mental health and to have had a legitimate birth.37 Even at this time of mass grieving, it seems that boys were to be barred from entry because of the supposed sins of their parents. By February, Cardinal Piffl was still playing his part in rallying support for the Habsburg cause. He praised the heroic sacrifices of thousands of soldiers who gave their lives for the fatherland, while thousands more lay wounded, all of whom, he said, had responded with enthusiasm to the call of the Emperor.38 Yet, in that very same month, priests were effectively told that limits were to be placed on formal expressions of grief at their parishes. Instructions were issued that no memorials were to be erected on church grounds, inside or outside church buildings, without permission from higher up in the Church hierarchy, and only after an appropriate competition had taken place. It cannot be said with certainty why such a step was taken. Senior Church members may understandably have been concerned to ensure that such memorials were in suitable taste, but, after the war, memorials took on a political significance, and this may have been a factor in this decision.39 In May 1915, the situation took another turn for the worse, when Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary and Germany. Franz Josef declared this to be a ‘breach of faith’ previously unknown in history, against two allies by the king of Italy, whose greed could not be satisfied. Franz Josef raised injunctions to the spirit of Radetzky and Tegetthoff, among others, regarded as heroes in previous struggles

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with Italy.40 This may have been a betrayal that opened a new front in the south for Austria but, with another frontier now closed, it also meant further pressure on supplies for the civilian population of Vienna and elsewhere, and, as the war progressed, not knowing how long refugees would be staying in Vienna added to tensions there. It was hoped that refugees would return to Galicia if Austrian and German forces could recover and recapture territory. By this reasoning, the summer of 1915 should have brought some relief to the capital, as the Central Powers pushed the Russians back. Whether the refugees, safe in Vienna, found this an attractive proposition is open to question, as their homes would have been devastated by Russian and Austrian scorched earth policies. Certainly, some did return in 1915, and the police in Vienna reported ‘great joy’ as a number of refugees left the city, but this failed to turn the tide.41 Refugees clung to the capital, whatever conditions they had to endure. They also clung to their new homes, for fear that the Russians would mount new offensives and return to Galicia. As a result, reports show that, in October 1915, while 60,000 refugees had some means of support in the capital, a further 125,000 were homeless and penniless.42 Jewish refugees increasingly felt public opinion turn against them, and, over time, even some of Vienna’s own Jews proved to be hostile. Some complained that Galician Orthodox Jews, who continued their long-established custom of wearing considerable amounts of jewellery, should have known better than to do so when large parts of the population of the city suffered severe deprivation. These Galician Jews, they said, were drawing attention to all Jews in Vienna, especially since their appearance was so different from that of the assimilated Jews of Vienna.43 Admittedly, the Jews of Vienna seem not to have attempted any move as drastic as that by Jews in Budapest at this time, who tried to have Jewish refugees from the east turned away.44 Viennese Jews may have tried to distinguish themselves from Jews from the east but, as the war progressed, antisemites moved to attack Jews in general as the root of all problems. Mayor Weiskirchner had previously complained that the refugees should be stopped from coming to Vienna because the city could not cope with the influx, but his hostility ran deeper. In his view, and in a straightforward echo of Christian Social depictions of a Christian-German city, such people

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were ‘incapable of adapting to Viennese mores,’ and ‘their presence posed a threat to the city’s character.’45 Whatever effects refugees were having on the city, even their large numbers were in reality a small threat compared with the consequences that might follow any defeat for the Empire and, in late 1915, official statements gave contradictory indications as to how the war was going. In October, the Lower Austrian Statthalterei made a proclamation in which it talked of ‘the undoubted success of our troops,’ the recapture of almost all of the territory of the Empire and the pushing back of its enemies. Such a situation, it claimed, meant the undisturbed and peaceful continuation of trade. Yet, the Statthalterei was issuing an appeal for gold, silver and even nickel coins to be handed in, in exchange for coins of equivalent face value, but made with less valuable metals. The Statthalterei suggested that this was because hoarding had been happening, perhaps because of exaggerated fears of enemy advances at the start of the war, and because the army had been paying farmers in cash for requisitioned supplies, at the high prices that prevailed in times of war.46 Similar appeals went out for the return of banknotes which, it was suspected, had been buried in secret troves, again through fear of the consequences of war.47 Appeals were also issued late in 1915 for participation in ‘patriotic war metal collections,’ including gathering church bells.48 They would continue to be issued further into the war.49 These were attempts to find solutions to material shortages in metals, but the big fear was that food would run out and, in November 1915, this seemed to be happening in one part of the Empire – Galicia. The Pope, responding to a request from the Polish bishops, issued a call for all Catholics to join together ‘for the destitute people of Poland,’ whether this be in the partitions belonging to Germany, Austria or Russia. This joining together would take the form of collections of goods at mass on Sunday 21 November 1915, which should be sent, in Vienna, to the office of the Viennese Ordinariat.50 The condition of Poland must have been dreadful. The Polish bishops responded to the announcement by the Pope by calling Poland ‘a great Catholic country’ and a ‘bulwark of Christianity,’ but one which has had to endure ‘terrible suffering.’ ‘Countless cities, villages and churches’ had been destroyed by the demands of modern warfare, leaving a country which had been ‘for the most part completely laid waste.’ In military terms, it had been overrun by many troops, with Poles divided against

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each other in three enemy armies, brother against brother, father against son. The effect on the civilian population was hunger, and worse, with all foodstuffs destroyed across a huge area.51 It could not have been far from the minds of anyone in Vienna who read these statements to wonder if the hunger that the city experienced was about to descend to this level, but the Pope and the bishops were also indirectly raising other questions. Not the least of these was whether refugees from the East could really be expected to return from Vienna. Cardinal Gaspari, in an appeal that accompanied the announcement, called for help for ‘the whole of Poland,’ whether Austrian, German or Russian territory.52 This therefore raised the ‘Polish question,’ whether Poland, which had been partitioned and shared between three empires in the eighteenth century, should be reconstituted as a complete state. The ‘German Course’ From Vienna, as the war wore on, questions were being raised about the loyalties of members of other Slavic nations to the Empire. German nationalists assumed that the state could rely on its Germans but, while Germans made up the single largest linguistic group in the Empire, they still formed less than a quarter of the population of the whole state. Even in Cisleithania, they represented only a third of the population, as counted in the 1910 census. Slavs, of different kinds, were collectively in the majority in Cisleithania, and made up almost 50 per cent of the population of the Empire as a whole.53 Their commitment to the Empire was therefore crucial to the war effort, but, in Vienna, rumours circulated soon after the start of the war, and especially after the breakdown of the Burgfriede, that the sympathies for Russia held by some Slavs, especially Czechs, were taking an active form. Police recorded numerous instances of people accusing Slavs, regardless of their national origins, of being Russian spies.54 It has been shown that the motivations behind such denunciations were many and varied. Some came from genuine fears, for example that a stranger who had moved into a block of flats was a spy. Others were attempts to settle personal vendettas by creating trouble for neighbours.55 Sometimes people lashed out, fuelled by a sense that they were suffering unduly. War brought great deprivation to much of Europe, and the Viennese suffered especially badly.56

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Claims that certain Slavs of the Empire were working against the state were also not without foundation, and rumours of disloyalty sometimes had a basis in truth, especially when those who were acting against the Empire were beyond the reach of the Habsburg authorities. For instance, Habsburg agents in New York saw Czech activists openly campaigning for a fund to help achieve independence for Bohemia, including through advertisements in newspapers. These campaigns appeared to be having some success, as it was believed that more than $23,000 had been raised for the fund by December 1914.57 German nationalists, along with a number of Christian Socials, attempted to head off the effects of any moves by Slavic groups by promoting policies and plans to take the Empire in a direction that would favour its Germans, the ‘German Course.’ Several competing German groups drew up manifestos for reorganisations of the Empire, the most notable of which was the 1916 Osterbegehrschrift, the ‘Easter List of Aims,’ developed by the largest nationalist grouping, the Deutscher Nationalverband.58 This manifesto showed that German nationalist ambitions were limited to the heart of the Empire, since the plan called for separation from Hungary, which was to remain a Habsburg state with the Emperor as its king. Likewise, large numbers of Slavs would be pushed outside the borders of the new core of Austria, by giving autonomy to Galicia and Dalmatia. Qualifications for voting would be structured such as to extend or create electoral majorities for Germans in, for example, Upper and Lower Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and the Slovene lands. A long-term Germanisation of the Slavic populations in these areas would come about by means of, say, German being the only language of education and contact with officials.59 The Osterbegehrschrift did not call for union with Germany, so these nationalists must have believed that a viable German Austrian state would survive the war. However, German nationalists overestimated their own status and influence. The pre-war electoral system, with a limited number of mostly bourgeois voters, had given them an undue prominence, and they were, in terms of overall numbers, nothing more than several small, fragmented groups, often in dispute with each other. Nationalist activists and politicians who wished to push Austria in such a direction would have seized on rumours of Slavic disloyalty, but, to succeed in their ambitions, they would need the support of the state and its

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institutions, and they would have to present credible plans for reform to senior government officials. These officials were the backbone of the state, and little could be achieved without them.60 None of the groups involved in producing manifestoes like the Osterbegehrschrift was able to give them credibility. Those who advocated the German Course failed to give details of how, even if victory came for the Central Powers, such plans would be implemented and sustained. They would have had no legitimacy with the peoples who were to be given a lower status than Germans, and attempts to use force would have led, in all likelihood, to a state of permanent insurrection. The advocates of German dominance also failed to address other crucial factors. They paid no attention to the fact that they would also not be supported by a large number of the Germans of the Empire, who were organised by the Social Democrats and who opposed the idea of national dominance.61 Christian Socials occupied positions on a wide spectrum of opinion as to what should follow the war for the Empire. Pursuing a line of loyalty to the Habsburgs, Monsignor Ignaz Seipel, who had been called from his position as an academic at the University of Salzburg into the Christian Social inner circle in Vienna, attempted to give some intellectual credibility to the idea that the multinational state was somehow a more ‘natural’ phenomenon than the nation-state. In his work of 1916, Nation und Staat, he presented an apologia for the Habsburg vision of the world.62 In his view, natural frontiers, such as rivers and mountains, as well as cultural connections such as religion, were more effective and enduring bonds than those that could be constructed from nationality alone. Seipel believed that change needed to come to the Empire, but through its reform, not its demolition. His close associate, university teacher Franz Sommeregger, supported Seipel from the pages of Reichspost, promoting the need for a reorganised Empire that would do away with the need for a Staatsvolk.63 If optimism that these changes could be achieved was the driver behind the production of plans for the future of the Empire, the feeling must have seemed misplaced to many, even then. The war had turned out to be an even greater bringer of destruction than anyone could have imagined in the summer of 1914, bringing deaths of millions of troops and civilians. But the Church in Vienna, while it continued to denounce both the physical and psychological effects of war, defended the reasons why the Habsburgs had launched the conflict.

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In 1916, Cardinal Piffl denounced a dreadful war, which ‘our embattled Fatherland has had to fight for more than two years, against a world of enemies,’ who were stirring up national hatreds to destroy and partition the country.64 The end of the man who had declared war, and who had frequently been held up as the symbol of the unity of the Empire, and all that was good that it stood for, came on 21 November 1916: Emperor Franz Josef died, being succeeded by his great-nephew, Karl.65 This did nothing to change fortunes, and occasional good news about the war was eclipsed by bad. In May 1917, Karl recalled the Austrian Parliament, a step which, he hoped, would induce crossnational unity, bringing all of the peoples of the Empire behind the war effort. Instead, Parliament regressed to its pre-war bickering, and division was the order of the day, as one national group turned on another. Czech and Slovak delegates demanded an autonomous state within the Empire. Croats, Serbs and Slovenes made the same demand for themselves.66 Fears must have grown that such demands might lead to revolution, on the pattern of events in Russia, where the Romanov dynasty was overthrown in March 1917 and where the Bolsheviks seized power in November of that year, especially since the end of conflict there saw the return to Austria of thousands of radicalised prisoners of war.67 This at least led to the withdrawal of Russia from the conflict in March 1918, and to victory in the east, but it brought neither the release of manpower for the war on the western front, nor food from Ukraine for the hungry populations of the blockaded Central Powers. Worse was to come. The last major German offensive in France, in spring 1918, had started promisingly, but it had been pushed back strongly by May. By contrast, the Entente, which had earlier gathered new allies in the shape of Italy and Romania, began to see the arrival of resources from the United States. By summer of 1918, the Central Powers were being squeezed.68 Scapegoats Despite this situation, or perhaps because of it, antisemites in Vienna still found time to look for scapegoats to blame for the deteriorating position of the Central Powers in the war and the ever more difficult conditions in Vienna. They also found new ways to channel their

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message, at large gatherings of supporters. Official complicity must have occurred, given that censorship was widespread and rallies that did not meet with the approval of the authorities were suppressed. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain how, in June and July 1918, a number of so-called Deutsche Volkstage were convened. These claimed to be ‘parliaments,’ at which all Germans could discuss the future, but, in reality, they were rallies organised by German right-wing parties, and the antisemitic content of these rallies was well known at the time, even far away. The weekly Haagsche Post, from the neutral Netherlands, reported that Weiskirchner himself had made a ‘hate speech’ at one such gathering, ‘in which he blamed Jews for everything.’ The response of his audience was applause and ‘calls for pogroms.’69 The Haagsche Post does not say which Volkstag Weiskirchner had addressed, but, in June 1918, a significant gathering of this kind was held at Vienna’s Rathaus. The Christian Social Währinger Bezirksnachrichten called on all members of their movement to attend the event, ‘as a duty.’70 This was to be high profile, with speakers to include Liechtenstein and Weiskirchner.71 Weiskirchner announced that it was ‘not just the refugees, but the Jews in general’ who were ‘profiteers, black-marketeers, smugglers, military-service shirkers, and aliens in a German Austria.’72 This Volkstag was not an isolated incident, and the situation concerning overt and aggressive outbursts of antisemitism was so serious that the board of the organisation that brought together the Jews of Vienna, the Vienna Kultusgemeinde, appealed to the authorities to suppress antisemitic activities, which, it said, were on the increase. The board singled out events carrying the label Deutscher Volkstag as high points for such antisemitism.73 The board was wasting its breath, given that the organisers of the Volkstage had been able to use the Vienna Rathaus for one rally. The only conclusion that can be drawn from a failure to clamp down on the Volkstage is that their views found favour in at least some official circles. While these Deutsche Volkstage were platforms for repetitions of typical antisemitic myths about Jews undermining ‘Christian Vienna,’ they displayed a more worrying characteristic for the future: they were opportunities for antisemites to tell their audiences that the war was turning out badly because Jews had betrayed Austria and Germany, and that they should carry the blame for defeat.74 Prominent figures among the Christian Socials took a nationalistic stance, and used opportunities to build bridges with German

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nationalists. At the Volkstag that was held in Vienna in June 1918, topics on the agenda included relations with Germany, food provision and discussion of ‘the dangers to the state’ that the North and South Slavs presented.75 The Volkstag was no minor affair, and delegates came from across the Empire. No record of the text of a speech given there by Weiskirchner has emerged, but, whether at this Volkstag or as part of a general pattern, he must have been moving towards the nationalists, since Cardinal Piffl warned that he would form a specifically Catholic party if Weiskirchner moved too close to the nationalist, and largely anti-clerical, Nationalverband.76 The claim by the Währinger Bezirksnachrichten that it was promoting an opportunity for all the Germans of the Empire to come together was hyperbole. Few, if any, of the numerically significant Social Democrats would have wished to spend time at the Volkstag. However, the presence of Weiskirchner, Liechtenstein and, presumably, more Christian Socials at a rally where some form of German Course was being promoted shows that at least some bridges existed between Christian Socials and German nationalists. This attempt at collaboration between Christian Socials and German nationalists shows that later claims that Christian Socials and German nationalists were in mutually antagonistic ‘camps,’ between which little overlap occurred, are mistaken.77 Just as they had earlier built a founding myth as a narrative to justify their antisemitism, Christian Socials constructed a narrative to explain the causes and course of the war, basing it on twisted versions of events. Jews, as usual, were the main target of their fictions, such as when they listened to gossip that rich Jews, allegedly with no real attachment to the Empire, were shirking military duty, carrying out usury and profiteering.78 Others also felt their ire. Officials blamed Social Democrats for undermining the war effort when trade unions, in response to inflation and stagnating wages, organised strikes to campaign for better pay and conditions.79 As comments made at the June Volkstag show, Slavs, of one kind or another, were also suspected of disloyalty. In August 1918, those who addressed the Volkstag found support for such stances when the archbishops and bishops of Austria issued a pastoral letter which presented their views on the war, and which roundly condemned those they considered to be the enemies of the Empire, whether at home or abroad.80 According to the bishops,

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the length of the war was not the fault of the Empire, since Karl had responded positively to appeals for peace from Pope Benedict. By contrast, other governments had suppressed peace movements in their own countries. If anyone in Austria was to blame, it was people for whom war was ‘a fortunate opportunity’ in terms of profiteering and usury. If the message was not clear that this meant, mostly, Jews, the bishops reminded their readers that they had earlier been mocked for exposing the evils of large-scale usury, but the war had shown them to be right. Now, usurers were unmoved by ‘bitter need and the sight of poverty.’81 This list of alleged conspirators was completed when the bishops blamed those ‘familiar secret societies, whose participation in this war has repeatedly been demonstrated.’ These enemies, through ‘unscrupulous accomplices,’ had sought to create ‘a movement in our Empire that is like a spark in a powder barrel,’ exploding the ties between the Emperor and his people. Even in peacetime, ‘disruptive efforts’ were being made via ‘radical demands.’82 Whether these were to be considered as nationalist or socialist demands is not stated. In a last-ditch effort to rally support for the war, the bishops optimistically declared that the so-called agitators had failed to instil their ‘radical demands’ in the larger population. They maintained that a situation where it was ‘incumbent upon the threatened fatherland [to win the war] had led to a setting aside of hitherto competing national disputes and … created a united front.’83 This ‘united front’ was, at best, punctured in several respects. Thousands of Czechs, for instance, had fled abroad, to form armed units collectively known as the Czech Legion, which fought against the Central Powers.84 Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk toured foreign capitals to seek support for the idea of Czechoslovakia, a breakaway state to be formed out of Habsburg lands.85 The military situation, and general news, worsened, in small and large ways. On the day that the bishops issued their pastoral letter, Mayor Richard Wieskirchner was forced, for once, to acknowledge that all was not well in Vienna, when he announced that despite the best efforts of all, restrictions would be placed on tram transport because of a shortage of rolling stock.86 On a much larger scale, again on the same day, Reichspost carried news from London, via the Dutch press, that the Romanovs had been executed.87 It was a reminder of what defeat in war, and revolution, might bring to Austria.



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The end of empire The bishops, however, needed no reminding, and while their August pastoral letter contained much that attempted to explain the past, their explanations also displayed attitudes that they would take towards future events. In their view, the war had been caused by moral failings, and by a world that had attempted to remove God from its central concerns. In other words, it was the fault of modern human vanity: ‘A God-excluding science [that] believed in inexorable progress and rejected all other-worldly truths …. Universal care, which insured everyone against accident, sickness, [and] old age …. stands as a substitute for Godly providence.’ The bishops also believed that unfettered competition in business and in relations between nations meant that ‘survival of the fittest’ applied to everyday life. Wars were therefore inevitable in the modern world.88 War, however, was not their only concern. If the Empire did collapse, and if the Emperor had to abdicate, a new state or states might emerge, and the bishops presented an indictment of contemporary political and social thought as being responsible for a total breakdown in the social fabric. In attacking liberal views on individual rights, the bishops argued that the ‘basic evil of our time’ is the ‘feverish search’ for independence, since modern man saw no role for God. Their strongly anti-democratic position denounced ‘false ideas’ such as the ‘sovereignty of the people, the majority of the people as the source of law, [and] the self-determination of peoples,’ all of which allegedly sought ‘to undermine the basis of a social order founded according to Christian legal wisdom.’89 For the Austrian bishops, only ‘reverence for and obedience towards God-ordained authority’ could constitute ‘the basis for all order in human society.’ It was a clear statement that, in the event of a collapse of the Empire, the bishops would support the continuation of Habsburg rule, since the Emperor was the ‘God-ordained authority.’ They were not alone in their support for the dynasty. Even at a time of extreme hardship, expressions of loyalty to the Imperial family could be found. It was a small gesture, but owners of kiosks in the Prater planned celebrations for the birthday of the Emperor. This would begin with a celebratory mass in the nearby church of St Johann von Nepomuk, with an invitation extended to elected local officials. Wounded war veterans would be given free entry to entertainments, including cinemas. Despite

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resentment and anger at the war that the Habsburgs had launched, some remained loyal.90 This statement was made at a time when it was becoming clear that the Central Powers were finished. On 6 August, the final German assault in the west, the Second Battle of the Marne, saw the Germans repulsed. In the west, on 8 August 1918, the Entente, along with troops from other states, began the push that became known as the Hundred Days Offensive. Troops in the west advanced faster than at any time for years, and German forces fell back to the defensive trenches of the Hindenburg line. Against this background of a rapidly deteriorating military situation, Karl attempted to shore up at least some of his empire. On 16 October 1918, he pronounced that his Polish subjects were free to form a new Poland, alongside Poles from Germany and Russia, and that the rest of Cisleithania was to be a federal state, but these moves failed.91 Politicians focused on their parts of the Empire, not on the whole. On 21 October 1918, German-speaking politicians of the Empire, from all parties, gathered in Vienna to discuss the future of ‘German Austria,’ although no agreement had yet been reached on where this state was, or where its frontiers would be.92 Even as Austria-Hungary signed an armistice with the Entente, the Empire was being ripped up. At the end of October, Czechoslovakia was declared to exist, and seceded from the Empire. Other parts of the Empire broke away, or were annexed, to join Poland, Romania or Serbia. The Bezirksnachrichten, in Währing, was ready to accept that the old world was beyond saving. On 30 October, it carried a six-verse poem – a eulogy to the old and a song of hope for the new. In the ‘Lied der Deutschösterreicher,’ the paper declared that it would never forget ‘Old Austria,’ but ended with the plea, ‘Protect, oh German God, your German Austria!’93 German Austria was yet to be defined, but it was highly likely it would have at least some democratic components. In such a situation, the Social Democrats, the arch-enemies of the parties of the right, would have a large role to play. Facing the future might therefore best be a task carried out with allies, so the Bezirksnachrichten urged the Christian Socials to meet the German nationalists.94 At the end of October 1918, senior Christian Socials had hoped to retain something of the past, in the form of a constitutional monarchy, but it was not to be. On 11 November, Karl renounced his daily duties,

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ending centuries of Habsburg rule.95 Crowds cheered in the streets as, the following day, the Republic of German Austria was declared. This state was to be a democracy. A provisional constitution was drawn up that followed the principle of ‘national self-determination.’ It stated that German Austria was to be a part of a new, large, German homeland, since, to the north, the Hohenzollern German Empire had also collapsed, to be replaced by a new German Republic, and German Austria, despite having a few small minorities, was now a predominantly German-speaking state. However, the proposed constitution proved to be worthless, at least with respect to Austria becoming part of Germany. The Entente, inflicting retribution, banned Austria from becoming part of Germany, and even demanded that the word ‘German’ be dropped from ‘German Austria.’ This was a foretaste of what was to come, as German Austrians were told they did not control their own destinies. In this way, a new Austria limped into being. It inherited, on the right, a bitter legacy of antisemitism that had been raised to new levels and ‘justified’ by the presence of so many Jews among the refugees who had arrived in Vienna during the war. The Entente’s prohibition of union with Germany left another legacy: the unanswered question of whether, at some point in the future, Austrians would prioritise their German character and seek to achieve such a union. And one very large question came into view. Under the Empire, the Christian Socials had resisted the introduction of political democracy. They had, instead, favoured authoritarianism, and felt that society should be organised on traditional, hierarchical lines. The new Republic would differ greatly from their vision of the state.96 It now remained to be seen just what part Christian Socials would and could play in the new state, how acceptable they would find it and what they would and could do if they rejected it. Notes 1 RP, 29 July 1914, p. 2. 2 See, for instance, NWT, 29 July 1914, p. 1, for the text of the declaration. 3 A-Z, 30 July 1914, p. 3. See the reaction of the newspaper to nationalist activities in Hernals in 1899, in Chapter 5 of this work. 4 Reports from the newspapers Hlas Národa, from Prague, and Hlas, from Brünn, as reported in NWT, 29 July 1914, p. 8.

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5 Boyer, In Power, p. 370. 6 The appeal by Piffl was later printed in the Diözesanblatt, 14 August 1914, p. 130. 7 See A-Z, 31 July 1914, pp. 5–6, and 1 August 1914, pp. 5–6. 8 Diözesanblatt, 28 August 1914, pp. 137–138. 9 Diözesanblatt, 15 September 1914, p. 144. 10 Diözesanblatt, 16 September and 24 September 1914, single-page special issues. 11 David Rechter, The Jews of Vienna and the First World War (London: Littman, 2001), pp. 68–70. 12 See, for example, Fremdenblatt, 16 September 1914, p. 5 or NFP, 16 September 1914, p. 8. 13 RP, 16 September 1914, p. 7. 14 NFP, 24 September 1914, p. 6. 15 NFP, 24 September 1914, p. 7. 16 DVB, 22 September 1914, p. 15. 17 Neues Wiener Journal, 15 October 1914, p. 10. 18 Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung, 26 October 1914, p. 2. 19 Rechter, Jews of Vienna, p. 74. 20 NWB, 28 October 1914, p. 8. 21 NWB, 28 October 1914, p. 9. 22 See A-Z, 31 July 1914, pp. 5–6 and 1 August 1914, pp. 5–6. 23 Mark Cornwall, The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), p. 6. 24 Maureen Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 67. 25 Rechter, Jews of Vienna, p. 93. 26 Rechter, Jews of Vienna, p. 94. 27 Diözesanblatt, 15 October 1914, p. 159. 28 Diözesanblatt, 28 October 1914, pp. 167–171. 29 Piffl used the word ‘Stämme,’ which is frequently translated as ‘tribes’ or ‘clans,’ but ‘peoples’ fits better here. 30 Carried in Latin in Diözesanblatt, 15 January 1915, pp. 1–10. See RP, 17 November 1914, p. 6, for its summary of the encyclical in German. 31 Diözesanblatt, 28 August 1914, pp. 135–136, for the death of Pius, and a special issue of the Diözesanblatt, 3 September 1914, for the election of Benedict. 32 RP, 3 November 1914, p. 11. 33 Christopher Clark, ‘The New Catholicism and the European Culture Wars,’ in Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser (eds), Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 11–46, here p. 28.

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34 Healy, Vienna, pp. 36–37. 35 Healy, Vienna, pp. 49–52. 36 Diözesanblatt, 28 January 1915, pp. 17–18. 37 Diözesanblatt, 28 January 1915, pp. 19–20. 38 Diözesanblatt, 10 February 1915, p. 25. 39 Diözesanblatt, 27 February 1915, p. 37. See also Chapter 7 of this work, on efforts by Father Schwarz at Ottakring to have a memorial erected in 1926. 40 Diözesanblatt, 27 May 1915, pp. 93–94. 41 Rechter, Jews of Vienna, p. 74, p. 76, and p. 93. 42 Rechter, Jews of Vienna, p. 74, p. 76, and p. 93. 43 Rechter, Jews of Vienna, p. 73. 44 Rechter, Jews of Vienna, p. 77. 45 Rechter, Jews of Vienna, p. 72, p. 78 and p. 93. 46 Diözesanblatt, 27 October 1915, pp. 174–177. 47 Diözesanblatt, 27 October 1915, pp. 178–179. 48 Diözesanblatt, 30 November 1915, p. 196. 49 For example, as a matter of urgency, the Church was required to hand over all copper (roofs, pipes, etc.) to the military. Diözesanblatt, 27 September 1916, p. 143. 50 Diözesanblatt, 12 November 1915, p. 185. 51 Diözesanblatt, 12 November 1915, pp. 186–188. 52 Diözesanblatt, 12 November 1915, p. 186. 53 Sked, Decline, p. 335. 54 Healy, Vienna, p. 153. 55 For many examples, see Healy, Vienna, Chapter 3, Censorship, Rumors and Denunciation: The Crisis of Truth on the Home Front. 56 See Healy, Vienna, Chapter 1, Food and the Politics of Sacrifice. 57 ABPD 1914, St9, 29 October 1914 and 12 December 1914. 58 Begehrschrift translates loosely as ‘Desire document,’ or ‘Wish list.’ For details, see Felix Höglinger, Ministerpräsident Heinrich Graf ClamMartinic (Graz-Köln: Böhlau, 1964), p. 132, and Höbelt, Kornblume, p. 313. 59 Höglinger, Ministerpräsident Heinrich Graf Clam-Martinic, pp. 132–149 covers the Osterbegehrschrift in detail. 60 See Deak, Forging, for a thoughtful analysis of how and why these institutions and individuals functioned as they did. 61 A number of works were produced by Socialists who attempted to balance the individual rights of different national groups and individuals within a Marxist framework. The best known of these is Otto Bauer, Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie (Vienna: Brand, 1907). 62 Ignaz Seipel, Nation und Staat (Vienna and Leipzig: Braumüller, 1916), p. 2.

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63 RP, 23 February 1918, pp. 1–2. 64 Diözesanblatt, 27 September 1916, p. 141. 65 Diözesanblatt, 25 November 1916, pp. 185–186. 66 Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 179. 67 Sked, Decline, p. 265. 68 See the observations on this situation by Count Czernin in Chapter 7 of this work. 69 Haagsche Post, 29 June 1918, cited in Auszug aus der Tagespresse, 18 July 1918, p. 14. Auszug aus der Tagespresse was a digest of news from various publications, produced by the Kriegspressequartier, the Austrian military information and propaganda bureau. 70 Währinger Bezirksnachrichten, 1 June 1918, pp. 1–2. The event was to take place on 16 June 1918. 71 Währinger Bezirksnachrichten, 15 June 1918, p. 1. 72 Rechter, Jews of Vienna, p. 97. 73 Neues Wiener Journal, 28 July 1918, p. 9. 74 See Chapter 6 of this work. 75 Währinger Bezirksnachrichten, 15 June 1918, p. 1. 76 Boyer, In Power, p. 397. 77 The ‘Three Camps Theory,’ that proposes that Germans moved in three irreconcilable and rarely overlapping camps, as Christian Socials, PanGermans or Social Democrats, promoting loyalty to state, Volk or class, respectively, was first put forward by Adam Wandruszka in 1954, in his Geschichte der Republik. The theory is much disputed and is discussed in, among others, John T. Lauridsen, Nazism and the Radical Right in Austria 1918–1934 (Copenhagen: Royal Library, 2007), pp. 89–91; Pulzer, Political Anti-Semitism, p. 276; and C. Earl Edmondson, The Heimwehr and Austrian Politics 1918–1936 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1978), pp. 11–12. 78 See Währinger Bezirksnachrichten, 2 December 1918, p. 3 and 24 December 1918, p. 1. 79 Healy, Vienna, pp. 84–85 and p. 306. 80 Issued 4 August 1918, the letter appeared in the Diözesanblatt, 24 August 1918, pp. 97–105. 81 Diözesanblatt, 24 August 1918, p. 102. See Healy, Vienna, pp. 31–86, for the heavy toll that the lack of food took on the population of Vienna during the First World War. 82 Diözesanblatt, 24 August 1918, p. 99. 83 Diözesanblatt, 24 August 1918, p. 97. 84 Mark Cornwall, ‘Disintegration and Defeat: Austro-Hungarian Revolution,’ in Mark Cornwall (ed.), The Last Years of Austria-Hungary (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2002), pp. 167–196, here pp. 178–179.

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85 Catherine Albrecht, ‘The Bohemian Question,’ in Cornwall (ed.), The Last Years of Austria-Hungary, pp. 75–96, here pp. 91–93. 86 RP, 4 August 1918, p. 8. 87 RP, 4 August 1918, p. 3. 88 Diözesanblatt, 24 August 1918, p. 97. The complaint of the bishops against unrestrained competition should not be taken as anti-capitalist. Catholic and Christian Social protests against capitalism were often thinly disguised attacks on what was termed ‘Jewish’ capitalism and alleged Jewish ‘political dominance.’ See Alfred Diamant, Austrian Catholics and The First Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 122. 89 Diözesanblatt, 24 August 1918, pp. 99–101. 90 RP, 6 August 1918, p. 6. 91 Höbelt, Kornblume, p. 346. 92 NFP, 22 October 1918, pp. 2–3 93 Währinger Bezirksnachrichten, 30 October 1918, p. 1. 94 Währinger Bezirksnachrichten, 30 October 1918, pp. 4–5. 95 RP, 12 November 1918, p. 1. 96 See Boyer, In Power, p. 113 and p. 243 for Christian Social attitudes to democracy as ‘democracy for some.’

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An unloved republic? 1919–26

Upheaval and trauma: the first days of Republican Austria In Vienna, in the winter of 1918–19, leaders of the major Germanspeaking parties represented in the last pre-war Cisleithanian parliament gathered to discuss German Austria. The First Republic was not formally declared until the signing of the Treaty of St Germain late in 1919, but, with the end of the monarchy, the conduct of politics was now that of a democracy.1 Social Democrats, German nationalists and Christian Socials therefore agreed on elections in early 1919 for a constituent assembly to establish the rules for a new republic. Yet even the land that Austria occupied was disputed. Territories that many felt should be within Austria were seized by other states. Parts of Carinthia fell to Yugoslavia.2 Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia were taken by Czechoslovakia, where Troppau, Aussig and Reichenberg, with majorities of German speakers, were renamed Opava, Ústí nad Labem and Liberec. Plebiscites were arranged in disputed areas of the old Empire. Burgenland voted to be part of Austria, not Hungary, a decision respected by the relevant governments and international authorities. However, in Bohemia, majorities that voted to join Austria or Germany were ignored by the new Czechoslovak authorities, sometimes suppressed by force. The Entente allowed the ‘self-determination of nations’ to be bypassed, if this gave Czechoslovakia ‘defensible frontiers’ against potential aggressors. The feeling was widespread that the loss of these territories, and the subsequent ‘exile’ of many German speakers, devalued Austria.3 Social Democrats joined protests against ‘injustice’ towards their fellow Germans.4

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Yet, people adapted. Civil servants struck out the words Reichshauptund Residenzstadt (Imperial Capital and Residence) on official forms and replaced them with the more prosaic Stadt Wien (City of Vienna). Transformations also entered the collective consciousness through informal channels. Sportblatt am Mittag, a Viennese sports magazine, reported the wedding of two leading Austrian sportspeople in Krakow, but made no mention that Krakow, previously in Eastern Cisleithania, was now in Poland.5 At the start of 1919, the Czechoslovak Lawn Tennis Association announced that any sportsperson who wanted to play at the highest level had to renounce, for life, membership of German clubs, otherwise they would be banned from international competition. Other Czechoslovak sports organisations followed suit.6 Sportblatt described these actions as continuing the long Czech agitation against Germans – revenge that could only hinder reconciliation.7 Given the dire economic situation, concern with sporting events was remarkable. Fuel was at a premium, as footballers and spectators found when they turned up at a stadium, only to discover that the goal posts and wooden stadium fittings had been stolen, presumably for firewood.8 City authorities requisitioned fats for soap and for cooking, and they closed restaurants.9 Citizens had to find a job, somewhere to live, and come to terms with the fact that family and friends might now be in a foreign country. These concerns were not limited to Vienna. Economic collapse was a scourge, and threatened the livelihoods of people across Austria, but Vienna was particularly badly affected. It was a city whose economy was largely based on supporting the administrative functions of an empire. Now those functions were no longer needed, and it lacked appropriate levels of productive activity. Traditional sources of food, such as Hungary, became inaccessible, beyond new international boundaries, leading to shortages among the general population. The economic viability of Austria was called into question. Armed militias formed in the cities, often led by Social Democrats, and scoured the countryside, seizing from farmers and warehouses anything they considered surplus to local requirements. In response, largely peasant-based militias emerged to resist the commandeering of food which, they felt, was rightly theirs, and anything but surplus. These militias, often named Heimwehr (Home Defence), worked with local ‘forces of order’ to protect personal property. They would become

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a threatening presence against the Republic, especially as they later adopted fascism as their model. Soldiers, returning home from fronts and prison camps, found a Vienna that was the result of ‘total war.’ ‘Total defeat’ meant that Austria received harsh treatment from the victors. As the Austrian bishops wrote in January 1919, this was ‘not the peace we had expected,’ in which all combatant countries shared responsibility for war.10 Instead, blame went solely to the Central Powers and their allies, who would pay enormous damages for the destruction of the war. Even these were selectively apportioned. Austria and Hungary were classed as guilty; Czechoslovakia and other successors to the Empire were not.11 On the right, the sense of injustice in Vienna was amplified by the end of an entire world. The Empire had been patriarchal, anchored in hierarchies and had given central importance in life to religion. The Republic would be democratic, allow roles for women, and be secular: there was no place for God in the official life of the state. In January 1919, the bishops addressed how the war had ended, lamenting that defeat ‘fills us all, but especially our unbeaten brave soldiers, with great sorrow.’12 This was untrue. The armies of the Central Powers may not have been physically overrun but, by autumn 1918 at the latest, they were unable to defend themselves and could have been swept aside. The Arbeiter-Zeitung pointed to the penultimate foreign minister of the Empire, Count Ottokar Czernin, who had advised Emperor Karl in 1917 that the entry of Italy and Romania into the war had doomed his armies, even before the United States joined the Entente powers.13 Czernin excused himself, and Karl, by blaming the Germans, who had insisted on fighting, whatever the cost.14 Despite these admissions, a myth grew up that the Central Powers had been betrayed by a ‘stab in the back’ from a combination of Marxists, profiteers and Jews – yet another stick with which to beat Jews.15 Jews were a symbol of fear on the right. At the parish of Grinzing, a brief note in the Chronik recorded events. ‘All the German princes driven out,’ it reads, a lament for a world that has been swept away. This was not just looking back, a pining for the loss of hierarchy and rights conferred by God. As the Chronik continued, fear for the future was clear: ‘Jews, Jews everywhere, even in the parliament.’16 Given that Jews had been linked with all of those who allegedly threatened

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‘Christian Vienna,’ it must have seemed that this was the world that now confronted the Church. Shock pervaded Vienna, its effects seen in the entrance hall to the Catholic Church of the Most Holy Trinity in the Josefstadt district of Vienna. Hundreds of inscribed tiles cover the walls, bearing prayers, or pleas for information about missing sons, husbands and others. Occasionally, a tile bears thanks to the parish patron saint, Saint Antony of Padua, saint for lost things, for the fulfilment of a request, but then requests further help. These deeply personal appeals also expressed collective loss and mourning, symbolising how parishioners gathered at Sunday mass or commemorative occasions to offer each other consolation. They show the local church as a focal point of stability for many who had suffered tremendous grief. Conditional acceptance of the Republic? The Church, using its influence on public opinion, could legitimise democratic Austria or undermine it. Shortly before the end of the war, citing popes Benedict XV and Leo XIII as their authority, the bishops of Austria had set out their opposition to democracy. They attacked the notion that sovereignty resided with the people, and that the majority of the people were the source of law, as ‘false ideas.’ These concepts were inimical to social order based on ‘Christian legal wisdom.’17 Supporters of the Republic would therefore have feared in November 1918 that the Church would act as a disrupting force. But the Church seemed to perform an about-face, as Cardinal Piffl announced unconditional support for the constituent assembly. The reasons that Piffl gave – that Karl had renounced his powers and handed them over willingly – seemed to strengthen the hand of those involved in the state-building project.18 However, this ‘unconditional’ support contained a barb, that it was for as long as the constituent assembly sat, and was solely to allow a review of its deliberations. Piffl did not say what the position of the Church would be if it did not like the outcomes. The Church, as was its right, tried to shape the composition of the constituent assembly. In the weeks leading up to elections for that body, pastoral letters were read from pulpits across Austria, and Christian newspapers carried messages concerning the duty of Catholics to support the ‘right’ candidates.19 The elections were turbulent in the

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extreme, accompanied by street violence and sustained and bitter antisemitic propaganda.20 They also exposed the underlying attitudes of the right, as the Church now moved into an openly antagonistic stance towards the Republic. First, the Church opposed specific laws, whether they were carried forward from the Empire or whether they were now to be introduced. Church figures argued, for instance, that ‘traditional’ marriage should be the basis of family life, with all that implied for the ‘rights’ of the Church to intervene in personal affairs, and for the patriarchal nature of society that ‘traditional marriage’ suggested. They said that property rights should be respected, implying that any plans to take private assets into social ownership were to be resisted. Second, the Church put forward opposition to the Republic, and by extension to bourgeois democracy, in principle. Articles appeared in the Catholic press, signed by senior clergy, arguing that a liberal republic would not be based on ‘true democracy,’ which could only be achieved by adherence to Christian values.21 The Church and its allies feared a Social Democratic victory in February 1919, and the elections did see the Social Democrats emerge with most votes, but with only seventy-two out of 170 seats, while the Christian Socials gathered sixty-four.22 The failure of any party to achieve a majority led to the formation of a coalition between Social Democrats and Christian Socials.23 It was an uneasy alliance, but the only feasible way to give some kind of political stability to a country that desperately needed it, as Austria was deeply divided. Social Democratic strength came predominantly from the urban working classes, especially in Vienna. Christian Social support came from rural areas, but also from the urban bourgeoisie. The first free elections to the Vienna City Council took place in May 1919, producing a crushing victory for the Social Democrats, who took 100 out of 165 seats.24 The Christian Socials ended on fifty, while German nationalists, with three seats, fell behind even a Czechoslovak party, on eight.25 These results were no surprise. While Vienna during the Empire had offered opportunities, it was also renowned for its extremely difficult working and living conditions. Christian Social administrations had found money for parks and monuments, they had assisted with church-building programmes, but they had done little for the working class of the city. Squalor was visible in many districts, and Vienna suffered mortality rates that exceeded those of other European

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conurbations.26 The restricted franchise of the Empire had given Christian Socials majorities. Now, a democratic system exposed the real extent of their support in the city. The new Socialist Vienna City Council attempted to improve life, notably in housing and health programmes, but it was opposed by the national government, which argued that such projects were unaffordable. City Council programmes also had social dimensions, and these aspects were opposed at a local level by the parish priests of the city. Among them was Father Ludwig Heppenheimer, parish priest at Weinhaus from 1910, who expressed huge anxieties about the future as he completed the parish Chronik for 1919. He wrote that the postwar world was a dark and dangerous place, where even the arrival of peace came at a terrible price: hunger, misery and Bolshevism. Taking as his template a pastoral letter of that year from the bishops of Austria, Heppenheimer launched a diatribe against the Social Democrats, considering them to be at one with communist revolutionaries in Russia. The Social Democrats, he claimed, desired the ‘destruction’ of religion.27 Heppenheimer asserted that the Social Democrats were dominant in all aspects of life in Vienna, but this was an overstatement. Certainly, the party was far ahead in terms of electoral resources and organisation, and it benefited from a significant network of Social Democratic social and educational organisations, but it had no monopoly on influence. Networks of Christian Social-linked associations that had existed before the war persisted into the Republic. The attitudes and opinions for which they provided homes therefore continued to find environments where they could be nurtured. By the autumn of 1920, a constitution had been drawn up, and elections to a new parliament were called for October. They showed that the Christian Socials were a far from dead political and social force. The Christian Socials now overtook the Social Democrats to become the largest party in Parliament. Christian Socials gained almost 200,000 votes across Austria compared with 1919, while the Social Democrats lost a similar number.28 This Christian Social revival was partly due to a resurgence in Vienna, where they won nearly 280,000 votes, against just over 210,000 in elections to the constituent assembly in 1919. Vienna now sent sixteen Christian Socials to Parliament, although this was still just over half of the twenty-eight Social Democrats who represented the city.29 The Social Democrats

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dropped out of the national coalition and left the Christian Socials to form a government with German nationalists, in the form of the Großdeutsche Volkspartei (GDVP) (Greater German People’s Party). This transition to a new coalition gave the impression that the political life of the new republic was settling into democratic normality. Unfortunately for Austria, it was not. True democracy? In 1919, senior clerics opined that old Austria had failed and needed to go, seemingly giving the impression that they accepted the Republic.30 However, a close reading of their words shows that the secular Republic was never accepted by the leading lights of the Catholic Church, who tolerated it, at best. This emerges in the repeated mantra of Monsignor Ignaz Seipel, who proclaimed that Christian Socials wanted ‘true democracy,’ an apparently bland statement that their aim was a society based on the Sermon on the Mount, with its messages of humility, love and forgiveness of enemies.31 But, through repeated statements that his version of ‘Christian values’ had to be at the heart of any new state, Seipel rejected a key principle of democracy: pluralism. His insistence on the need for Christian values to be at the heart of any state that he could embrace also reflected the antisemitic aspect of his character. For instance, Seipel told the Neue Freie Presse in 1927 that the Christian Social Party needed to be antisemitic, not in the sense that it ‘fought against Jews,’ but against the ‘corroding influence’ of Jewish ‘excesses.’32 The newspaper commented that Seipel always treated Austrian Jews, under the law, just as he treated all other Austrian citizens, but this ignores the ways in which the likes of Seipel created a climate where Jews were seen as second-class citizens, or worse. This also ignores the fact that Seipel treated people according to the laws as they were then constituted. The repeated statements about ‘true democracy’ indicate that, if he had been able, Seipel would have changed the constitution to include the principles of Christianity. This would have been accompanied by a change in the direction of the state along authoritarian lines, something which Seipel attempted to achieve on more than one occasion.33 The company that Seipel kept indicates how far he was prepared to go in pursuit of his aims. Never winning a parliamentary majority for

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the Christian Socials alone, Seipel had to form coalitions with other parties on the right, notably with German nationalists, but also with representatives of rural agricultural interests and, eventually, with the political wing of the Heimwehr movement. Many members of these groups were antisemitic in the extreme. The Greater German People’s Party in Carinthia worked closely with the fledgling Nazi Party there in the period immediately after the war, and its party programme described the ‘principal issue’ that had to be addressed in Austrian politics as the ‘Jewish yoke.’ It also claimed that the ‘Jewish question’ could only be approached from a racial standpoint.34 Seipel helped funnel to militia groups funds from industrialists who were worried about the possibility of a leftist revolution. He took the salutes of paramilitary Heimwehr members as they paraded through Vienna. He offered to provide armed force to support the Heimwehr in any clash with the Social Democratic militia, the Republikanischer Schutzbund (Republican Protection League).35 He aligned himself with groups that promoted extreme German nationalism, even if, for Seipel, this equated with a German-oriented independent Austria. In short, he was pursuing the set-up of an authoritarian ChristianGerman Austria. ‘True democracy’ was more than a personal crusade by Seipel. It was the crystallisation of the position of the Church against the idea that sovereignty rested with the people, and it was an attitude taken from the highest Church authority, such as in the encyclical ad beatissimi Apostolorum. The concept of ‘true democracy’ was a further statement from the Church that it would accept no reforms that made fundamental changes to society. Alfred Diamant has argued that the Church in Vienna was prepared to accept republican democracy, at least initially.36 Janek Wasserman has suggested that Seipel really only turned to ‘true democracy’ after 1927, frustrated by the Republic.37 But Seipel used the term years before this, as his indication of how he would like to reshape republican, secular democracy and to place Catholic values and Catholic authority at the heart of the state. Such attitudes in Austria must be seen from the perspective of the Church internationally. As has been seen, these had been the attitudes emanating from Rome. They would be the attitudes that shaped a bloody conflict in Spain in the 1930s. Austria was no exception. ‘True democracy’ placed sovereignty firmly with God and aimed to eliminate secular democracy. In the early days of the Republic,

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potential conflicts between the reality of the Austrian state and the ambitions of Seipel could be downplayed, since Christian Social governments led mainly by Seipel prevented further social changes beyond those that had come with the end of empire. As long as they remained in charge, and as long as they were unable to change the Republic into something more to their liking, Christian Socials would leave their unloved republic alone. It remained to be seen what they would do if either of these situations changed. Controlling and opposing change During the First Republic, Social Democrats and Christian Socials fought an ideological war through the institutions they controlled: the Social Democrats mainly via Vienna City Council, and the Christian Socials via the national government. This is the broad picture, but it was not just a case of ‘Red Vienna’ versus the rest of Austria. Significant Christian Social support existed in the capital, even if this came from a minority of its population, and the Social Democrats flourished in other urban centres, such as Linz and Wiener Neustadt; but the tussles between the City Council and the national government symbolise a bitter tug of war for the direction in which Austria, not just Vienna, would be taken. Clashes between these two bodies were intense, not least because Vienna City Council had greater influence and resources, relative to the national government, than would normally accrue to a capital city, since the total population of Austria was about six and a half million, of which two million lived in Vienna. The approaches to economic and social policy that were adopted by the City Council and the national government took them in opposite directions, but the root cause of tensions was that the controllers of these institutions held completely different philosophies on life. The Social Democrats sought profound changes to Austrian society, beginning in Vienna, whereas the Christian Socials looked to preserve as much as possible of the social and economic systems that survived from the Habsburg past. Such tensions were not unique to Austria, but mirrored similar struggles across whole swathes of Europe in the post-war period. In Hungary, for instance, a brief but bloody communist seizure of power was ruthlessly suppressed by nationalist forces under Admiral

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Miklós Horthy, who became, in effect, dictator of the country in late 1919. Horthy asserted that the defeat of his country in 1918 was not the fault of ‘true Hungarians,’ but had been caused by alien values imposed on Hungary.38 Horthy declared Budapest a hotbed of liberalism and communism, ‘problems’ he would eliminate through a ‘national and Christian’ government.39 In power, Horthy formed a close alliance with the Catholic Church, and, in return for the ‘Christian’ country he created, the Church legitimised his new order.40 On the day that Horthy seized Budapest, János Csernoch, Catholic Prince Primate of Budapest, gave a mass of thanks on the steps of Parliament.41 Catholic priests and Calvinist ministers then conducted an ecumenical service, where they blessed the flags of the ‘National Army’ that came with Horthy.42 However, numerous constraints led Christian Social politicians to conclude that the best way to prevent the Republic from delivering real reform was by controlling it, and Monsignor Seipel became central to achieving this control, as he was elected to both the constituent assembly of 1919 and to the first parliament in 1920.43 He became chairman of the Christian Social Party in 1921, a position he held until 1930, and then, from May 1922, he was Chancellor of the Republic for five of the next seven years.44 Unsurprisingly, comments in parish Chroniken and newspapers show that Seipel was given enthusiastic support by the Viennese clergy and believers at the local level. He was praised as the ‘saviour of little Austria.’45 He had a populist touch and continued to frequent district-based associations, even after becoming Chancellor.46 It was not just the clergy at the highest levels who attempted to define attitudes, and matters on which parish clergy chose to focus provide insight into the overarching objectives of the Church at this time. Father Heppenheimer helped politicians to participate in societal life. His church, for instance, was the scene of a blessing for Catholic youth in Weinhaus in September 1920. The blessing was accompanied by an orchestra from the district, alongside several other local associations. Just as significantly, representatives from the Währing Bezirk were also present. Showing the frequent overlap between Church and politics, several members of parliament also attended, as did Prelate Josef Wolny, a senior figure at the cathedral in Vienna, who was also a Christian Social member of the Lower Austrian Diet.47

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Heppenheimer died in February 1921, but his successor, Father Leopold Lojka, kept his campaigning banner flying.48 Lojka recorded in his Chronik that he had been taken as a young chorister from a neighbouring parish to hear preaching by the then priest of Weinhaus, Josef Deckert. He noted that Deckert had been ‘perhaps the main prompting’ for his entering the priesthood, and the importance of Deckert for Lojka clearly did not wane in his adult years.49 Lojka added that, shortly after his arrival at the parish, he was told that a church parade there was ‘as beautiful as in Father Deckert’s time. I am satisfied with this praise.’50 Lojka had completed two decades of service as a priest by the time he reached Weinhaus.51 He would have needed to draw on his experience immediately, since his introduction to his new parish proved difficult in the extreme. He arrived in a year that suffered especially cold weather, when fuel was scarce, and his difficulties were multiplied as this coincided with an influenza outbreak. At its peak, the disease was claiming six lives a day in the parish, and Lojka and his assistants had to deal with these and other deaths, as well as the routine business of the parish.52 Father Lojka attended meetings of Catholic associations and events at which, among others, Catholic groups were present.53 In 1926, Lojka and Father Albert Schubert, from the neighbouring parish of Währing, were at a commemoration for Karl Lueger, along with numerous dignitaries from the Catholic and Christian Social world.54 Lojka threw himself into social and charitable work.55 Yet he was selective about which of these events he recorded in his Chronik, and much of what is known of his activities is to be gleaned from the press. Occasionally, when he did record an event in the Chronik, a little pride intruded, such as when he noted that a performance of Haydn’s Seven Last Words on the Cross, at Easter 1922, took place in a packed church.56 Such pride was perhaps understandable. In the world as Lojka pictured it, the Church was in mortal danger, not least in Vienna, where he believed that the Social Democrats were conducting their own version of the Kulturkampf. Lojka was convinced that the enemies of the Church were undermining it, so a packed church was a sign that Lojka, at least, was holding back the tide. He pointed accusingly at members of the education committee of Vienna City Council, who, he said, were encouraging lustful feelings in the youth of the city by

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placing boys next to girls, ‘American-style,’ in mixed-sex classes. He was appalled that youths were missing mass to go on Sunday outings organised by the Social Democrats. This, according to Lojka, could be summed up as ‘terrorism’ and ‘oppression’ on the part of those he disparagingly called ‘Sozilehrer.’57 Like Adam Latschka before him, Leopold Lojka clearly believed that Viennese Christians needed to engage with politics in order to save souls. He saw a conspiracy against Christianity in the policies of the Vienna City Council, through which ‘Christian youth is made Godless and immoral, which is the goal of Jewish freemasonry, whose willing slave is Social Democracy.’58 This so-called conspiracy, an antisemitic trope used by so many priests and explained by none, is also not explained by Lojka, although he might have believed it was behind a large number of people in Vienna leaving the Church after the war, to register themselves as konfessionslos, that is, without a religious affiliation. In 1922, 23,000 people were estimated to have taken this step in Vienna alone.59 But, after this year, Lojka expressed some optimism for the future. Defections continued, but many of those who remained must have been committed and, by 1925, Lojka recorded that attendance at mass in his parish had increased, as had financial contributions from parishioners.60 Unlike Father Heppenheimer, who filled his Chronik with pessimistic observations on politics, Father Lojka was more balanced. Lojka recognised that, while the Vienna City Council was a powerful Social Democratic implement, the national government was a more than effective counterweight to it. In October 1923, elections to the City Council gave the Social Democrats a clear majority, at the same time as national elections saw the two biggest parties both increase their share of the vote. The Christian Socials moved up to 45 per cent of the vote, compared with 42 per cent in 1921, while the Social Democrats gained nearly 4 percentage points, moving up to a little under 40 per cent.61 Lojka observed that left and right had emerged more or less with equal spoils, but he still had concerns about the future in Vienna. The Arbeiter-Zeitung trumpeted that the Social Democrats were closing on a two-thirds majority in Vienna, which would allow them to change some of the statutes that regulated the city, and might confer on it new powers for reform.62 Lojka was concerned that this target might be achieved, if the Social Democrats were able

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to move supporters from areas of Vienna where their votes were just part of landslide victories, to areas where they might be critical in winning seats. Lojka saw signs of just such a plan when he noted that Socialist supporters were being moved to Währing, the district in which his parish found itself, as part of the building programmes of the city.63 Lojka also harboured concerns about the future direction of policy at the national level. A coalition agreement with the German nationalists had committed the Christian Socials to talks in principle with the German government about the possibilities for union between Germany and Austria – Anschluss in the German phrase – and Lojka wondered whether this might come about. Lojka was an advocate for the continued independence of Austria, and a number of factors influenced him to think this way. Among them, Lojka would have been well aware that Catholics would have been a minority in a Germany that absorbed Austria. He would also have been aware that the power and influence that the Christian Social Party enjoyed in Austria would not persist in a Germany whose borders were expanded. In this support for independence, Lojka was not untypical of many priests, and they reflected the ways in which the Church in Vienna at the highest level supported Austrian independence.64 However, neither the Catholic Church nor the Christian Social movement were simply monolithic blocks, and a range of opinions could be found on the question of Austrian independence. One priest who did favour Anschluss was Father Leopold Schmid, a curate at Perchtoldsdorf who, in April 1921, addressed a gathering that took place in Vienna which was announced as an opportunity to discuss the question of Anschluss. It was estimated that 20,000 attended, many making overt calls for the joining of Austria and Germany.65 According to the press, Father Schmid was well received by the crowd.66 Schmid later wrote that he knew that his audience would find it difficult to believe that a Catholic priest would look favourably on the German nationalist cause, but he reassured them that he believed that all of the Christians of Austria should come together, and that they should create a Germany that absorbed Austria. Schmid claimed this was the private view of most of his clerical colleagues, so he was not alone in taking this position.67 However, writing years later, Father Lojka noted that Schmid did not mix much with his colleagues and was regarded as ‘eccentric.’68 Given other evidence of

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support from clergy at this time for an independent Austria, Schmid seems to have been mistaken in his views. Not all priests engaged in politics, or they have at least left behind no evidence of involvement. For instance, the correspondence and the Chronik of Father Leopold Rössler, at Neu-Ottakring from 1912 until October 1938, show no signs of political activity. Similarly, Father Pax, born in 1845 but still at Alt-Ottakring in the early 1920s, also seems to have had no involvement in politics, but he did become involved in a very public libel trial. The editor of the local Ottakringer Bezirksblatt accused a lay church assistant of financial wrongdoing, a charge against which Pax defended him, but this made matters worse. The running of the parish and its finances were questioned, and an investigation was launched, chaired by a Christian Social MP.69 To the embarrassment of many, Pax lost the libel case.70 During the enquiry, Pax had been assisted by a curate, Father Karl Schwarz, who had been appointed to manage aspects of the job which were now beyond Pax. Schwarz exceeded his remit and successfully petitioned for masses to be held according to Armenian and Ukrainian rites.71 He took up the cause of former military men in his parish, appealing to the Ordinariat for a war memorial to be consecrated at the Alt-Ottakring parish church.72 The Church was concerned that such memorials might take on political significance, but Schwarz persisted, eventually succeeding.73 Then, after the libel trial, he pushed for the removal of Pax. Pax, he declared, had embarrassed the Church by supporting a man generally considered to be a liar.74 Pax was effectively frozen out, then retired, leaving Schwarz in dayto-day control of the parish. Cardinal Archbishop Piffl then made Schwarz parish priest, as Schwarz had shown himself ‘worthy and suitable’ to take the parish.75 Stability? As late as 1921, rumours circulated that a coup might be mounted in Austria with the help of the Hungarian government of Admiral Horthy.76 But, little by little, the situation in Austria seemed to settle. In 1922, in order to obtain loans for a near bankrupt Austria, Seipel committed to the countries that would provide the loans – Great Britain, France, Italy and Czechoslovakia – that Austria would remain independent for at least twenty years.77 However, even without this

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commitment, Anschluss was unlikely. None of the parties that made the loan would have allowed Germany to gain either territory or manpower for its armed forces and, at any rate, Seipel did not incline towards favouring Anschluss. His pronouncements on the subject were highly ambiguous, at times contradictory, but it was what he said when it mattered that showed his true feelings. In September 1922, Seipel warned the League of Nations of the risks of instability for Europe if Austria disappeared. Seipel knew that only a change of policy by the league could enable Anschluss, and he made sure its policy stood against union.78 Seipel would later show that his primary political ambition was not to join Austria to Germany but to ‘reform’ the post-war Austrian state away from democracy. These loans provided financial stability and played a part in settling international relations for Austria. At home, Seipel and his party came tantalisingly close to creating their own political stability, when the Christian Social Party fell one seat short of an absolute majority in the October 1923 parliamentary elections. So, Seipel still needed to rely on small parties on the right to form cabinets. If he was to push for constitutional reform, however, he would need more than a simple majority.79 But Seipel had not just been playing a parliamentary game. He had maintained links with the paramilitary groups that had sprung up in the aftermath of the First World War, and he began to explore roles that they might play in pushing the state in an authoritarian direction, but it is unclear how far, in the mid-1920s, Seipel was prepared to go with these thoughts.80 He would have believed that a false step in any action outside legality would face opposition. Internally, this would come primarily from the Social Democratic Schutzbund. Externally, too, any such move would have been resisted by a number of countries, even if the only pressure they could have applied would have been financial. Admittedly, other countries that emerged from the Versailles settlements, such as Hungary and Latvia, had by then cast off democracy, but Austria was under close watch from countries that feared that changes to its internal settlement might encourage Anschluss, and the revival of German military ambitions.81 Late in 1924, Seipel resigned as Chancellor when he came under pressure from elements in his own party, unhappy with the economic austerity of his government, but he retained sufficient personal authority to stay as party leader. His prestige was even enhanced when

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he was out of office since, in 1925, state finances were balanced, to some extent as a result of the earlier international loan agreements that Seipel had helped arrange, and he returned as Chancellor in October 1926.82 On the surface, these events might suggest that by 1926 Austria was stable in terms of its international relations, and that some form of internal equilibrium had also been achieved. The Christian Socials continued in government, while Vienna City Council attempted to finance its own projects. Even the prospect of Anschluss receded. But major fault lines ran through Austrian society, especially in a deeply entrenched struggle between left and right that manifested itself at times almost as an aside. In July 1926, for instance, a major gathering of gymnastics groups had taken place in Vienna. Apart from gymnastics displays, receptions were arranged to greet groups at railway stations; parades through the streets were planned; and sight-seeing tours were organised. Rightleaning gymnastics groups, however, were not just homes for those seeking bodily fitness; they were also places where antisemitism and German nationalism of various kinds prospered, and athletics associations were closely entwined with the Heimwehr.83 So, it was no surprise that the booklet for the gathering carried an advertisement from a department store on the Währinger Gürtel, announcing that it was an ‘Aryan’ store, leaving no doubt that Jews were not welcome.84 The store expected its message to be well received by those at the event, and for this to lead to good business. Such messages showed that divisions and tensions in Vienna were never far from the surface. They would erupt in violence early in 1927. Notes 1 The ‘Law concerning the form of state and government of GermanAustria’ was passed unanimously by the provisional assembly on 12 November 1918. Klemens von Klemperer, Ignaz Seipel Christian Statesman in a Time of Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 97. 2 The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was frequently called Yugoslavia even before the name was formally adopted in 1929. Johnson, Central Europe, p. 193. 3 Johnson, Central Europe, pp. 193–195. See F.L. Carsten, The First Austrian Republic, 1918–38: A Study Based on British and American Documents (Aldershot: Gower Publishing, 1986), p. 9, for details of plebiscites.

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4 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 16. 5 For all of these reports, see Sportblatt am Mittag (hereafter SAM), 19 December 1918, p. 2. 6 SAM, 2 January 1919, p. 1. 7 SAM, 2 January 1919, p. 2 and SAM, 13 January 1919, p. 1. 8 SAM, 9 January 1919, p. 1. 9 ABPD 1919 V3, letter to Frau Lager, 29 January, and 11 November 1919 to Herr Niessner, Hotel Krantz. 10 Diözesanblatt, 23 January 1919, pp. 1–2. 11 Johnson, Central Europe, p. 192. 12 Diözesanblatt, 23 January 1919, pp. 1–2. 13 A-Z, 12 December 1918, pp. 1–3. 14 A-Z, 12 December 1918, p. 1. 15 Karl Tauchmann, Geschichte der Pfarre SS Rochus und Sebastian auf der Landstrasse in Wien III (Vienna: Pfarramt Verlag, 1933), p. 64. 16 AEDW GrCk, 1918. 17 Diözesanblatt, 24 August 1918, pp. 97–105. 18 Diözesanblatt, 18 November 1918, p. 123. 19 Diözesanblatt, 23 January 1919, pp. 5–6. RP, 7 February 1919, p. 1 lists suitable candidates. 20 Election posters from 1919 and 1920, in Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek (ed.), Tagebuch der Strasse (Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1981), p. 136 and p. 152. 21 Diözesanblatt, 23 January 1919, pp. 4–5. 22 Near complete results in NFP, 18 February 1919, p. 1. See also NZ for the same day, p. 1. 23 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 10. 24 Seliger and Ucakar, Politische Geschichte, Vol. 2, p. 1139. Also RP, 5 May 1919. 25 A-Z, 5 May 1919, pp. 1–3. 26 For instance, death rates for 1913, per 10,000 inhabitants: Vienna. 30.0; New York, 20.0; London 16.5; Berlin 18.7; Moscow, 26.7. Seliger and Ucakar, Politische Geschichte, Vol. 2, p. 1111. 27 AEDW WeCk, 1919 and 1920. 28 Diamant, Austrian Catholics, p. 105. 29 DVB, 18 October 1920, p. 1. 30 Monsignor Seipel in RP, 19 November 1918, p. 1 and RP, 21 November 1918, p. 1. 31 The Sermon on the Mount, in this context, appeared in a pastoral letter from the bishops of Austria, Diözesanblatt, 23 January 1919, pp. 4–5. 32 NFP, 14 January 1927, evening edition, p. 2.

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33 On Seipel and authoritarianism, see Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 80–83 and Diamant, Austrian Catholics, pp. 113–116. See also Michael CarterSinclair, ‘All the German Princes Driven Out: The Catholic Church in Vienna and the First Austrian Republic,’ in Paul Miller and Claire Morelon (eds), Embers of Empire (New York: Berghahn, 2019), pp. 177– 202 for a fuller discussion of the Church and its attitudes towards the Republic and towards democracy in general. 34 Carsten, Fascist Movements, pp. 87–88. 35 For these links between Seipel and the Heimwehr, see Carsten, Fascist Movements, pp. 60–62, p. 123 and p. 178. 36 Diamant, Austrian Catholics, pp. 104–106 and pp. 286–287. 37 Janek Wasserman, Black Vienna: the Radical Right in the Red City, 1918– 1938 (Ithaca: Cornell, 2014), p. 2. 38 John Lukacs, Budapest 1900 (Paris: Quai Voltaire, 1998), p. 105. 39 Lukacs, Budapest, p. 294. 40 Thomas Sakmyster, Hungary’s Admiral on Horseback: Miklós Horthy, 1918–1944 (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1994). 41 Sakmyster, Horthy, p. 42. 42 Sakmyster, Horthy, p. 43. 43 A-Z, 17 February 1919, pp. 1–2, and Die Neue Zeitung, 18 October 1920, pp. 1–2. 44 ÖBL, Vol. 12, pp. 142–143. 45 AEDW WeCk, 1923. 46 See RP, 17 May 1922, p. 8. 47 DVB, 30 September 1920, p. 7. 48 Diözesanblatt, 19 March 1921, p. 8. 49 AEDW WeCk, 1921. 50 AEDW WeCor, 10 May 1922, Lojka to Ordinariat. 51 RP, 20 November 1921, p. 9 and RP, 10 July 1922, p. 4. 52 AEDW WeCk, 1921. 53 See Christlich-sociale Arbeiter-Zeitung, 12 May 1923, p. 6, regarding a wedding and Catholic groups attending; RP, 13 September 1923, p. 10, for a silver wedding. 54 RP, 21 September 1926, p. 4. 55 See, for instance, RP, 7 November 1925, p. 5. 56 AEDW WeCk, 1922. 57 AEDW WeCk, 1922. 58 AEDW WeCk, 1922. 59 Viktor Reimann, Innitzer: Kardinal zwischen Hitler und Rom (Vienna: Molden, 1967), p. 27. 60 AEDW WeCk, 1925.

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61 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 35, for national election results. See A-Z, 23 October 1923, pp. 5–6, and A-Z, 24 October 1923, p. 6, for City Council results. 62 A-Z, 22 October 1923, p. 1. 63 AEDW WeCk, 1925. 64 See Chapter 9 of this work on how the Church endorsed a ‘ChristianGerman’ Austria. 65 DVB, 17 April 1920, evening edition, pp. 1–2. 66 NWT, 18 April 1921, p. 3. 67 SR Pfarrblatt, March 1938, citing DVB of 17 April 1921, pp. 53–57. 68 AEDW WeCk, 1936. 69 AEDW AOCor, 20 April 1923. 70 Numerous pieces of correspondence between parish and Ordinariat cover the case. AEDW AoCor, 1923–7, e.g. 5 June 1923, a letter of support for Pax, but also 22 May 1927, Schwarz to Ordinariat on the loss of the case. 71 AEDW AoCor, 9 January 1923. 72 AEDW AoCor, Schwarz’s note of 23 January 1923. 73 AEDW AoCor, 28 April 1926. 74 AEDW AoCor, 22 May 1927, Schwarz to Ordinariat. 75 AEDW AOCor, 30 March 1928, Piffl to Schwarz. 76 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 27. 77 Jürgen Gehl, Austria, Germany and the Anschluss, 1931–1938 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 3. See also Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 29, and Rolf Steininger, ‘12 November 1918–12 March 1938: The Road to Anschluss,’ in Rolf Steininger et al. (eds), Austria in the Twentieth Century (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2002), pp. 85–114, p. 96. 78 Alfred D. Low, The Anschluss Movement 1931–1938 (New York: East European Monographs, 1985), p. 21. 79 See NFP, 25 October 1923, pp. 5–6. 80 Klemperer, Seipel, throughout, includes an excellent discussion of possible plans that Seipel considered, but has little concrete evidence of those that Seipel seriously thought of implementing. 81 Such surveillance carried on into the long term. See, for instance, Anita Ziegerhofer, ‘Austria and Aristide Briand’s 1930 Memorandum,’ AHYB, 29 (1998), 139–60. 82 Low, Anschluss, pp. 28–31. 83 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 107. 84 Programme for Deutscher Turnerbund (1919) events, July 1926. Available in ABPD, 1919–33.

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The right asserts itself, 1927–33

A divided city, an unstable world The political equilibrium that existed in Vienna in 1926 was based at least in part on the notion that the militia of right and left would cancel each other out if conflict erupted.1 Acceptance of the Republic by many on the right was also highly conditional for other reasons, as the Arbeiter-Zeitung indicated. On 1 January 1927, the newspaper reflected that recent bourgeois claims to have embraced the modern state were a sham, and that the bourgeoisie of central and eastern Europe would tolerate democracy only as long as no real social or economic reforms were implemented. This, the newspaper suggested, was the thinking of Christian Socials, who participated in the state for the benefit of themselves and their allies alone.2 A reading of a Christian Social Party manifesto that was published on the same day as the Arbeiter-Zeitung article supports these views, despite the words with which the manifesto begins. These include a statement that the Christian Social Party was a ‘people’s party,’ which promoted the well-being of the public ‘without distinction between one occupational group and another,’ a swipe at the apparent Social Democratic aim of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ The manifesto, prepared for elections that were to take place that year, proposed its version of ‘true democracy,’ as put forward by Ignaz Seipel: that the state and Church should have a close bond, and that Church teaching should form the basis of all intellectual, moral and physical education, through confessional schools. The manifesto continued that, as a ‘nationally minded party,’ the Christian Social Party demanded fair treatment of Germans among the ‘national families’ of Europe. It required the resolution of

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relationships between Germans – implying the question of Anschluss – to be settled on the basis of ‘national self-determination.’ This should not, however, be taken as a call for Anschluss, simply for Austrians to have the chance to speak on the matter. It wanted ‘Christian moral law’ to create a ‘true reconciliation of the peoples,’ and ‘a sincere collaboration of all peoples’ to bring enduring peace. Yet, the manifesto did not put forward the first task for this ‘nationally minded party’ as being to achieve national self-determination, nor peace among the peoples. Instead, it identified its first task as being to engage in the ‘struggle against the supremacy of corrosive Jewish influence in the spiritual and economic spheres.’3 Jews were painted as enemies of the people, so, when the Christian Social manifesto claimed to make no ‘distinction between one occupational group and another’ among the people, there was a much bigger distinction that excluded Jews from membership of the people altogether. As with other antisemitic propaganda, the manifesto does not explain how Jewish ‘supremacy’ has come about but, in some ways, it does not have to. The point of such a manifesto was not to demonstrate specific policies or objectives. It was not to present reasoned arguments to people who already supported the party, or who might come to support it. As Reichspost recognised, it was not so much a manifesto as a Credo for the Party.4 Like any Credo, it was a statement of belief, and it was to be followed without question. It was a banner under which to gather in the struggle to construct a Christian-German state. This struggle did not just come to light in set-piece political propaganda; it was evident in daily life. The Church continued to be the focal point for many social groups that embraced religion, Austrian patriotism and German culture as values for life. While Social Democratic groups were by far the most numerous, associations linked in some way to the Christian Social movement continued to proliferate: Christian groups for the retired; amateur photographers; associations for hunting and nature preservation. Each of these provided an opportunity for people of similar opinions to meet, share reminiscences and be part of the bigger cause in the struggle between left and right.5 Schattendorf and a new confidence Extreme social problems caused great suffering, but, although Vienna suffered extremes of unemployment, most of its people had work,

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however hard, and accommodation, however poor.6 Cinemas were dotted around the city; sporting events were a popular feature of daily life, from football and ice hockey to horse racing; and radio brought news and entertainment into homes.7 These all seemed to indicate a society with time and resources to spare beyond daily struggles. But Vienna in 1927 remained a troubled city in a world that had still not recovered from the war and its consequences, and profoundly held ideological positions demarcated people and groups as left or right, Aryan or non-Aryan, and deepened divisions. They meant that, when life in the city appeared to be stabilising, the potential for serious trouble was still just beneath the surface. As it has been put: ‘By the spring of 1927 democratic institutions seemed to have secured a relatively firm footing in Austria. That appearance was deceptive. The same year saw the beginning of the deterioration of Austrian democracy.’8 Serious trouble did emerge in 1927, when Social Democrats assembled in the town of Schattendorf, in the Burgenland, on 30 January. As a precaution against right-wing violence that had accompanied previous attempts to organise gatherings there, the Schutzbund was present. However, armed members of a right-wing organisation for veterans were also there and fired on the crowd, killing one man and a child, as well as wounding four Schutzbund members. In response, Social Democrats demonstrated in large numbers in many urban centres against what they termed ‘murder.’9 The Christian Social Reichspost viewed matters differently. It reported that the Schutzbund had attacked the veterans and that a gunfight had followed, resulting in the casualties.10 The events at Schattendorf caused tensions, but not yet enough to disrupt the daily life of the Republic, and in April 1927, national elections were able to take place. Christian Socials and the Greater German People’s Party formed a coalition, known as the Unity List, to contest the elections. The coalition fielded a single list of candidates, won the largest share of the vote, 48 per cent, and achieved a majority in Parliament, with eighty-five seats. Compared with the 1923 elections, however, the coalition had brought no gains to its members. Instead, Christian Socials and nationalists saw the agrarian, nationalist Landbund, to their right, gain four seats, to move to nine. The Social Democrats also advanced – to over 42 per cent of the vote, and seventy-one seats.11 Nevertheless, the previous ruling coalition held, and Seipel continued as Chancellor.

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The ability to conduct elections was not, however, a sign of stability. A little less than three months later, on a July evening in 1927, Father Anton Bauer, recently installed as priest at the parish of Hernals, was returning to Vienna after an outing by train to Aspang, in Lower Austria. As he approached the city, it was clear that a major disturbance was taking place. He saw flames from the Palace of Justice lighting the sky, and once he was back in the city, he could see more fires had been started, by the Schwarzenbergplatz and the opera. Injured and wounded littered the streets, and Father Bauer acted as an auxiliary doctor to treat those in need. Around him, police worked their way through crowds, searching suspects for weapons.12 As night progressed, Father Bauer, accompanied by the military, was able to make his way by foot to Hernals, where he learned how trouble had erupted that day, 15 July, when the consequences of events at Schattendorf reached a conclusion.13 Investigations into the shootings had continued into the summer, and despite a number of delays, three suspects were arrested. Their trial eventually took place in Vienna, but all were acquitted of the charges – the result, ArbeiterZeitung suspected, of members of the jury having been deliberately chosen for their right-wing sympathies. The foreman of the jury, for instance, had laughed throughout the trial and had not concealed his hatred for Social Democrats.14 The acquittals were the final straw for many Social Democrats, who had witnessed light sentences and reduced charges for those who had been found guilty of right-orchestrated violence in 1923 and 1925.15 In Vienna, furious and spontaneous reactions by the workers on the day the acquittals were announced saw riots break out. The law courts were stormed and burnt down, as Social Democratic leaders lost control of many of their followers. The authorities in Vienna deployed troops to help police suppress rioters. Police and right-wing agitators played their part in goading demonstrators into escalating the violence of their protests, therefore ‘justifying’ an even greater reaction on the part of the authorities.16 Ninety workers were killed, 600 were wounded, and the Arbeiter-Zeitung was reduced to making appeals for Social Democrats to cease violent protests, while simultaneously calling for strike action.17 Shooting could still be heard in Vienna into the evening of 16 July.18 The Schutzbund, a marginal presence during these events, did keep its discipline and followed the orders of its leaders not to

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intervene. The workers endured a crushing reverse.19 Leading Social Democrats approached Seipel to ask him to make some concessions to the workers, but Seipel refused, as the Social Democrats had nothing to bargain in return, and the Social Democratic response to Schattendorf, including a general strike, faded to a whimper. But Schattendorf and July 1927 left a bitter legacy of resentment for the Social Democrats.20 This time, they found someone other than Seipel to blame for the outcome: Johannes Schober, chief of the Vienna police, nominally an independent MP, but de facto parliamentary leader of the German nationalists in the coalition with the Christian Socials. He had expressed sympathies for the Heimwehr, and he was publicly denounced by Social Democrats as an assassin.21 Father Lojka, in Weinhaus, noted the events but failed to reflect on them in any meaningful way. A considerable number of people had lost their lives or been seriously wounded, and all he could write in his Chronik was that the tumultuous events of 1927 were an overreaction by Socialists to the shooting of some of their number by people engaged in the legal protection of their property, a reference to a claim that emerged after the Schattendorf shootings.22 It seems that, in these circumstances, Lojka considered that the rights of property superseded those of life. Condemnations and recriminations came from all sides, but fears that confrontations might lead to civil war proved unfounded, for now at least. Instead, low-level ideological conflict persisted. The Church made calls for its followers to join the Heimwehr.23 The Socialists called on their followers to renounce membership of the Church.24 Given that the Schutzbund had not intervened, its strength against either the forces of the state or the right-wing militia had not been tested, so it was unclear if it could be an effective counter-weight to them. But these events appeared to show Social Democratic weakness and, overall, it is difficult to disagree with the conclusion that the events of 1927 gave impetus to ‘a sustained counter-revolutionary thrust and the rapid growth of the Heimwehr.’25 The incidents post-Schattendorf destroyed any illusions that a Social Democratic triumph was inevitable. Instead, the Social Democrats moved on to the defensive.26 By contrast, the right had gained confidence in its own strength, even if it did not yet believe that it could move effectively against democracy.

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From the riots of 1927 to the elections of 1930 The right was not a single entity, and it lacked a unifying purpose and leadership. The Christian Social Party, and the movement that backed it, was the largest single bloc, but alongside it existed German nationalists of various political complexions; militia groups of ‘home defenders,’ on the one hand, and war veterans on the other; and small but rising numbers of Nazis. These should not be seen as mutually exclusive groupings, and considerable overlaps occurred. Christian Socials and nationalists might belong to one or more militias. Nationalists, and others, could form short-term alliances with Nazis. This made it difficult to agree a common way forward, but all of these groups felt that the Republic, in its present shape at least, had to go, even if this was by revolutionary means. Plans were made to undermine the Republic, whether by violence, or at least the threat of violence, or by constitutional means. Seipel attempted to change the constitution, in order to take powers away from Parliament and to reinforce those of the president. He produced several proposals to this effect, claiming that these changes would make it easier to take decisive and necessary action when required. Opponents of Seipel feared that he intended to take Austria in an authoritarian direction under his leadership.27 The Social Democrats still followed a gradualist path, continuing with such policies as encouraging people to leave the Church, and in 1927, they did persuade more than 28,000 to do so.28 In Vienna in that same year, in an effort to improve living conditions and to bring about real social change, they began construction of the enormous housing scheme, the Karl-Marx-Hof, which would take until 1930 to complete.29 And despite their revolutionary rhetoric, and their assurances to their supporters that they judged Schober as a murderer, their leaders later confided to British diplomats that they considered Schober an acceptable figure in government, far more so than many from the right of the Christian Social Party.30 Social Democratic actions still outraged many Christian Socials. Taking people away from the Church or naming parts of Vienna after Marxist heroes and heroines was, to them, an insult against what they perceived was the ‘real’ character of the city. However, Seipel was still constrained in the options for action that were available to him. Western governments ensured that parliamentary processes had to be

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followed. His slim parliamentary majorities also limited his scope for manoeuvre in trying to amend the constitution in an authoritarian direction. The extent to which he could rely on the likes of the Heimwehr as an effective force was also unclear. The Heimwehr was a far from unified body, more a loose collection of locally based groups with leaders who challenged each other for supremacy in Austria, such as Richard Steidle, leader in Tyrol, and Walter Pfrimer, leader in Styria. Both men expressed admiration for Mussolini and how he had crushed the left opposition in Italy, removed parliamentary democracy and created a ‘corporate state,’ where representation of the people was allegedly through occupationally based ‘estates’ rather than political parties that were said to pit the interests of classes against those of the nation as a whole.31 However, if Seipel was hoping for a transformation of Austrian politics via the Heimwehr, he was to be badly disappointed, despite some promising signs. In May 1930, it seemed that the Heimwehr was prepared to move against the Republic, when a large group of followers gathered in the Lower Austrian town of Korneuburg. Many of those present, as well as being members of the Heimwehr and associated Heimatschutz (Home Protection) militia, were also members of the Christian Social Party. These included the likes of Julius Raab, an MP in the Parliament of the Republic from 1927 onwards, as well as Steidle.32 An oath was taken that called for a renewal of Austria from the ground up, and a commitment to ‘enthusiastic love for the homeland.’ Those taking the oath vowed to seize power, not for themselves, but for all ‘in the community of the German people.’ The oath called for a rejection of Western democracy and the ‘party state,’ which should be replaced by a corporate state with strong leadership. The range of targets for rejection included Jews, Marxists and liberal-capitalists, and the idea of the class struggle was condemned. The oath also promised belief in God. Conflicting records of events at the gathering exist, especially as to whether serious plans were made and whether a date was set for a move against the Republic, but the belief spread that a coup was imminent.33 The summer of 1930 came and went, but the paramilitaries made no move, and their talk dissipated into hot air. This must have disappointed many of their supporters. According to the British, Seipel

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was the ‘arch-encourager of the Heimwehr movement.’ He had long been prepared to turn the Heimwehr loose against the Social Democratic Party, not just against the Schutzbund, as he believed the Social Democrats wanted to destroy the Christian Socials. The British believed that Seipel, in this way, viewed the Heimwehr as necessary for Austrian politics.34 Seipel was not alone in the Church in supporting Heimwehr and similar groups. Just as the Church had blessed the flags of the followers of Horthy in Hungary, priests blessed the banners of right-wing militia in Austria, although this did at least occasion some debate as to whether this was an activity that was fit for the Church.35 In 1930, Father Lojka, in Weinhaus, took time away from recording in his Chronik the daily concerns of parish life to write approvingly, and at length, about Richard Steidle. In the view of Lojka, it was good that Steidle had ‘finally unmasked himself and declared that the Heimwehr rejects democracy and parliamentarianism.’36 Given that this was 1930, the entry must have been a reference to the Korneuburg Oath. Lojka did not hold back on his enthusiasm for bringing an end to democracy. He welcomed ‘with an open heart’ the intention of Heimwehr leaders to use fascism as the basis on which to build Austria.37 Foreign authoritarian governments lent their approval, and the Heimwehr attracted money from abroad, principally from Hungary and Italy, whose governments would have opposed any leftwing shift in Austrian politics.38 These groups also found support from domestic sources. While it was not surprising that, in the uncertain climate of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, conservative industrialists would offer financial assistance, it was widely suspected that the Viennese branch of the Rothschild family was providing finance for the Heimwehr, despite this group’s known antisemitic sympathies.39 In a private meeting at the British legation, even Moritz Benedikt, the Jewish owner and chief editor of the Neue Freie Presse, spoke in favour of the Heimwehr and against the Socialist militia. Benedikt denied being a supporter of the Heimwehr, but he did say its existence was essential to prevent the ‘triumph of Bolshevism in Austria.’40 Presumably, he thought that supporting the Heimwehr created a balance between left and right. The ‘triumph of Bolshevism in Austria,’ however, was not going to come about in 1930. In November, the Social Democrats emerged from national elections as the largest single party, with 41 per cent of

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votes cast, but they were a long way from a majority and had even lost a little ground in terms of number of votes and percentage share. The Christian Socials campaigned separately from their nationalist coalition partners, but in alliance with a political wing of the Heimwehr.41 The alliance won just under 36 per cent of mandates. The Heimwehr, despite its small size, managed to fracture, temporarily at least; and a separate contingent of the Heimwehr, the Heimatblock (Homeland Block), which disagreed on electoral tactics, stood in the elections. The Heimatblock emerged with 6.1 per cent, but did not stay separate for long from the Christian Social-led alliance, and it joined the governing coalition.42 A new nationalist grouping, the National Economy Bloc, under Schober, took 11.6 per cent of votes, and therefore held the balance of power in Parliament. The Nazi Party took only 3 per cent. Another right-wing coalition was formed for the national government, this time under Christian Social former Vice Chancellor Carl Vaugoin, as Seipel stepped aside to become foreign minister. Reichspost declared that this was a ‘Triumph for the Government,’ and that the Social Democrats had ‘lost the struggle for power,’ with a majority for ‘the non-Marxists’ in Parliament.43 However, the Christian Social Party was falling behind the Social Democrats and had lost support to its coalition partner under Schober, with losses especially heavy in Vienna. The shifting nature of politics on the right in the First Republic make direct comparisons difficult, but Schober had, in 1930, clearly tempted former Christian Social supporters to his side. In 1923, the last year that German nationalists had campaigned separately in Vienna in parliamentary elections, as the Greater German People’s Party, they had garnered a little over 50,000 supporters.44 In 1930, they advanced to almost 125,000. The corresponding Christian Social collapse in the capital must have been depressing for the leaders of the party. Having polled a peak of almost 340,000 votes in the city in 1923, they collected only 280,000 in 1930, while the Social Democrats now found over 700,000 supporters.45 Despite the falling back of the Christian Social vote and the Social Democrat push into first place in national elections, and despite loud and highly publicised pledges by members of the Heimwehr to put an end to democracy, no coup took place. The right took no extraparliamentary action of any consequence. Despite the instability that saw other central and eastern European countries shake off democracy, no realistic move to do so was made at this time in Austria. To

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some extent, this was because Austria was still not in charge of its own destiny, and it was unclear what sanctions would be taken by foreign powers if democracy was challenged. After the events of 1927, the British had protested about the treatment of Social Democratic leaders.46 In 1930, the French had made it clear that even a customs union between Austria and Germany would be regarded as a step towards Anschluss, and therefore a breach of the conditions of Versailles. They warned of potential consequences, and the agreement remained unsigned.47 However, the lack of a move against the Republic was not just because of foreign pressures, but because of divisions within the right. For instance, in April 1930, Steidle had won financial support from Italy but, by September of that year, he had been shown not to be the leader people had imagined, failing to bring unity. Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg then took over from him as de facto leader of the Heimwehr.48 This brought a shift in the orientation of the group. Whereas Steidle had leaned in the direction of Italian fascism, Starhemberg, at this time, was an admirer of the Nazis, and he believed that the Nazis and the Heimwehr would merge at some point, as the vanguard that fulfilled the future of a united Germany. In October 1930, Starhemberg proclaimed, We are all conscious that we are a German people; we want to make the old Ostmark German and Christian again; this will be only the first stage, until a greater German Empire comes into being, which will last for many thousand years.49

While Starhemberg differed from many Christian Socials in aiming at the surrender of Austrian independence, he publicly shared their antisemitism. For instance, addressing a gathering in the Heldenplatz, he turned on the Jewish head of finance of Vienna City Council, Hugo Breitner, declaring that ‘We will only have victory when the head of that Asiatic is rolling in the sand.’50 Despite such crude statements, Starhemberg retained the admiration of the likes of Father Lojka.51 Starhemberg may have made grand claims for the future, but he was leader of a movement that was capable of little on its own and whose appeal remained limited. In 1931, the Heimwehr fielded candidates for provincial elections and failed to win a single seat, and it was the turn of Starhemberg to be compelled to step aside. His successor, Walter Pfrimer, was no more effective, but he at least showed that he

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was prepared to ‘honour’ the Korneuburg Oath. In September 1931, Pfrimer attempted a coup against the government that was so badly executed that Pfrimer was mocked for being the ‘half-day dictator,’ a reference to how long it took to suppress the move.52 Starhemberg, again, came back as leader. By 1931, old players were withdrawing from the scene, to be replaced by younger men. Seipel had already been in ill health for some time, and he had stepped down as Chancellor in May 1929; the end of his formal political career came soon after. Schober, who had spent a year as Chancellor from September 1929, was also in ill health by now. Neither man had achieved any significant ‘reform’ of the Republic in an authoritarian direction. Others on the right promised action to restore their imagined German Christian past, but in 1931 they seemed far from being able to achieve this. Remarkably, during 1932 and 1933, circumstances and people came together to give the anti-republicans a thrust to success. The Nazi breakthrough of 1932 In April 1932, elections for the Vienna City Council delivered a massive shock to the Austrian political system. The Social Democrats continued to dominate the capital, with 680,000 votes, and among industrial workers ‘support for the Social Democrats in Austria held up extraordinarily well.’53 However, the Christian Socials in Vienna failed to recover the ground they had lost in parliamentary elections in 1930, and even fell back by almost 50,000 votes, to around 233,000. Their previous main challengers on the right, the German nationalists, gathered only 35,000 votes.54 In their place, the Nazis stormed to over 200,000 votes.55 This was 17.5 per cent of the turnout, a leap from 3 per cent in Vienna in the national elections of 1930. While one Viennese Socialist paper boasted of huge successes for the Social Democratic Party, a smaller headline matter-of-factly announced, ‘Swastika men halve the Christian Socials and annihilate the PanGermans.’56 A larger headline would have been justified, given that this result mirrored the breakthrough the Nazis had achieved in Germany where, in national elections, they had risen from 2.6 per cent of the vote in May 1928 to 18.25 per cent in September 1930.57 The question in April 1932 was whether the Nazis were a transient phenomenon in Austrian politics, or whether they were establishing a

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more permanent, even larger, presence. Part of the answer came with further Nazi advances in provincial polls. Reichspost noted a ‘Surge of National Socialism, but great losses for the moderate bourgeois parties.’58 The Christian Social Party lost majorities it had long held in conservative strongholds in Salzburg and Lower Austria.59 Further Nazi success in Germany suggested that the Nazis would continue to rise in Austria. Nazi gains had come from both the Christian Socials and the German nationalists.60 The Nazi gain of 173,000 was a close match for the combined Christian Social and nationalist losses of 165,134, a pattern repeated in detail in individual districts. In Floridsdorf, in the north of Vienna, Nazi gains went beyond the losses of the traditional right, but turnout was up significantly here compared with that of 1930, and the Social Democrats also gained significantly. The left held firm, but the right, both nationalist and Christian Social, began to fall behind the Nazis. As John Lauridsen has observed, between 1930 and 1933, political reconfiguration took place not between the blocs, but within the bourgeois bloc. Furthermore, it was not only the adherents of the national camp who found their way to Nazism.61

The results were a disaster for the nationalists, who lost three-quarters of their followers from 1930. Das kleine Blatt had exaggerated in saying Christian Social support had been halved, since the party had, in fact, lost a little under one-fifth of its vote. However, in five districts in the capital, the Nazis emerged as the largest right-wing party, and they challenged closely for this position in several others. For the Christian Socials, as much as for the German nationalists, it seemed that the writing was on the wall. After all, despite many and deep differences between committed Christian Socials and Nazis, less committed supporters might be tempted to switch allegiance to a party that, like the Christian Socials, promoted antisemitism and support for ‘German values,’ and which was showing itself to be the party of the moment. Nazi electoral success led to the collapse of the latest coalition, and a new administration was formed under Christian Social Engelbert Dollfuss, who became Chancellor on 20 May 1932.62 Dollfuss responded to the Nazi threat by adding muscle to his cabinet, bringing in leading members of the Heimwehr as ministers.63 Dollfuss, only thirty-nine, was one of the younger politicians rising through the

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senior Christian Social ranks, and the generational gap between him and his predecessors as Chancellor was emphasised by the deaths of both Seipel and Schober, in August 1932. The edition of Reichspost that announced a surge in Nazi support ran this as a sub-headline on its front page, leading instead with ‘No Red Austria.’ This highlighting of Social Democratic failure to advance significantly outside the main urban settlements indicated that the editors of Reichspost still saw the ‘red threat’ to Austria as the most significant.64 The Social Democratic tabloid, das kleine Blatt, on the other hand, was of the view that the Nazis were now the biggest threat to the working classes of Austria, and were the ‘party of brutal reaction.’65 Others saw the Nazis as more than this, among them being Father Albert Schubert, at the St Laurenz-Gertrud parish in the district of Währing. Schubert was an avid recorder of life in his parish and beyond, and in his Chronik he set down the events of the day. He bemoaned the sufferings of the unemployed, especially the shortages of fuel and food, and noted the efforts of Church, government and City Council to remedy these. He lamented the effects of inflation on the middle classes, with their fixed or barely rising incomes. He praised Cardinal Piffl, Archbishop of Vienna, who had died in April 1932 and was succeeded by Theodor Innitzer.66 Schubert was a politically active priest, engaging publicly with the Nazis through his parish newsletter. In January 1933, he called Nazism an ‘idolatrous cult,’ foreign to the German way.67 This was a brave move. The Nazis were well supported in Währing, where they polled over 15,000 votes, 28 per cent of turnout in the April 1932 elections, forming the largest party of the right in the district. The Nazi Party in Währing had a newsletter, the NS Nachrichten für den XVIII Bezirk, which it used to combine propaganda with attacks on Jews. The newsletter was not an amateur production, and it appears to have been well resourced. In December 1932, it comprised thirtytwo pages and carried nearly five pages of advertising, for small local shops, delicatessens, radios for rental or purchase, skiing equipment, for a French lady who taught English and Italian.68 Businesses from across the city advertised, including, at the top end of the market, the perfumery Floris, in Vienna’s richest shopping street, Graben. Floris described itself as an ‘Aryan firm.’69 The Nazi Party in Währing was not, therefore, representative of interests on the fringes of society, so Schubert was taking a bold stand

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when, in December 1932, he wrote in his parish newsletter that he had to address what the Nazi Party stood for, not as a matter of politics but of religion. For him, the Nazis were not just a brutal form of reaction, but a totalitarian movement that aimed to dominate the Weltanschauung of the people, threatening the relationship of the people with their religion. This was something that had been recognised by many Catholics and even Protestants, so Schubert was obliged to point this out to his parishioners. As he put it, ‘Should I be a dog who fails to bark when enemies break in?’70 The Nazi Party in Währing complained of his intervention as being typical of priests as propagandists for the Christian Socials. Schubert insisted that he was not political: ‘Above all, I confirm that I distance myself from this movement not because of its political aims, but purely because of its world view.’71 He had received letters that claimed Hitler was a prophet, something which he rebutted. This was not, he said, something acceptable to Catholics, and quoting Bismarck, he wrote ‘Bow only to God, not men!’ Schubert also attempted to outflank the Nazis on two key matters. First, he responded to the Nazis having called his ‘national feeling’ into doubt. He reminded his readers that he was a Sudeten, an honorary member of a Landsmannschaft, a German cultural and welfare organisation based in Trautenau in Bohemia.72 He held an ‘inner love for our German people.’ He also tried to outflank them on antisemitism. In January 1933, Schubert defended himself from Nazi claims that he was close to Jews, writing in his parish newsletter, ‘I was a convinced antisemite before there were any Nazis, when certain gentlemen sat in junior school.’73 These ‘certain gentlemen’ were the Nazis, and they would not forget this episode. Other priests, such as Father Schwarz of Alt-Ottakring, had no involvement with party politics. He, however, ran into controversy when he was still settling matters after the libel trial that had involved his predecessor.74 One curate at his parish had alleged that a second curate had been forging the signature of the first on cheques, and exceeding the duration permitted for a holiday. He added to the charge accusations of drinking and gambling. Another curate then turned on Schwarz, suggesting he was not credible as parish priest, although he gave no reason for this suggestion.75 Schwarz rode out the storm, and he worked hard at Ottakring, despite shortages of resources for parish institutions, especially those

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for children.76 He personally ran classes for the young and deprived and, perhaps controversially, he addressed the problems that could come from having large families, by giving information on natural birth control.77 This was not against the letter of Catholic doctrine, but more traditionally minded priests might have thought it contravened its spirit, which stressed the need for love in a sexual relationship, with the objective of producing children, not pleasure. Schwarz must have been mentally tough to provide this teaching. In years to come, he would need this toughness. Coup Austrian politics then changed significantly. On 4 March 1933, during an Austrian parliamentary session, a dispute occurred over how business should be conducted, leading senior officers of the lower house to resign. Arguments arose over how to proceed in these circumstances, and no replacements for the officers could be found. Dollfuss, acting completely within the rules, took his opportunity. He closed the session, suspended Parliament and arranged for the government to rule by emergency decree. Over the next few days, Dollfuss took the opportunity to underline how things had changed, and police were deployed to prevent members of the opposition, including German nationalists, from entering the legislature. Provincial elections, already scheduled, were allowed to take place in April 1933, and the Nazis made more gains.78 These were the last free elections under the First Republic. Their outcomes pushed Dollfuss into further action and, one by one, he closed democratic institutions. A start was made on building a paramilitary force that would be loyal to a new regime that was coming into being. Dollfuss became, in effect, dictator of Austria. He had mounted a coup.79 Dollfuss made no secret of his intention to turn this coup into a permanent seizure of power and a change in the nature of government in Austria. In a speech in Vienna, in May 1933, he declared, ‘This form of parliament and parliamentarism which has died will not return.’ He went on to confirm several times that year his intention to replace democracy, such as when he announced that ‘The time of the liberal capitalist social and economic order has passed …. We want the social, Christian, German state of Austria on the basis of Estates and under a strong, authoritarian leadership.’80

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Dollfuss knew that, although he controlled the reins of the state, opposition had not been eliminated so, in order to meet these goals, he set about consolidating power through suppression. To counter opposition that was coming from left and right, he maintained close links with the Heimwehr and similar militias, to supplement state force. This was, in part, aimed at restraining the Social Democrats, but Germany under Hitler had begun to intervene, sometimes violently, in Austrian politics, through a growing base of adherents there. Hitler had also used state policy to apply pressure on Dollfuss, imposing a one thousand Mark tourist tax on any German who wanted to visit Austria, cutting off a vital source of state revenue.81 Dollfuss retaliated by having the Nazi Party in Austria declared illegal in June 1933. Some Austrian Nazis fled to Bavaria, where they were organised into an armed force, the Austrian Legion.82 Dollfuss also moved to remodel Austria as a Christian-German, corporate state, where ‘sectional interests’ would take second place to those of the nation as a whole.83 In September 1933, he called on the Christian Social Party to dissolve itself and for its members to join a new organisation, the Fatherland Front. It was the intention of Dollfuss that this Fatherland Front would act as an umbrella organisation, bringing all ‘pro-Austrian’ groups together in a common purpose.84 Father Lojka at Weinhaus recorded in his Chronik that this announcement was met with ‘enormous celebrations,’ although he does not say by whom.85 At the highest levels, the Church echoed Lojka, and expressed its ‘joy’ at the prospect of building a Catholic Austria.86 In Vienna, large crowds gathered, which contemporary newspapers claimed were signs of popular support for the moves that Dollfuss made. However, government supporters who spilled on to the streets of Vienna at the time of the announcement of the intention to build a corporate state were not just from Vienna, but supplemented by others from across Austria, attending a Catholic conference in the city.87 Nevertheless, Dollfuss could certainly call on a significant number of supporters in Vienna, as was seen when, on 4 October 1933, a small band of Nazis attempted, and failed, to assassinate Dollfuss. Many in Vienna expressed huge relief.88 Members of army units, the Heimwehr, ‘Christian-German’ gymnastics groups and societies loyal to ‘the fatherland’ gathered outside the Chancellor’s office in central Vienna. Red-white-red flags waved to celebrate that ‘a good angel

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looked over our Austria today.’89 Dollfuss was lionised as leader of the struggle for the freedom of Austria.90 The Catholic Church rallied to Dollfuss and, on 30 November 1933, in a call to support the Fatherland Front, the bishops ordered priests to cease party political activities. This was no minor injunction, since five members of the lower house of Parliament were priests and three priests sat in the upper house, with others in the Lower Austrian Landtag and the Vienna City Council. Priests who wished to continue political activities now needed the express approval of their local Ordinariat. Dollfuss had seized a dictatorial position, but this was not criticised by the Church because ‘we Catholics … rejoiced’ at the ‘core Catholic position of our government.’ The Church welcomed the stance of the new Fatherland Front, since ‘a society, however small, is impossible without authority.’91 Yet opposition to Dollfuss had not been eliminated, and might come from different sources, with different strengths. The Nazis hovered across the border in Germany, at the same time as they funded their fellow party members and allies within Austria.92 And, as 1934 came, the Social Democratic Party was still operational, a potential source of resistance within Austria to Dollfuss and his plans. Within months, the strength of the resistance that it could mount would be tested to the full. Notes 1 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 40. 2 A-Z, 1 January 1927, p. 12. 3 RP, 1 January 1927, pp. 1–2. 4 RP, 1 January 1927, p. 1. 5 RP, 1 January 1927, p. 22. 6 On the economic conditions in Austria at the time of the First Republic, see Lothar Höbelt, Die erste Republik Österreich (1918–1938) Das Provisorium (Vienna: Böhlau, 2018), pp. 27–49. 7 RP, 1 January 1927, p. 13, p. 23 and pp. 28–29 for entertainment listings. 8 John R. Rath, ‘The Deterioration of Democracy in Austria, 1927–1932,’ AHYB, 27 (1996), 213–259. 9 A-Z, 31 January 1927, p. 1. 10 RP, 31 January 1927, p. 1. 11 RP, 25 April 1927, pp. 1–2. 12 AEDW HeCk, 1927.

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13 AEDW HeCk, 1927. 14 A-Z, 15 July 1927, p. 1. 15 Charles A. Gulick, Austria from Habsburg to Hitler (Berkeley: University of California, 1948), Vol. 1, pp. 718–719. 16 Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 45–47 and Höbelt, Provisorium, pp. 190–194. 17 Lauridsen, Nazism, pp. 131–132. 18 AEDW HeCk, 1927. 19 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 45. 20 Klemperer, Seipel, pp. 264–265. 21 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 50. 22 AEDW WeCk, 1927. 23 Lauridsen, Nazism, p. 133. 24 Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 49–50. 25 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 9. 26 Gulick, Austria, Vol. 1, p. 755. 27 Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 80–83. 28 Ernst Hanisch, Die Ideologie des politischen Katholizismus in Österreich 1918–1938 (Vienna: Geyer, 1977), pp. 3–4. 29 For an insight into the slums that such municipal blocks replaced, see J. Robert Wegs, Growing Up Working Class: Continuity and Change among Viennese Youth, 1880–1938 (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, 1989), pp. 37–54. 30 W.N. Medlicott, et al. (eds), Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919– 1939 Series 1A, Vol VII (London: HMSO, 1975), p. 265. 31 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 43. 32 Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 97–103. 33 Hanisch, Ideologie, p. 11. 34 Medlicott, Documents, p. 80. 35 Hanisch, Ideologie, p. 13. 36 AEDW WeCk, 1930. 37 AEDW WeCk, 1930. 38 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 114. 39 Medlicott, Documents, p. 267. 40 Medlicott, Documents, pp. 438–440. 41 Höbelt, Provisorium, pp. 231–232 and p. 369. 42 Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 113–114 and p. 117. 43 RP, 10 November 1930, p. 1. 44 See NFP, 22 October 1923, p. 3. 45 All figures for 1930 from RP, 10 November 1930, p. 2. 46 Medlicott, Documents, p. viii. 47 See Low, Anschluss, pp. 42–45. 48 Gehl, Austria, Germany, p. 47.

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49 Gehl, Austria, Germany, p. 47. 50 Angela Königseder, ‘Antisemitismus 1933–1938,’ in Emmerich Tálos and Wolfgang Neugebauer (eds), Austrofaschismus. Politik – Ökonomie – Kultur 1933–1938 (Vienna: Lit, 2005), pp. 54–65, here p. 63. 51 See Chapter 9 of this work. 52 Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 138–141 and Gehl, Austria, Germany, p. 48. 53 Timothy Kirk, Nazism and the Austrian Working Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 135. 54 See Seliger and Ucakar, Politische Geschichte, Vol. 2, pp. 1158–1178; RP, 25 April 1932. 55 dkB, 25 April 1932, p. 1. 56 dkB, 25 April 1932, p. 1. 57 RP, 15 September 1930; dkB, 15 September 1930. RP, 15 November 1930; dkB, 15 November 1930. 58 RP, 25 April 1932, p. 1. 59 dkB, 25 April 1932, p. 2 and p. 11. 60 See the Appendix of this work for details of election results across the districts. 61 Lauridsen, Nazism, pp. 90–91. 62 Emmerich Tálos, ‘Zeittafel,’ in Tálos and Neugebauer (eds), Austrofaschismus, pp. 421–425, here p. 421. 63 Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 159–162. 64 RP, 25 April 1932, p. 1. 65 dkB, 25 April 1932, p. 3. 66 AEDW WeCk, 1932. 67 St. Laurenz-Gertrudsblatt, hereafter SLG Pfarrblatt, January 1933. 68 NS Nachrichten für den XVIII Bezirk (hereafter NS Nachrichten), December 1932, p. 2. 69 NS Nachrichten, December 1932, pp. 29–32. 70 SLG Pfarrblatt, December 1932. 71 SLG Pfarrblatt, January 1933. 72 SLG Pfarrblatt, January 1933. Schubert referred to his Heimat as Sudetendeutsch. 73 SLG Pfarrblatt, 24 January 1933. See also Nina Scholz and Heine Heinisch, ‘… alles werden sich die Christen nicht verfallen lassen.’ Wiener Pfarren und die Juden in der Zwischenkriegszeit (Vienna: Czernin, 2001), p. 64. 74 AEDW AOCk, 1932. 75 The family of the curate wrote to the Ordinariat on this subject, in letters dated August 1932. AEDW AOCor, August 1932. 76 AEDW AOCk, 1933. 77 Wolfgang Kluger and Franz Loidl, Zwei Volksseelsorger im Arbeiterbezirk Altottakrings: Pfarrer Karl Schwarz, Religionslehrer Ernst Patzak (Vienna: Wiener katholische Akademie, 1983), pages unnumbered.

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78 Tálos, ‘Zeittafel,’ pp. 421–425, here pp. 421–422. 79 Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 175–184. 80 Carsten, Fascist Movements, both citations from p. 231. 81 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 184. 82 Carsten, Austrian Republic, p. 249. 83 RP, various reports, 9 to 11 September 1933. 84 Höbelt, Provisorium, pp. 294–303. 85 AEDW WeCk, 1933. 86 Diözesanblatt, 11 October 1933, p. 72. 87 RP, various reports, 9 to 11 September 1933. 88 W-Z, 4 October 1933, pp. 1–6, for a full account of the attempt, the subsequent arrests, the immediate police investigation and messages of support from foreign leaders. See also RP of the same day, pp. 1–5. 89 RP, 4 October 1933, p. 5. 90 NFP and dkB of 4 October 1933. 91 All comments are from the Diözesanblatt, 21 December 1933, pp. 99–101. 92 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 236.

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9 Building a Christian and German Austria? 1934–8 Enemies within, enemies abroad Dollfuss and his opponents played a cat-and-mouse game with each other at the start of 1934. While Dollfuss was working to consolidate his position, in part by building up institutions that could support him in a positive manner in the creation of a Christian-German state, much of the press functioned, and even the Social Democratic Party was still legal. In January 1934, months after Dollfuss had made his move, the Arbeiter-Zeitung was able to criticise proposals that were presented for new Chambers of Labour as part of a corporate realignment of society. The newspaper announced that workers in the Social Democratic trade unions would oppose the scheme.1 Opposition was far from cowed. At the start of 1934, Dollfuss controlled the organs of state, and he was not without support, but he had insufficient strength, at home or abroad, to settle his position decisively. In every direction that Dollfuss looked, he saw enemies. Strong government, under a decisive leader, was meant to resolve these problems, but no solutions came. For instance, the Nazi Party had been officially suppressed, but its supporters continued to make their presence known, even in minor ways. In the small town of Krieglach, in Styria, a band of Nazis lay on railway tracks to block the departure of a train that was taking into custody one of their number, Otto Weber. A ‘strong police detachment’ intervened, as a result of which two demonstrators were injured and several were arrested.2 But the Nazis were not just active in small provincial towns like Krieglach, where police would have been thinly spread; they acted boldly even in the heart of the capital.

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On the morning of 19 January 1934, large Nazi flags were hung from windows at the Technical High School in the Wieden district of the city, pointed in various directions for full visibility.3 Police reached the site within minutes of the flags being noticed, but no student came forward to identify the culprits. One potential witness claimed to have been engrossed in a game of cards.4 Another, Karl Kollar, member of the Deutscher Turnerbund, a Nazi-leaning gymnastics association, said he was ‘not otherwise politically organised.’5 The Wieden police related to central headquarters that the flags had flown only briefly, with no significant impact, but headquarters ordered a check as to whether this was an isolated incident, and stations across the city were instructed to report. Central police also launched a further investigation, searching the rooms of a student of the institute, Kurt Steigl, where they seized pro-Nazi magazines and leaflets.6 Resistance to the government was close to the surface everywhere, and it erupted weeks later. The Socialist Schutzbund had been banned by Dollfuss, but it had not been disarmed, and on 11 February 1934, in Linz, attempts to do so backfired. Armed struggles broke out and spread to other cities, including Vienna, with the heaviest fighting reported in the Floridsdorf district, a Social Democratic stronghold.7 This was, however, an uneven fight, as the government commanded army units and police, and called on right-wing militia. Government forces, in total, exceeded 60,000 men. The government also had artillery.8 A number of Viennese priests have left what amount to witness statements about these events, showing some of their effects on local populations. Father Karl Schwarz recorded in his Chronik events in his parish as they happened. On Monday 12 February, he recorded incidents in part of his Alt-Ottakring parish, Sandleithen, site of new homes built by the City Council for workers. There was Revolution! A whole class from the junior school had to stay in the presbytery, because Sandleithen was being shot at and shelled.

Next day, just a few women and a single man attended the 6.00 a.m. Shrove Tuesday mass at Alt-Ottakring, and Father Schwarz noted that they were all ‘intimidated.’ Schwarz was shocked since, a fortnight earlier, a total of over 2,700 had attended the six Sunday masses that had taken place in this church.9

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Dollfuss ordered shelling across Ottakring of the apparently substantial homes provided by the City Council. Proletarian Vienna was being visibly crushed, shown to be no match for government firepower.10 ‘Ringleaders’ of the revolt were executed.11 The brutality shocked the international community, and foreign correspondents in Vienna reeled at the violence.12 Brutality did not, however, seem to shock some priests in Vienna. The Chronik of the Church for the Most Holy Trinity, in Reindorf, in the west of Vienna, recorded only the briefest details of these events, and curtly pointed anyone who wished to read about events to look at certain issues from that year of Österreichische Woche (Austrian Week), a popular photographic news magazine.13 According to the Chronik at St Laurenz, Schottenfeld, the events had almost no effect on the parish, as not a single shot fell within its area. That there was ‘no effect’ on the parish was clearly the subjective view of the person making the entry in the Chronik, since an entry was also made that the chairman of the district council, as well as local teachers, had been arrested and removed from their posts.14 Events in Schottenfeld affected them. Opposition was silenced, as Socialist newspapers were closed down, and the only press that was now allowed to operate was sympathetic to the government. Father Schubert, at Währing, understood the importance of the February events. In his Chronik, written at the end of 1934, he noted that before going on to describe the year in full, he had to record the uprising – which he did, in some considerable detail. On the day after rebellion erupted, Reichspost published official communiqués which described risings across Vienna as having been suppressed through a combination of police and military action.15 Over the next few days, the Neue Freie Presse reported that the government was strengthening its position. Social Democratic Mayor of Vienna Karl Seitz had been taken into ‘police custody,’ as had other socialist leaders across the country, while it was announced that the Social Democratic Party was being dissolved.16 By 14 February, the press was reporting the ‘successful defeat of the Marxist revolt.’17 When Arbeiter-Zeitung reappeared on 25 February, it was an ­underground weekly, much reduced in pages. Its first call was to remember those who had ‘fallen’ and those who had been murdered by ‘courts martial,’ a sobering thought compared with the triumphalism of much of the pro-government press.18 The poor condition of Arbeiter-Zeitung must have added to the impression that the

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government had crushed resistance, yet the government was not in complete control. Even after moves to suppress the Nazis and the Socialists, activists from both groups remained a presence, as when Father Lojka, in Weinhaus, recorded clashes between them on the streets of his parish in 1934.19 The government pressed ahead in producing a new constitution for Austria, but it had won neither the hearts nor the minds of a majority of Austrians, and the search for legitimacy that had faced Austria since the end of the First World War continued.20 Yet senior figures in the Catholic Church continued to contribute to the myth that a new Vienna, a new Austria, had been born. One of the founding myths of the antisemites, that Vienna had been Christian but had been conquered by alien ideologies, was not so subtly deployed. In April 1934, plans for an extension to the church of St Laurenz-Gertrud in Währing were advanced. The church was to take on a highly charged additional name: ‘The Memorial Church of Liberated Vienna.’ The laying of the foundation stone was undertaken by Archbishop Innitzer, by now a cardinal, in a ceremony attended by a whole range of dignitaries, including Chancellor Dollfuss. Vienna had presumably been ‘liberated’ from Marxist, Jewish oppressors, at least in the view of those present.21 A martyr for Austria On 1 May 1934 a new constitution for Austria was implemented. It began, In the name of God, the Almighty, from whom all law emanates, the Austrian people receives this constitution, on a corporate basis, for its Christian, German, federal state.22

This Seipel-inspired state took sovereignty from the people, placing it firmly back in the hands of God. It excluded Jews, non-believing Marxists and free thinkers, for not being Christian. It completed a double exclusion of Jews for not being German. Even the ‘federal’ element was carefully chosen, as a means of giving the provinces equal footing with the stronghold of the arch-enemy, Vienna. Another new Austria was being born. Buried in the constitution was the notion that the state would be directed from above, not democratic, supported by the Fatherland

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Front, which was to be organised on an authoritarian basis.23 This was a logical step, as the Dollfuss regime was not just a consequence of immediate circumstances; rather, Austria had been prepared for an authoritarian path by the likes of Seipel and a legacy of authoritarian government under the Empire. The corporate state showed that its roots stretched back into the values that supported the Empire. Its pillars were the Church and Catholic associations, the army and the police. The Heimwehr was a new addition to this old set of reactionaries.24 The closest ally of the new regime, the Church, also favoured authoritarianism. In Portugal, the Salazar dictatorship, often described as fascist, but in reality an authoritarian state with a streak of reactionary Catholicism, was supported by the Church.25 In Spain, the Church supported a right-wing coalition that threatened to bring down democracy, if democracy was not to its liking. Eventually, democracy in Spain was destroyed by the allies of the Church, in the bloodiest of manners.26 The constitution talked of religious freedom for all, provided that opinions did not cause public disorder, but the opening statement made clear that non-Germans, non-Christians, were to be outside the core of the state. This new Austria was also not to be a Christian state in name only. The Catholic Church was to be privileged, as the constitution incorporated a new concordat that had been agreed with the Vatican in 1933, giving it influence over education and marriage.27 The Church in Vienna made this the main item in the Diözesanblatt of May 1934. The Diözesanblatt also printed correspondence of mutual endorsement between Dollfuss and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII. Pacelli was optimistic that Austria could be refounded ‘on the grounds of traditional loyalty to Christ and his Church.’28 These measures aimed to change the culture of Austria. The government had already reintroduced a requirement for children to attend mass on Sundays and feast days, with attendance to be monitored by teachers. It is unclear how far such a measure was enforceable, especially in urban areas, but these steps were only a start, and were part of a process that recognised that change could not be driven from the top alone.29 After the new constitution came into effect, the Church and its associations were called on to provide a firmer basis for the state.30

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The priests of Vienna were ready to play their part in the building of a new Austria. Father Lojka saw 1 May 1934 as a ‘day of rebirth,’ and he rejoiced at the inclusion of the concordat as part of Austria’s constitution.31 At Währing, Father Schubert enthused about the Christian elements of the constitution, but he was equally aware of its implicit German values. For Schubert, the corporate state was nothing less than a second Gospel, good news. Five months to the day after the celebration of the 250th anniversary of deliverance from the Turks, he wrote, Vienna and Austria had been freed from an even greater threat, Marxist ‘Austro-Bolshevism.’ Austria had been reborn as a ‘bulwark of Christian-German culture.’32 This was a powerful image of significant gains for political Catholicism: the defeat of atheistic Marxism; the overturning of the liberal, cosmopolitan, secular foundations of modern Austria; the crushing of pluralism as a valid stance in Austria; a restoration of a hierarchical organisation of society; and a return to a gendered, patriarchal structure for social order. But the state did not forget the importance of things that stood as material reminders of who was now in charge, so the supporters of the regime would have welcomed the allocation to the Church of confiscated properties. In the parish of Neulerchenfeld, for instance, buildings owned by the Social Democrats were seized and transferred to the local parish.33 At a time of severe financial constraints, the state supported a programme of new church foundations, which aimed to attract more people to the faith. Between 1934 and 1937, fifteen new churches were founded, and plans were laid for others to be extended.34 These were the priorities in Christian-German Vienna, when Christian Socials had previously denounced as unaffordable Social Democratic spending on social welfare. Dollfuss was one of the drivers of the church-building programme, but he would not see its completion. In July 1934, a number of Nazi groups were putting together plans to strike against the state.35 Some were disrupted, but on 25 July 1934, a group of Nazis breached security at several public buildings, including the state Chancellery, and shot Dollfuss. As Father Lojka in Weinhaus recognised, this was not just an assassination, but an attempted ‘revolution.’36 The government response was swift, and troops were deployed across the country.37 The Heimwehr mobilised alongside regular army units to crush Nazi moves to seize power in Carinthia. Fears grew that the Austrian Legion might cross into Austria from Bavaria, finding assistance from Austrian based

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Nazis. However, weeks after a power struggle in Germany had seen the Schutzstaffel (SS) murder prominent rival Sturmabteilung (SA) members in the infamous ‘Night of the Long Knives,’ plans for coordinated moves in Austria between the SS and SA faltered.38 The final nail in the coffin of the plotters came when Mussolini moved troops to the Austrian border at the Brenner Pass. His message was clear: if Germany invaded, then Italy would act.39 So no invasion came from Germany, and Austrian soldiers re-took the Chancellery, but Dollfuss was dead.40 The nature of his death shocked Catholic society, since Dollfuss had been refused attention from either a doctor, for his wounds, or from a priest, for the last rites.41 For Father Lojka, Dollfuss was a martyr, an opinion seconded as church bells sounded throughout the country.42 The gatherings that had followed the assassination attempt of the previous year were repeated, but this time, enormous crowds turned out for the start of his funeral procession in the Hofburg, in central Vienna.43 The symbol of the Fatherland Front, the Kruckenkreuz, hung over the Hofburg, and across the city, above the crowds that mourned Dollfuss.44 They mourned alongside senior Church figures, such as Cardinal Innitzer. Yet, the numbers in the crowds should not hide the anxieties that haunted those who were present. The Nazis who had murdered Dollfuss were executed, many summarily, and others were rounded up, but the bigger Nazi threat remained.45 And even among Christian Socials, as will be seen, a number of individuals supported closer ties to, perhaps even union with, Nazi Germany. A struggle to control Austria By this time, Prince von Starhemberg had manoeuvred himself into being chosen as Austrian Vice Chancellor, and he seemed to be the natural successor to Dollfuss. He had been a leader of the Heimwehr, albeit with limited success, and he portrayed himself as a man of action, ready to take what he considered to be the necessary measures to correct the problems of Austria. He had the propaganda advantage of bearing the name of an ancestor who had been significant in the relief of Vienna from the Turks in 1683. Father Lojka hoped this strongman would rise to the top, and his disappointment was clear when Kurt von Schuschnigg, a politician-lawyer, took over as Chancellor. Lojka would have preferred Prince Starhemberg.46

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Schuschnigg, however, was made of stern stuff. He was Minister for Justice during the February events, when Socialists who had surrendered in the face of overwhelming odds, and who no longer posed a threat to the state, were hanged.47 Nine men were executed, three were given life sentences and thousands of men and women were imprisoned.48 This was no weak individual, afraid to take extreme steps. Schuschnigg now inherited the task of leading the building of a Christian-German Austria. The question marks against him were whether he had sufficient resources, achievable objectives and time in which to work. Like Dollfuss, he had competition from many sides that would attempt to derail him. The Nazis in Austria were now widely active and, despite increased efforts to suppress them, they stepped up their terrorist campaigns, aiming to destabilise the economy and to make the government appear to be unable to protect its own people. The Social Democrats, although they had been pushed underground, were not without the capability to produce propaganda and to organise significant antigovernment gatherings. Various Heimwehr leaders jockeyed for position, with some refusing to work with the Fatherland Front, some even opposing it, seeing it as a ‘rebranded’ Christian Social Party. Yet, the strength of the foundations on which the corporate state rested should not be underestimated. During its formation, it had survived one uprising by Social Democrats, and it had prevailed against at least two coup attempts by the Nazis. Schuschnigg was not completely without allies, at home or abroad. Italy, France and Great Britain, as well as a number of the Habsburg successor states to the east of Austria, all had an interest in the country, especially any suspected German moves there. In the mid-1930s, in case of any German action in Austria, Italy was best placed to intervene, through its military preparedness and its proximity to the country. Its support was crucial for Schuschnigg, who continued the policy of Dollfuss by maintaining close links with Mussolini.49 Good news came for Schuschnigg in April 1935 when France, Britain and Italy, at a conference in Stresa in Italy, declared their intention, as the so-called Stresa Front, to maintain the independence of Austria.50 Schuschnigg attempted to build up support for his regime internally by embarking on a number of state propaganda campaigns that championed the idea of the corporate state and Austrian independence, while emphasising that Austria was a German state.51 However,

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the papal nuncio to Vienna, Cardinal Sibilia, estimated that perhaps no more than 30 per cent of the population supported Schuschnigg.52 Nevertheless, Sibilia believed that this level of support, coupled with control of the organs of state, might yet allow Schuschnigg to consolidate his position.53 Something of this kind seemed to be happening, when the Fatherland Front experienced a growth in adherents from 1934 to 1935, but this was a false dawn. At the national level, the principles of the movement were only vaguely defined. At the local level, groups were poorly organised, and local leaders lacked dynamism and drive. Growth, it seems, was achieved when local organisers exploited the power of patronage, allocating jobs and resources to those who fell in line, as had the Christian Socials when first in control of Vienna City Council in the 1890s.54 But, if Schuschnigg did not have a majority of support in Austria, neither did any other group. Based on election results under the Republic, even the mass-based Social Democrats had not achieved this. Despite Nazi electoral breakthroughs in the final months of democracy, their support appeared to be about 20 per cent in 1934.55 They were noisy and confident and punched above their weight in Austria because of support from Germany, and they were on an upward trajectory. The challenge for Schuschnigg from the Nazis, domestically, was that their support might not stop at 20 per cent, and he had to consolidate his own position before time ran out. Allies of the state In building support, the new regime and the Fatherland Front called on familiar allies. These included the Church, the Catholic press and the associations that had formed a significant part of the Christian Social movement. They could also call on the Austrian army, a number of militias and large parts of the staff of the central bureaucracy and government, as well as of local authorities. Yet Schuschnigg would not have placed blind faith in any of these institutions as being homogeneously committed to the path that he had inherited from Dollfuss. He knew that not all people in these organisations were inclined towards supporting his vision of an independent ChristianGerman Austria. Nevertheless, these sectors and bodies did provide Schuschnigg with much-needed support. The Catholic press, for instance, was

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able to reach a significant number of people, despite numerous antisemitic Catholic propagandists having decried over decades what they described as the dominance of the ‘Jewish press’ in Vienna. This was a statement that ignored the presence in Austria of a substantial, widely circulated, Catholic-oriented press. This press was sufficiently diverse to appeal to a number of different readerships, and estimates of circulations in the 1930s gave Reichspost, das kleine Volksblatt and Neuigkeits-Welt-Blatt daily sales of 30,000, 103,000 and 40,000, respectively. From Graz, the kleine Zeitung had a circulation of 70,000, while a news magazine, the Österreichische Wochenzeitung, sold 190,000 copies every week.56 The Church, and elements associated with it, were among the closest allies of Schuschnigg. The constitution, and its incorporation of the concordat, expressed their common cause, but in many ways, this was simply a legal confirmation of deep, and shared, ideological roots. The corporate state and the Church championed anti-Marxism, openly presented and defended anti-democratic stances and denigrated those aspects of the modern world that they found distasteful. Representatives of state and Church could equivocate when questioned about their antisemitism, but they supported antisemitic initiatives. The Church and the corporate state were united in their objectives because they were united in their deepest convictions, from their shared Christian Social world views. The Church voiced propaganda for the corporate state through its publications, and through prepared statements from the pulpits of Vienna, but it also had at its disposition numerous organisations that might be called on to support the state. The way in which these generally parish-based organisations came to be viewed by the Church displays much about the anti-democratic instincts of the Church in Vienna. As has been seen, these groups were founded for many different reasons. Some were purely devotional, or for the organisation of pilgrimages. Others were charitable in intent, while others were thinly disguised political campaign groups. A missing element for these groups was an organisation to bring them together in a coordinated manner. This had changed in December 1927, when following instructions from Cardinal Piffl, a new umbrella organisation, Catholic Action (Katholische Aktion), was set up for all Catholic parish-based groups in the Archdiocese of Vienna.57 Piffl saw that, although the results of elections showed that the Social Democrats formed the dominant

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social movement in Vienna in the 1920s and 1930s, numerous Christian Social groups that had existed under the Empire were still active, and, collectively, they could call on relatively substantial bases of members for campaigning. A combined organisation could be far more effective in many ways than the small groups that very often operated independently. The founding structure of Catholic Action matched the ‘democratic-parliamentary circumstances of the state.’58 It was considered to be nothing revolutionary, simply a means of assisting the work of the associations that were already in the parishes. In the year that the corporate state was established, however, two changes were made to Catholic Action that are significant in understanding the relationship of the Church with, and its attitudes towards, the corporate state. They also display its attitude towards democracy. First, under the direction of Cardinal Innitzer, the structure of Catholic Action was amended, reflecting the forcible imposition of a new order in Austria. New main branches of the organisation were created, which showed how it was to be organised and, at one level, where it was meant to function. There were groups for men, women, young males, young females and children. There were sections for charity, public education, schools and upbringing, art and science. The Church was being positioned to penetrate areas that had previously been the domain of the secular state. Secondly, Catholic associations were to lose much of their independence of action. Rather than being able to make their own decisions without consulting figures within the Church, they would be expected to operate through their parish priests. This changed the organisational model of Catholic Action from one that was democratically structured, to one that reflected the ‘ecclesiastical-hierarchical example’ of the Church.59 This would ensure that the bishops, as overseers of clerical activity, would take close control of Catholic associations. These associations, which had previously acted as a connecting channel for interaction between Catholics and political parties, and thereby as intermediaries with the state, would be sidestepped in this role. As one Catholic Action document of the 1930s announced, political parties had become antiquated and defunct, as had the idea of democracy. Associations could fall back on their ‘religious sanctuaries.’ The Church, in a post-democratic world, would deal directly with the state.60

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The author of this document, Prelate Karl Rudolf, commented that associations had become prominent ‘at the time of the European democracies,’ making it clear that he thought their time was over. Referring to Germany, he made two points. One was that parties had become increasingly ashamed to call themselves ‘progressive,’ presumably against a background of a wave of extremist populism. The other was that, if these parties had been swept away by violence, this was not a matter of importance.61 Rudolf was a senior figure in the Church in Vienna, where he was founder of an institute for religious ministry. His views can therefore be taken as at least acceptable to the upper reaches of the Church hierarchy. In 1934, therefore, the attitudes of the Church were shaped not just by opposition to democracy in principle, but by the belief that democracy was a phase that had passed. The Church could look across much of Europe and see democracy replaced by authoritarian regimes. This was happening in Austria, as it had elsewhere. Schuschnigg would have been reassured, therefore, that he and the Church were equally convinced opponents of democracy. Prelate Rudolf presented an idealised version of how Catholic associations should be organised and how they should act. He recognised that political circumstances had changed, and he proposed that the relationship between associations and the state had changed, but he did not mention that associations in Vienna continued to play an important political role on the level of the experience of everyday activities. Their members were useful propagandists for spreading particular views on the world, for recruiting new members to the cause and for making sure that any patronage they could dispense would reach appropriately ‘deserving’ people. Since many associations in Vienna, even after the Christian Social Party had been dissolved, described themselves as ‘Christian-German,’ the Christian Social movement lived on in spirit within the Fatherland Front. Among the most prominent of these were local branches of the Christliche-Deutsche Turnerschaft, an athletics and gymnastics association. In 1933, the year Dollfuss seized power, a Christian-German gymnastics group in the Rudolfsheim district of Vienna, the ChristlicheDeutsche Turnerschaft, Wien XIV (hereafter Wien XIV Turnerschaft), was celebrating the fifth anniversary of its foundation. For this anniversary, a celebratory event was held in June 1933, a ‘patriotic commemoration.’ This included a medieval pageant,

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fanfares, heralds and various displays and entertainments. Flags featured in gymnastics exhibitions, in displays of calisthenics, as synchronised entertainments to the music of Johann Strauss. Other gymnastics demonstrations took place, emphasising their healthy German spirit. The celebration finished with a play performed by younger members of the group, The Taking of the Oath by the Young People. Towards the end of the play, its central protagonist, a young blacksmith, addressed the audience in suitably patriotic terms: My people, my life, My Austria! I will gladly give to you My entire life!

A chorus of young males and females responded in similar vein: We work, we create, With God for people and Fatherland,

before music turned to the tune of ‘O du mein Österreich’ (Oh you my Austria), by Suppé. The event may have been sentimental, even saccharine sweet, but it encapsulated the aims of the group. A commemorative programme for the 1933 event records how the Wien XIV Turnerschaft was committed to the Christian-German vision for Vienna.62 It records that the motto of the group, ‘With God for People and Fatherland,’ was carefully chosen. ‘With God’ was to distinguish it from other gymnastics groups which did not look to God. It meant that the group aimed at the ‘practical’ spiritual development of members, in the ChristianGerman sense, but with its Weltanschauung decidedly Catholic. This also served to separate the group from socialist or nationalist groups who were ‘strongly’ anti-Catholic.63 The group had been founded in 1928, when the parish already had nationalist and Social Democratic gymnastics groups.64 Its foundation was to enable men who shared a ‘correct alignment’ of religion and national self-awareness to exercise unhindered, away from the mocking of others. It was also to encourage their participation in the rebuilding of the people and of the old Ostmark.65 The group grew rapidly and, by 1933, it rented five gymnastics halls every day, from

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5.00 p.m. to 9.00 p.m., and women and girls were admitted to membership. The Turnerschaft was divided into groups by age and sex, each division having a leader.66 Its groups participated in many events, and it treated gymnastics as a ‘command for health,’ not as a fashion.67 Groups of the Christliche-Deutsche Turnerschaft, like that in Rudolfsheim, proliferated across Vienna, and their events featured prominently in the Catholic press. They were heavily oriented towards the promotion of the world views of the Christian Socials, and then those of the Fatherland Front. They provided places where these views could be shared, unlike in other athletics associations, such as the Deutsche Turnerschaft, which had previously been closely linked with German Nationalists and then with the Heimwehr, but which was by the 1930s closely associated with the Nazis.68 The Christliche-Deutsche Turnerschaft provided one front on which the Nazis could be countered, in a propaganda war of many campaigns. By 1934, this assistance would have been welcomed by Schuschnigg as he watched the Heimwehr go into decline, undone by its own lack of unity and by defections to the Nazis.69 Prelate Rudolf may have described the Catholic associations as being ready to shrink back to pastoral matters under Catholic Action, but they continued to provide essential political support, on the everyday level, for the corporate state. Bonds of profundity Many of the associations that have been encountered so far attended or participated at events and activities that were clearly antisemitic, but it should not be concluded that associations on the Catholic wing of society in Vienna were motivated solely by antisemitism, nor that they failed to have genuine and profound ties that bound them together. Yet alongside political and social opinions, alongside political activism, everyday life, with its celebrations and tragedies, should be recognised as a factor that bound people together. One such tragedy occurred on Sunday 25 August 1935, and took a terrible toll on the parishioners of Grinzing.70 A pilgrimage had been arranged to visit a church that had been newly dedicated to Engelbert Dollfuss, in the Hohe Wand, a beauty spot popular with tourists, near the village of Piesting in Lower Austria. A coach, which was new, and with a driver who knew the route, set off from Grinzing

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in good weather. However, tight bends and a lack of warning signs near its destination led the coach to be crossing a railway track when, suddenly, it was hit by a passenger train, which bored into the coach. The driver of the train had apparently not heard warning signals, and the consequences were terrible. Seven passengers died, five immediately and two on the way to hospital in Wiener-Neustadt. Twenty or so were seriously injured, and their number meant that they had to be placed in all manner of vehicles, including private cars, to ensure that sufficient emergency transport was available.71 People local to the scene of the accident rushed to assist, including the parish priest, a doctor and pharmacist. On the Monday and Tuesday following the accident, the bodies of the dead were conveyed to Grinzing, and seven coffins were laid out in the church there. Several priests led a requiem, while representatives holding various official offices were in attendance as a stream of people paid their respects.72 As the parish newsletter recorded, a month or so later, the event had left the people of Grinzing in a state of ‘shattered grief,’ incapable of coming to grips with the severity of the ‘blow of fate’ that had struck them.73 The accident, as would be expected, produced a lasting and deep impression. A memorial stone to the dead was erected in the grounds of the parish church.74 Hohe Wand became a pilgrimage site for parishioners from Grinzing, but for the dead of their church as much as a memorial for Dollfuss.75 But the church offered more than occasional opportunities for shared grief and comfort. Grinzing was the centre of an active community, where groups such as Catholic Action, as well as a Catholic men’s association, an association to provide children with hot meals through winter, a Catholic women’s association and others met on a regular basis. These groups helped to tie believers together.76 In contrast to the antisemitism and nationalism that were used as means to identify who could belong, and who could not, they provided positive affirmations of the bonds that could be found in Catholic groups. Yet, Catholic groups operated within the political Catholic right, and the Church gave great weight to supporting the corporate state. This support was given in many ways: by public pronouncements, by the ringing of church bells at times of celebration of the ‘achievements’ of the corporate state, or by making rooms available at parish churches for meetings of the Fatherland Front.77 Catholic groups helped to

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promote visions of the world that were acceptable to Church and corporate state. These included the notion that people should know their place and respect hierarchy, and that charitable action was better than state intervention, however serious the social problem. In an echo of the campaigns that were run by charitable Catholic groups in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, Aktion Mittagstisch, für hungernden Kindern (Lunch for Hungry Children) was credited with having ensured that twenty-four children from Grinzing received lunch daily, between 7 November 1935 and 31 March 1936, in Schodl’s Inn.78 If this was a seven-days-a-week achievement, then the owners of the inn deserve praise, since this would amount to over 3,000 meals in total, although patrons provided funds for these meals. It also dovetailed with other efforts to provide meals to children over the winter period, such as the campaign ‘Take hungry children to lunch,’ which aimed to ensure that no child in Austria was hungry over winter.79 Yet, as with earlier charitable efforts, the whole comes across as something that places obligations on the recipients, and it shows that people were expected to know their place. It was, in short, a reflection of the kind of rigid and unchanging order that existed in prerepublican Austria. Children were no doubt grateful for their meals, and would rightly have been expected to recognise the support they received, but the statement of thanks that appeared in the Grinzing parish newsletter in 1936 exceeded normal gratitude. A child is quoted as giving thanks for the ‘lentils’ they have received for lunch, and for the patience of the owners of the inn when distributing them, in a manner that suggests social control.80 Again, the contributions of the wealthy are not being knocked, but these meals were provided only for the winter months, whereas food would have been lacking all year round, as would decent accommodation and clothing. It was as if these contributions were considered to be all that could be done, especially when Aldobrand Roczek, parish priest at Grinzing, wrote that the ‘Social Question’ evaded any solution.81 Poverty could be lamented, but no real action would be taken about it. Instead, myriad Catholic associations revolved around the Church, and bourgeois groups that sought the approbation of the Church, such as the Grinzing volunteer fire brigade, were held up for admiration for their role in society. The brigade was described as having



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a good reputation, derived in part from its participation in tackling disastrous fires in central Vienna. Equally, its members turned out for Corpus Christi parades, demonstrating their belief in God, and their acceptance of a place in the hierarchies of the corporate state.82

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Jews in a Christian-German state? Regardless of constitutional promises of equality before the law, underlying attitudes and unspoken policies discriminated against Jews. British observers in Innsbruck noted that, while there was no official discrimination, the position of Jews grew worse and worse, although poor Jews suffered more than the rich, who could buy themselves out of some situations.83 Anti-Jewish laws were not needed when informal prejudice was in place, and pretexts were found to support arguments that anti-Jewish measures were being taken because of pressures from elsewhere. In 1935, Austria signed an agreement with Germany that compelled Austrian film-makers to check that all artists in film could prove their Aryan origins.84 While such agreements helped Austria to export films and to earn much-needed foreign currency, they were entered into quite freely, and fitted the antisemitic outlook of the corporate state. The Church played its part in creating anti-Jewish apartheid. When it lent its approval to the Dollfusskurs, the plans laid out by Dollfuss, in a pastoral letter of December 1933, it approved the nature of the state that Austria was to become.85 Each word of the declaration of support for the construction of ‘a Christian-German state in our homeland’ excludes some people as much as it includes others. Those who are neither Christian nor German are immediately second-class citizens, at best. The ‘homeland’ conjures images of a national territory, a place of belonging, with its own landscape, history, religion, customs and arts.86 The ‘homeland,’ here, is a less blunt assertion of earlier antisemitic claims that Jews were those from elsewhere, who did not belong. In this way, as Julie Thorpe has concluded, ‘Austro-fascists as state builders and nation builders’ aimed to rebuff Nazi Germany, by ‘mythologising’ and ‘racialising’ a German identity against others within Austria.87 It would be wrong to condemn as antisemitic all of the officers of the corporate state, but many acted against Jews. Jews, for no reason other than discrimination, were refused employment, or found that

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their contracts were not extended.88 Jewish doctors and teachers were dismissed, wrongly accused of belonging to the Social Democratic Party.89 This discrimination had effects on the capacity of ordinary people to earn a living, to care for their families, to lead decent lives. But it also erected significant civic and ethnic barriers between people, and spelled out who belonged in this state and who did not.90 An open, formal programme by the state against Jews was not needed. It was happening all the time. New international relations By 1936, violence and unrest were frequent presences, in varying degrees, in Vienna and across Austria. Both Dollfuss and Schuschnigg had tried to suppress Social Democratic and Nazi forces, but both had failed. Social Democrats disrupted events run by the Fatherland Front, but the Nazis were extreme, and their activities were persistent. As early as 1932, Reichspost had reported a series of terror attacks, indicating the Nazis as the prime culprits. Among many incidents reported, a Schutzbund member had been stabbed in Liesing, and a bomb attack had taken place in Linz.91 Funded from Germany, the Nazis in Austria were able to bomb Jewish businesses, and right up to 1938, even when declared illegal, they executed political campaigns and disrupted the activities of their opponents.92 While the government lacked the strength to suppress either the Social Democrats or the Nazis, neither of these groups had the capacity to overthrow the government, but they could cause much disruption or tie up the resources of the security forces. For instance, from Weinhaus, Father Lojka noted how a visit to the parish by Cardinal Innitzer required a heavy police presence. As part of his visit to the parish, Innitzer was due to pay his respects at the grave of antisemitic activist priest Josef Deckert.93 This visit to the grave, which was at the rear of the church, and still is, must have been like a red rag to a bull. It would have outraged the Social Democrats, since Deckert had been bitterly anti-Marxist, as well as antisemitic. The Nazis would have been angered at the sight of the highest representative of the Church, a symbol of the independence of Austria from Germany. The entries that Lojka made in his Chronik, and the manner in which he recorded them, show him as a perceptive observer of life, as well as being a man of independent opinions who was not above

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a little self-deprecation. While he would no doubt have enjoyed the attention that the visit of the Archbishop brought to him and his parish, he did complain that trekking from one school to another with Innitzer had caused him to miss his breakfast.94 He was also not a blind follower of the Fatherland Front, however closely it corresponded to the sort of fascist-leaning organisation he favoured as being right for Austria. He was critical of how, during Lent, a time for reflection, the Front was running dances to raise funds for its activities.95 In addition to such commentaries, Lojka recorded events of international significance that might affect Austria. When he wrote his 1936 Chronik, the alignment of European states had recently changed significantly. In October 1935, Italy, through its African colony of Eritrea, invaded Abyssinia, as Mussolini aimed to extend the Italian Empire. Abyssinia appealed to the League of Nations for help, Britain and France supported the Abyssinian cause, and they fell out with Mussolini. As a consequence, the Stresa Front collapsed, Hitler stepped into the breach to offer Mussolini his support over Abyssinia and a rapprochement between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany followed.96 The two countries began even closer cooperation when, in July 1936, they actively supported a right-wing rebel army that rose against the elected Spanish government in Madrid.97 Schuschnigg had lost any certainty of support from Mussolini in the event of a German move against Austria. So Hitler bullied Schuschnigg and laid down rules for the running of Austria, and Germany and Austria signed what became known as the July agreement, a ‘treaty of friendship’ between the two countries.98 Germany recognised the political independence of Austria, dropped the tourist tax and promised no interference in Austrian internal affairs.99 Austrian Nazis who had been arrested after the assassination of Dollfuss were released under an amnesty, and Schuschnigg consented to broadening his government, bringing in nationalists who had sympathy for Nazi viewpoints.100 Hitler, however, was going further than mere interference. He was aligning Austria with Germany, in its foreign and internal policies. The agreement contained a ‘secret protocol’ that confirmed Austria as a ‘German state’ which, through its diplomatic efforts, would support German foreign policy where it could.101 A further agreement, a November protocol, extended the 1935 agreement on the ‘Aryan’

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content of Austrian films, now requiring sufficient ‘German’ content in further cultural areas, such as theatre and music.102 While the clauses supporting German diplomatic efforts were new, the provisions regarding internal, anti-Jewish moves simply formalised what was already happening in Austria. The question therefore has to be asked as to whether the July agreement was forced on to Austria, or whether Schuschnigg accepted it as a means of preserving Austrian independence, since he agreed with its internal provisions. Similarly, the nationalists who came into the cabinet in 1936, Edmund Glaise-Horstenau and Guido Schmidt, may have had some disagreements with Schuschnigg, but they were not a million miles from him on all points. Schmidt and Schuschnigg had been school friends, and Schmidt had already served in a Schuschnigg cabinet.103 The July agreement had a preamble that declared it was the restoration of the normalisation of German-Austrian relations, but Father Lojka would have none of this, and he communicated his thoughts with his parishioners through his parish newsletter of June 1936. ‘I hear the message clearly, but I do not believe it at all.’ He expected a repeat of the Nazi coup attempts of 1933 and 1934, as a means ‘to absorb us [sic]’ (emphasis in original). Lojka accepted that Schuschnigg had no choice but to bring the ‘Nationalists,’ as he described them, into government, but for him, the first duty of a Catholic was to protect the Church. Lojka believed that the Nazis, hiding behind the nationalists, were a threat to the Church. He wrote, ‘The will of the people for independence, begun by Dollfuss and continued by Schuschnigg, must be strengthened … May Austria resist the friendship of Germany, as it would oppose its enmity!’104 Lojka may previously have shown approval for fascism, but he declared in his newsletter that he would never be a Nazi.105 A last stand In 1936, Vienna was a stage that demonstrated the directions in which the whole of Austria was being pulled. Alliances were formed and broken. On the right, the Heimwehr had long passed its peak of influence, but the Nazis were growing in size and significance. The Fatherland Front was judged by some to be an irrelevance, but it managed to organise huge rallies. Individuals and groups presented contradictory positions, especially over the question of Anschluss. Father

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Leopold Schmid, of the parish of St Rochus in the Landstrasse, was a prime example of the fluidity and overlap of Austrian political groupings on the right. Father Lojka recorded rumours that Schmid had been banned from preaching.106 But in 1936, Schmid, who had spoken at German nationalist rallies in the 1920s, addressed what he described as a ‘famous’ Fatherland Front rally. Whether this rally took place before or after the July agreements of that year, Schmid seemingly had no trouble reconciling his pro-Anschluss views with the aims of the Front.107 Huge crowds turned out for and against conflicting political stances. In October 1936, a Fatherland Front rally in Vienna was estimated to have been attended by a crowd of 360,000. A recording of a speech by Dollfuss was played, which was met with considerable enthusiasm, as was a speech by Schuschnigg. It is not known how many would have turned out if all state employees had not been expected to be there.108 Other groups organised demonstrations backing their own positions. The arrival in Vienna in February 1937 of German Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath saw Nazi sympathisers follow him from the railway station to his residence, shouting ‘Heil Hitler!’ Progovernment supporters returned the favour when he left Vienna, letting out cries of ‘Heil Schuschnigg!’109 Despite their illegal status, the Social Democrats were not to be outdone. Max Winter, an icon of the left, a journalist and politician, had died in exile in the United States in July 1937. His remains were secretly repatriated to Austria, a funeral under a false name was arranged for the Vienna Central Cemetery and word was spread among supporters. The police could not prevent huge crowds, perhaps half a million strong, paying their last respects to a champion of the Viennese working class.110 While this brief resistance showed that Red Vienna was still alive, time was running out for all who opposed the Nazis in Austria, since government was now being undermined from within. The nationalists who had joined the cabinet in 1936 were, in reality, either Nazis or pro-Nazis. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who had sat in the Dollfuss cabinet from 1933, had emerged in 1937 as a ‘mediator’ between the government and the Nazis, but Seyss-Inquart operated in the proNazi camp, and he was not alone.111 The presence of Seyss-Inquart at the highest levels of Austrian politics emphasises the observation of John Lauridsen that the elevation of the representatives of extreme,

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nationalistic antisemitism of the 1930s did not come about solely because of foreign pressures. European circumstances played their part, but extreme views were home grown, not an import, their roots in the German nationalist and Christian Social movements between which, while differences and tensions did exist, there was much fluidity. Arthur Seyss-Inquart was not just a man imposed on Schuschnigg because of pressure from Hitler.112 The Seyss-Inquart family, for instance, was close to the Church and well connected in society. Richard, a brother of Arthur, became a priest, and was known as a poet.113 Arthur was called to the public law service. Such a family would not have been alone in mixing with both the Church and the Nazis. Seyss-Inquart and Dollfuss had both belonged to the Deutsche Gemeinschaft, an organisation that espoused nationalist antisemitic viewpoints.114 Seyss-Inquart was also no solitary example of this fluidity. He was typical of a loose group of Catholics, the ‘Catholic Nationals,’ who saw no contradiction between their faith and their desire to submerge Austria into Nazi Germany. These men, if not large in number, were influential. For instance, another was Glaise-Horstenau, who had joined the Austrian cabinet in 1936. With complete misunderstanding of how far Hitler intended to eliminate Austria, these men shared the pipe dream of joining Germany with Austria, but still retaining a special autonomy for the latter.115 Having these men in cabinet made it difficult to produce plans to keep Austria independent but, even more significantly, by late 1937 Adolf Hitler was behaving increasingly aggressively towards Austria. It was clear that if he chose the military option to achieve Anschluss, help would not be coming from Italy, France or Great Britain. Austria was alone, and, in these circumstances, Austrians would not be in charge of making decisions over Anschluss. This seems to have produced some despair in Father Lojka, who noted in January 1938 that he was expecting to see German Nazis in Austria imminently. A Nazi takeover seemed to be happening before his eyes when people bearing Nazi insignia demonstrated in many Austrian cities. Lojka estimated that these people were transported from all over Austria, and probably beyond, to swell the crowds on swastika-lined streets that hosted huge pro-Nazi demonstrations.116 Austria, he believed, was on the cusp of the ‘Anschluss which has been hotly, if vainly, resisted for so many years.’117

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Yet Schuschnigg, and others, felt there was still a chance of resisting union with Germany. Despite further hectoring and bullying from Hitler early in 1938, Schuschnigg announced on 9 March that a plebiscite would take place in Austria, on 13 March, to settle once and for all the relationship between Austria and the German Reich.118 He was taking a huge gamble that he might provoke Hitler. Without effective allies abroad, Schuschnigg turned to the Austrian people. Voters were to be asked a single question: did they want a free, social, German, Christian, independent Austria?119 A German Austria complied with the July agreement. A Christian and social Austria matched the constitution of the corporate state. An independent Austria would signal that Hitler could no longer claim that Anschluss was the setting to rights of the unjust Versailles treaties in their effects on Austria. Hitler made clear to Schuschnigg that he would not allow the plebiscite and that he would prevent it by force, if necessary. During the day of 11 March 1938, German troops assembled by the Austrian border, as Hitler presented Schuschnigg with more demands and deadlines.120 Airborne formations gathered away from the German-Austrian border. Hitler justified his plans as necessary to protect the Austrian people from a government that terrorised them, economically and physically, and he broadcast his intentions, and his reasons behind them.121 Schuschnigg took to the radio to denounce as ‘lies from A to Z’ accusations by Hitler that Austria was riven by violence and witnessing ‘disorders by the workers, the shedding of streams of blood.’122 Schuschnigg knew that any violence being directed against the Austrian state was coming from the Nazis, not the workers. Yet he announced that, whatever happened, the Austrian army should put up no resistance, so that no ‘German blood’ would be spilled.123 Schuschnigg resigned, announcing that he was acting ‘under force.’ President Wilhelm Miklas, after initially having refused to do so, appointed Seyss-Inquart as the first Nazi chancellor of Austria. The process of implementing the Anschluss had begun, and a trigger had been pulled. No time would now be wasted, and no limits would be known, in the unleashing of brutal antisemitism against the Jewish citizens of Austria. Notes 1 A-Z, 5 January 1934, p. 1. 2 dkB, 20 January 1934, p. 6.

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3 ABPD 1934, 19 January 1934, various reports. 4 ABPD 1934, 19 January 1934. Rosenauer to the Police at Wieden. 5 ABPD 1934, 19 January 1934. Karl Koller to the Police at Wieden. 6 ABPD 1934, 19 January 1934. 7 Carsten, Austrian Republic, p. 190. 8 Lauridsen, Nazism, p. 269. 9 AEDW AOCk, 1934. Attendances are for Sunday 31 January 1934. 10 G.E.R. Gedye, Fallen Bastions: The Central European Tragedy (London: Gollancz, 1939), p. 105. 11 Edmondson, Heimwehr, pp. 219–221. 12 See Gedye, Bastions, pp. 101–120. 13 AEDW ReCk, 1934. 14 AEDW ScCk, 1934. 15 RP, 13 February 1934, p. 1. 16 NFP, 13 February 1934, p. 1 and 14 February 1934, p. 1. 17 NWB, 14 February 1934, p. 1. 18 A-Z, 25 February 1934, p. 1. 19 AEDW WeCk, 1934. 20 Johanne Thaler, ‘Legitimismus – Ein unterschätzter Baustein des autoritären Österreich,’ in Florian Wenninger and Lucile Dreidemy (eds), Das Dollfuß/Schuschnigg-Regime 1933–1938 (Vienna: Böhlau, 2013), pp. 69–85. 21 NWB, 19 April 1934, p. 3. 22 Cited in Diözesanblatt, 4 September 1934, p. 79. The full constitution appears on pp. 79–102. 23 Diözesanblatt, 4 September 1934, p. 111. 24 Carsten, Austrian Republic, p. 199. 25 David Birmingham, A Concise History of Portugal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 162–179. 26 Paul Preston, The Coming of the Spanish Civil War, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 43 and pp. 62–63. See also José María Gil Robles, No Fue Posible La Paz (Barcelona: Planeta, 1978), pp. 75–78 and pp. 85–90. 27 Herbert Dachs, ‘Austrofaschismus und Schule,’ in Tálos and Neugebauer (eds), Austrofaschismus, pp. 282–297. 28 Diözesanblatt, 7 May 1934, pp. 27–36. 29 Ernst Hanisch, Der lange Schatten des Staates: Österreichische Gesellschaftsgeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1994), p. 312. 30 See later in this chapter. 31 AEDW WeCk, 1934. 32 SLG Pfarrblatt, March 1934. 33 NL Pfarrblatt, Year VI, No. 5.

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34 See Anonymous, Festschrift: Die Wiener Pfarren, throughout, for Church reorganisation in the period. 35 Lucian O. Meysels, Der Austrofaschismus: das Ende der ersten Republik und ihr letzter Kanzler (Vienna: Amalthea, 1992), pp. 96–98. 36 AEDW WeCk, 1934. 37 AEDW WeCk, 1934. 38 Carsten, Fascist Movements, pp. 261–266. 39 Meysels, Austrofaschismus, p. 97. 40 AEDW WeCk, 1934. 41 AEDW WeCk, 1934. 42 AEDW AOCk, 1934. The note in the margin reads 25 July 1935, but this must have been added later as this is a mistake. 43 Österreichische Woche, 16 August 1934, pp. 2–3. 44 Österreichische Woche, 16 August 1934, p. 1. 45 Gedye, Bastions, p. 133. 46 AEDW WeCk, 1934. 47 Gedye, Bastions, pp. 119–120. 48 Gedye, Bastions, p. 123. 49 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 242. 50 David Thomson, Europe since Napoleon (London: Penguin, 1990), p. 733 and p. 740 reminds that the Austrian dimension of Stresa was just part of a general push for European disarmament. 51 See, for instance, a pamphlet by Professor Julius Patzelt, on one year of Schuschnigg. ABPD 1935/1. 52 Carsten, Fascist Movements, p. 275. 53 Carsten, Fascist Movements, p. 275. 54 Carsten, Fascist Movements, p. 273. 55 See Carsten, Fascist Movements, pp. 309–310. 56 Liebmann, Kirche in Österreich, p. 211. 57 Maximilian Liebmann, ‘Heil Hitler!’ Pastoral bedingt: Vom politischen Katholizismus zum Pastoralkatholizismus (Vienna: Böhlau, 2009), p. 43. 58 Liebmann, Pastoral bedingt, p. 44. 59 Liebmann, Pastoral bedingt, p. 43. 60 Quoted in Liebmann, Pastoral bedingt, pp. 50–59. 61 All quotations from Rudolf cited in Liebmann, Pastoral bedingt, pp. 54–56. 62 Christlich-deutsche Turnerschaft, Wien, 14. Bez., Reindorf, 1928–1933 5 Jahre. Wien: Turnerschaft (Vienna: Self-published, 1933), hereafter Wiener 14 Turnerschaft. Available from the Austrian National Library. 63 Wiener 14 Turnerschaft, pp. 1–3. 64 Wiener 14 Turnerschaft, p. 5. 65 Wiener 14 Turnerschaft, p. 3.

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66 Wiener 14 Turnerschaft, p. 7. 67 Wiener 14 Turnerschaft, p. 13. 68 Carsten, Fascist Movements, pp. 223–224. 69 Carsten, Fascist Movements, pp. 167–187. 70 Gr Pfarrblatt, 1935, No. 9, p. 1. 71 Das interessante Blatt, 29 August 1935, p. 5. 72 Gr Pfarrblatt, 1935, No. 9, p. 3. 73 Gr Pfarrblatt, 1935, No. 9, p. 1. 74 Gr Pfarrblatt, 1935, No. 11, pp. 2–3. 75 Gr Pfarrblatt, 1936, No. 6, p. 3. 76 See, for instance, AEDW GrCk, 1935, No.1, p. 2. 77 ‘Well attended’ meetings of the Fatherland Front at the Grinzing parish are recorded in Gr Pfarrblatt, 1935, No. 3, p. 6. 78 Gr Pfarrblatt, 1936, No. 4, pp. 5–6. 79 Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung, 10 November 1935, p. 2. 80 Gr Pfarrblatt, 1936, No. 4, pp. 5–6. 81 Gr Pfarrblatt, 1937, No. 4, pp. 1–2. 82 Gr Pfarrblatt, 1937, No. 4, pp. 2–3. 83 Carsten, Austrian Republic, pp. 241–243. 84 Janet Stewart, ‘Popular Culture in Austria: Cabaret and Film 1918– 1945,’ in Katrin Kohl, Ann Fuchs, Richie Robinson and Florian Krobb (eds), A History of Austrian Literature 1918–2000 (Woodbridge: Camden House, 2006), pp. 87–106, here p. 99. 85 Diözesanblatt, 21 December 1933, p. 99. 86 Julie Thorpe, Pan-Germanism and the Austro-Fascist State, 1933–38 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), p. 31. 87 Thorpe, Pan-Germanism, p. 232. 88 Königseder, ‘Antisemitismus,’ p. 56. Also, Pauley, Prejudice, pp. 268–273. 89 Thorpe, Pan-Germanism, pp. 165–166. 90 Thorpe, Pan-Germanism, pp. 153–155. 91 See RP, 23 April 1932, p. 4, and dkB, 25 April 1932, p. 3. 92 For examples of Nazi activities, see Gedye, Bastions, p. 77, p. 129, p. 218 and p. 251. 93 AEDW WeCk, 1936. 94 AEDW WeCk, 1936. 95 AEDW WeCk, 1936. 96 Carsten, Austrian Republic, p. 271 and p. 276. 97 Preston, Coming of the Spanish Civil War, pp. 116–118. 98 Karl Stuhlpfarrer, ‘Austrofaschistische Aussenpolitik – ihre Rahmenbedingungen und ihre Auswirkungen,’ in Tálos and Nuegebauer (eds), Austrofaschismus, pp. 322–337. 99 Carsten, Austrian Republic, pp. 230–232. Also, Carsten, Fascist Movements, p. 300.

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100 Gehl, Austria, Germany, pp. 145–146. 101 Gehl, Austria, Germany, p. 132. 102 See Gehl, Austria, Germany, p. 138 and Gabriele Volsansky, Pakt auf Zeit: das Deutsch-Österreichische Juli-Abkommen 1936 (Vienna: Böhlau, 2001). 103 Edmondson, Heimwehr, p. 258. 104 AEDW WeCk, 1936. 105 We Pfarrblatt, 5 June 1936. 106 AEDW WeCk, 1936. 107 SR Pfarrblatt, March 1938, pp. 53–57. 108 Carsten, Austrian Republic, p. 238. 109 Carsten, Austrian Republic, p. 233. 110 Hannes Hass (ed.), Max Winter: Expeditionen ins dunkelste Wien (Vienna: Picus, 2006), p. 10. 111 Carsten, Fascist Movements, pp. 293–314, on covert Nazi activities. 112 Lauridsen, Nazism, pp. 27–28. 113 For Arthur Seyss-Inquart, see Wolfgang Rosar, Deutsche Gemeinschaft: Seyss-Inquart und der Anschluss (Vienna: Europa, 1971), p. 15. For Richard, see W-Z, 16 January 1919, p. 19. 114 Rosar, Deutsche Gemeinschaft, p. 34. 115 Evan B. Bukey, Hitler’s Austria (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), p. 48. 116 Carsten, Austrian Republic, pp. 268–272. 117 AEDW WeCk, 26 January 1938. 118 Gedye, Bastions, p. 275. 119 Tálos, ‘Zeittafel,’ pp. 421–425, here p. 425. 120 Carsten, Fascist Movements, p. 323. 121 dkB, 13 March 1938, p. 2. 122 Quoted in Gedye, Bastions, p. 298. 123 Hanno Scheuch, ‘Austria 1918–1955: From The First To The Second Republic,’ Historical Journal, 32:1 (1989), 177–199.

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An end to Austria?

Violence erupts German forces would have overwhelmed any resistance that the Austrian army might have mustered, but it was still to be seen whether they would win over the bulk of the population for what was, in effect, an invasion. Austrians were still deeply divided about Anschluss. Christian Socials split along many lines. The Social Democrats, among the most enthusiastic supporters of Anschluss immediately after the First World War, opposed it as long as the Nazis were in power.1 But, it did not take long to determine the general direction of events. On the evening of Friday 11 March, even rumours that German forces were coming were enough to ignite an explosion of antisemitic outrages. A long series of attacks erupted against Jews, and anyone else that the Nazis and their hangers-on saw as their enemies, or who fell into categories of people they considered ‘outsiders.’ One eyewitness to that Friday in Vienna, British journalist G.E.R. Gedye, described a ‘witches’ Sabbath,’ that consisted of crowds ‘marching side by side with police turncoats,’ letting loose cries of ‘Heil Hitler!’ mixed with ‘Down with the Catholics!’2 The targets of violence varied in number and nature.3 A group of young males from a pro-Schuschnigg militia were herded into a building in central Vienna, stripped of their uniforms and beaten as a humiliation punishment. Whole sectors of the population were made to fear the coming regime, as a crowd estimated at between 80,000 and 100,000 marched through the Leopoldstadt, a district with a significant Jewish population.4 German forces had secretly infiltrated Austria on 11 March, but they openly crossed the border at dawn the next day, by foot and in

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motorised columns, as the Luftwaffe flew across Austria, dropping leaflets trumpeting friendship between all Germans.5 Troops were met by cheering crowds in one town and city after another. Hitler had been far from certain of this welcome, and must have feared potential resistance from many quarters, including the Social Democrats and leftover elements of the Christian Socials. Schuschnigg and the banned trade unions had even discussed a joint front for the planned plebiscite.6 Only a week or so earlier, the Heldenplatz had overflowed with supporters of Schuschnigg, but Hitler moved swiftly. On 12 March, he crossed to Linz, where he was said to have been overwhelmed by the crowds that turned out. Buoyed by this, and no doubt encouraged by the changed position of Italy and the apparent weakness of Great Britain and France, on 13 March the Nazis renounced the provisions of the treaty of St Germain regarding Anschluss. Austria was to be fully incorporated into Germany.7 The Nazis seized broadcasting facilities and used radio to consolidate their position, taking no chances with regard to whom they could trust. On 13 March, news programmes that were planned for broadcast from Vienna were suspended. Instead, they were replaced by a new list of programmes for that day, consisting of either music or proclamations from senior Nazis, including Goebbels.8 On 15 March, radio started at 3.00 p.m., but the voice of Austria had been silenced, since all news programmes were relayed from stations in the Reich.9 The same occurred on 16 March, with news programmes from Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg, Breslau and Stuttgart. The only programme to come from Vienna was a concert of light music.10 The Nazis moved against potential opposition from any source, and people who had any power or influence were targeted and removed.11 At the national level, the Nazis took all of the major political offices. In addition to Seyss-Inquart as Chancellor, Nazi Minister of the Interior Edmund Glaise-Horstenau was installed as Vice Chancellor.12 SeyssInquart, who now stood as Frontführer, announced the dissolution of the Fatherland Front as the ‘principal organ of political decisionmaking.’13 Ministers for education and for agriculture were replaced with Nazis.14 Leaders of regional diets, many from the Fatherland Front, were replaced with more ‘reliable’ figures.15 A new rector was appointed to the university in Graz, a new chief of the Vienna police took up position and new leaders took over the management of the Evangelical Church in Vienna.16 Even the leaders of the Vienna

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volunteer ambulance brigade were replaced, while ‘Aryan’ doctors replaced the doctors who worked with the brigade.17 By the time that Hitler reached Vienna, on 15 March, these measures were substantially complete. After his arrival, The Times reported,

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If any Austrians were against him on Friday, they either hid their faces or were completely converted yesterday and to-day.18

Certainly, the crowds that turned out for Hitler were intimidating, but he had not won over all of Austria, and there remained those who were against the Nazis and who were even prepared to resist them. While the description ‘orgy of antisemitism’ is appropriate for the scenes that occurred, it should not be applied as a blanket term that swept up all of the non-Jewish population. George Clare, then a teenage Jewish resident of the city, later recalled that ‘many thousands’ stayed away from the ‘celebrations’ of March 1938: ‘Social Democrats, Legitimists, true Catholics, Christian Socials, who put patriotism before opportunism, as well as people who were neither this nor that but just honest human beings.’19 Unfortunately, large numbers of antisemites were committed in their anti-Jewish rage. After the arrival of German troops, the rate of attacks on Jews accelerated. Beatings, arson against buildings, businesses and synagogues and general humiliation at every opportunity were the order of the day. The scenes exceeded the normal standards of civilised behaviour to such an extent that even some who would be considered antisemites, for their ingrained prejudices, begged foreign journalists to report events abroad, to try to stop the abuse.20 Celebration or acceptance? In Grinzing, Father Roczek struggled to make sense of events and, in particular, how his parishioners were reacting to them. He described how he felt they were ‘performing’ the Anschluss.21 His description suggests that Anschluss did not seem a reality, and it was as if they were acting out a play in which they had all been allocated parts. Others saw quite clearly what was happening, and they rejoiced. Despite dreadful outrages, many turned a blind eye as Austria was absorbed by a state that not only tolerated but encouraged the lowest kinds of human behaviour. These people would soon have a chance to express their support for the Anschluss, as a new plebiscite was announced for

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April. This would ask, ‘Do you agree with the reunification of Austria with Germany that was carried out on 13 March 1938?’22 Previous declarations from the Church in Austria and from Rome suggested the response of the senior clergy in Vienna should have been in the negative. In March 1937, Pope Pius XI had issued an encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge, that condemned national and racial ideologies, and affirmed that Jewish religious scripture had a ‘permanent validity.’ The encyclical condemned how the German government breached agreements it had reached with the Church. In November 1937, the Austrian bishops themselves had issued a declaration of solidarity with their German counterparts, recognising the violence of the state and the desire of the Reich to eliminate Christianity, especially in its Catholic form.23 Yet the upper levels of the Church in Austria rushed to offer their approval to Anschluss, and Church bells started ringing just before the arrival of Hitler in Vienna.24 Innitzer then negotiated with Hitler what he thought would be the terms for the relationship between state and Church, as well as planning the role of the Church in ‘the rebuilding of all of Germany.’25 Innitzer declared that the clergy and people stood completely behind the great German state and its Führer, in its world-wide fight against bolshevism, and for the security of German life. Catholic youth groups should prepare to be incorporated into state organisations. Churches were to be decorated in white and gold for festivals, at other times in the colours of state and Land.26 The bishops of the Catholic Church in Austria pledged their support for the Anschluss. They issued a ‘Solemn Declaration,’ calling on all Catholics to obey their ‘obvious national duty’ and to endorse the ‘fulfilment of a thousand-year desire’ for the German people to be able to live in a single state.27 The bishops layered approval on to approval, adding that the Nazis had been good for Germany, particularly in the ‘social area.’ The Nazis were therefore praised for being, at least, German and social. No mention was made of whether the Nazis were good or bad for German Jews, but Catholics were told to vote ‘out of inner conviction,’ and this message was distributed as widely as possible.28 The words ‘Heil Hitler!’ ended the message, signed by the bishops of Austria. Claims that Innitzer was reluctant to add this phrase are irrelevant to the overall meaning of the declaration. Even without these words, it was a fervent endorsement of Anschluss with this particular Germany.29

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The bishops were not alone in the Church in their enthusiasm for the achievement of this alleged ‘thousand-year desire of the German people.’ In Landstrasse, Father Leopold Schmid praised Hitler and Anschluss. In his parish newsletter, he reminded his readers of his long-standing nationalist credentials. He explained that his earlier support for the corporate state had been a contribution to necessary and temporary steps in the fight against Bolshevism. He, like Innitzer, signed his newsletter ‘Heil Hitler!’ but it is unlikely that Schmid had any reluctance in signing in this manner.30 Schmid headed his 1938 Chronik with a single word, in large handwriting: ‘Wiedervereinigung!’ – ‘Reunion!’31 Schmid believed that Germans had once been united, but they had become divided. Anschluss was a recreation of something that had been broken. Similarly, newsletters at the parish of Alservorstadt carried two swastikas on front pages in 1938, describing them as symbols of German unity.32 Articles included how to check that an Austrian was truly German.33 Yet these articles stand out as anomalies, since evidence from other parishes favours an interpretation that few priests in Vienna supported the Nazis.34 Substantial resistance to the Anschluss did not materialise. Social Democratic leaders Otto Bauer and Karl Renner had both long argued in principle for Anschluss with Germany, although not with Nazi Germany. Bauer had written in 1937 that he would resist the Hitler state.35 Now, in March 1938, Bauer and Renner supported the Anschluss, mainly for three reasons. The first was that this was a fait accompli that could not be overturned. The second was that voting in the plebiscite was to be held in open polling booths, in the presence of German troops. Ballot papers were designed with two circles, one small for ‘No,’ the other much larger, for ‘Yes.’ Voters against the proposal would be easily identifiable, and probably singled out for punishment.36 As they had seen in Nazi Germany, resistance was met by massive retribution from the state.37 The third reason was that many Social Democrats believed, with a faith in Marxist inevitability, that the Nazi regime would crumble under its own contradictions, leaving a democratic Germany. This was a completely naïve misinterpretation of conditions in Germany and Austria as the Anschluss unfolded.38 But this should not distract from the fact that profound differences existed between the bishops of Austria and Social Democratic leaders, despite both groups supporting the 1938

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Anschluss. The Social Democrats, accepting the inevitable, were pragmatic. The bishops rejoiced as they helped to make, for some, Anschluss with Nazi Germany desirable, acceptable and respectable. The bishops did not fool Father Lojka. He had never abandoned his earlier rejection of the Nazis, so it must only have been with reluctance that he followed orders that were issued to all parishes to hang a huge poster that called for a positive response in the plebiscite. As he wrote, he believed that the instruction from the bishops had contributed greatly to the overwhelmingly positive outcome of the plebiscite.39 It was approved by 99 per cent. The vote was a sham, effected by force.40 Nevertheless, Austria was absorbed into Germany and disappeared from the map of Europe. Escape? Many would-be targets of the Nazis planned escape, but escape came in many forms, with vastly different consequences. Large numbers of Jews committed suicide rather than fall into Nazi hands.41 Prince Starhemberg, on the other hand, slipped out of the country and into exile.42 This was a better fate than that of an erstwhile rival, Major Emil Fey. Fey, like Starhemberg, had attempted to work with the Nazis, but in March 1938, he was supporting the losing side as the Nazis took over. Fey escaped, apparently by taking the life of his son, then taking his own, although some claim they were both murdered by Nazi supporters.43 By contrast, Kurt von Schuschnigg chose to stay in Vienna when he could have taken the opportunity to leave, and he was then held at various concentration camps, where he survived the war.44 He later taught law as a university professor at St Louis. When he arrived in the United States, he was still in his forties. Many years later, he described the execution of a heavily wounded Social Democrat in 1934 as a ‘faux pas.’45 Schuschnigg retired to Austria, where he died at the age of seventy-nine in 1977.46 Father Karl Schwarz of Alt-Ottakring had reasons to escape, even though he has been painted as an antisemite because of a comment he made in a 1928 parish newsletter.47 In an article headlined ‘Star or Cross?’ Schwarz observed that the old struggle between cross and crescent moon, that is, between Christians and Turks, had become a struggle between cross and star.

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The five-pointed star, whether we call it the Freemasons’ or Jewish or Soviet star, conquers nothing. On the one side is Christ, on the other is the Antichrist, that is the key struggle today more than ever.48

In many cases, this would be typical of anti-Church fantasy conspiracies that priests constructed. Yet, apart from the difficulty of applying the five-pointed star as a symbol of Jewishness, since the Star of David has six points, reading the whole article, rather than just an isolated comment from it, shows Schwarz presenting a parable for the modern world and a profession of belief in Christianity. A different interpretation also emerges if more is known about Schwarz and the consequences of Anschluss for him. On 24 February 1938, just weeks before Anschluss, Schwarz had been celebrating. He had no money for urgent repairs at his church, but then came the direct involvement of the Minister for Education, who granted funding. Schwarz thought this a ‘miracle.’49 This was the last entry in his Chronik by Schwarz before May 1938, when he recorded that ‘illness’ had forced him away from his parish. On his return, Schwarz found much changed. A large swastika draped parish buildings. Numbers at mass had collapsed; only ten children turned out for a service for the local Gymnasium when, in previous years, such events had attracted high attendances.50 Schwarz noted how the Nazis absorbed the social organisations of Vienna, as the Church was stripped of its associational base. Corpus Christi celebrations were for the first time held without any representative of the state. A planned trip to Lisbon for Schwarz with the Redemptorist Order was called off. No reason was given.51 Schwarz would have regretted this lost opportunity to take him far from the Nazis when, like everyone who now fell under their control, he was compelled to register his ‘racial origins’ with the authorities. As a result, late in 1939 a Nazi official wrote to the Ordinariat that Schwarz and a curate, Fried, had registered themselves as Jewish.52 No more is known of Fried, but Schwarz was Jewish as defined by the Nazis. According to one biographer, who was a son of the housekeeper at the parish in Ottakring, Schwarz was born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, but his mother had him baptised as a Catholic.53 The Nazi authorities investigated and, in November 1939, demanded the immediate removal from his post of ‘the full Jew’ ‘Karl Israel Schwarz.’ However, Schwarz was only



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‘finally dismissed by the Vienna Ordinariat and replaced by an administrator’ in April 1940.54 His biography relates how he withdrew to a monastery, then fled in disguise. His escape from Vienna had been effected.55 Schwarz, identified elsewhere as an antisemite, was in fact a victim of antisemitism. The settling of scores Means of escape closed to Jews. Vehicles were confiscated, frontiers were sealed and, anyway, hoped-for destinations, such as Czechoslovakia, closed their borders, in fear of an influx of refugees.56 No district of Vienna eluded the attention of the Nazis. In Favoriten, the Chronik of the parish of St Anthony of Padua records that Jewish businesses, especially in the main street, Favoritenstrasse, had been ‘reorganised and re-established to comply with the new age.’ ‘Aryan’ owners now controlled these businesses. ‘Long-established’ Jewish doctors, concentrated in particular streets, had to leave, and were replaced by Aryan doctors.57 Nazism was not just an import to Vienna. In some quarters, Nazis had been waiting for, and were now receiving, their rewards. Since the Church had previously underpinned the corporate state, and by extension Austrian independence, parishes such as St Anthony of Padua received Nazi attention, despite the support that the bishops were now offering for the Anschluss. Over a few months, harassment took place in the form of temporary occupations of the parish home and offices, centres of parish life.58 The parish of St Laurenz-Gertrud in Währing had for years been the scene for disputes between the Nazis and Father Albert Schubert, so it was not long before they visited him, too. In April 1938, Schubert found a gang of Nazis marching outside his church, carrying a model of a coffin. The coffin held two dolls. The first had a label reading Fatherland Front. The second was dressed as a priest.59 The message was clear, but Schubert was not going to be silenced. Awareness and resistance By late 1938, even Cardinal Innitzer recognised that promises from Hitler were worthless. Hitler had repudiated virtually every agreement he had made with the Church. For instance, the state assumed

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primary responsibility for marriage, and schools were taken into state control.60 Innitzer made a stand when, in October, at the Cathedral of St Stephen, he led a Catholic youth group in prayers, where he announced belief in ‘only one Führer, Jesus Christ.’61 This outraged a gang of Nazis, who raided the Archdiocesan offices. Objects were smashed and one young priest, Father Johannes Krawarik, was thrown from a window, sustaining broken bones as he landed in the courtyard below.62 Father Lojka at Weinhaus had been far ahead of Innitzer in understanding the Nazis. He was astute in his observations, and not afraid to record them, even if they might be discovered. He noted that the bishops had made efforts to achieve compromise, but the clergy had to speak out, since the ‘new authorities’ had broken one pledge after another. Catholics were refused access to religious rites in public hospitals. The pro-Nazi Tageszeitung carried false stories about Innitzer, and claimed that he ‘opposed the Führer.’ Lojka noted that actions by the Nazis were affecting his own parish directly, since attendances at Sunday masses were down to below 900, because of ‘personal agitation and even worse means.’ Catholics who remained loyal to their faith were losing jobs.63 Father Lojka seems to have forgotten that antisemites had long called for quotas on Jews in certain professions. By 1938, Lojka was sixty-six and should have retired.64 He carried on into the war years, but his Chronik entries became sparser and sparser. He recorded the death of Pius XI, but not the start of the war, although the war came inside his church when presbytery rooms were requisitioned for soldiers in 1941.65 Despite any close attention that this created, Lojka recorded in his 1942 Chronik the names of priests, German and Czech alike, who were executed on suspicion of involvement in the assassination in Bohemia of acting Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, a favourite of Hitler. In recording this information, Lojka was remaining defiant, as it could have placed him under suspicion of having sympathies for the ‘wrong’ people.66 In 1943, Lojka was instructed to retire, but it was another year before he requested permission to leave his parish in late 1944.67 Here, the trail of Father Lojka ends. At the next parish from Father Lojka, Father Schubert drew condemnation from the Nazis. It has been stated elsewhere that, apart from one brief effort in his parish newsletter, Schubert ceased antiNazi activities after the Anschluss.68 This was not the case. It was an

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act of defiance on his part that he wrote in his Chronik for 1938 that ‘Whoever is interested in the events of 1938 should not rely on this Chronik alone.’ They should instead refer to the parish newsletters from 1934.69 Schubert was indicating the long-term undermining of Austria by Nazi Germany. Schubert was also unafraid to make public his opposition to Nazi laws. In May 1939, Nazi party officials complained to the Ordinariat that Schubert addressed as ‘Miss’ any woman who had not been through a Church service, but who had only been married by the state, and they asked for an investigation.70 This stance may have made him popular with those who, at least in spirit, resisted the Nazis, since his parish experienced an unexpected increase in its congregations. Early in March 1939, a couple of months before the Nazi complaint against Schubert, his parish management committee had sent a request to the Ordinariat for loudspeaker equipment to be erected at the church, since the crowds for mass at St Laurenz-Gertrud were so large that they could not hear his preaching.71 The parish of Weinhaus, where Father Lojka lamented a decline in attendance at mass, is a short walk away, so perhaps St Laurenz-Gertrud was where the missing were to be found. Schubert, however, did not live to see the end of the Nazis. He died in April 1942, aged sixty-seven.72 Later in the war Just as the case of Father Schwarz shows that judgements should not be reached when only a single source is available and open to many interpretations, so some materials of Nazi origin that concern Father Schmid at St Rochus need to be approached carefully. According to one work, in December 1939, the Gestapo noted that Father Leopold Schmidt [sic] of St Rochus was ‘opposed to National Socialism,’ but he had been careful in his actions such that ‘individual facts’ could not be proved. Despite this, a written warning was sent to him, and he was put under observation.73 In April 1940, Nazi suspicions continued, with the Sicherheitsdienst reporting that ‘Schmidt’ had been sending Catholic newspapers to soldiers at the front.74 It is difficult to approach these reports without scepticism. Leopold Schmid, not ‘Schmidt,’ was the priest at St Rochus.75 Schmid was a noted nationalist among the Catholic clergy, as demonstrated through many sources cited in this work. He was the unlikeliest priest

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to have acted against the Nazis. Rather, his actions in their favour became more extreme as the war progressed, and more disobedient with regard to the upper hierarchy of the Church. In 1943, he sent open letters to parishioners at his current and former parishes, where he insulted senior Viennese clergy.76 Contrary to specific orders from the Ordinariat, he took part in broadcasts on Radio Vienna, where he read messages that were understood to have been prepared by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. Schmid was replaced at St Rochus in 1944, by Father Anton Pichler, who recorded these actions, and that Schmid had been ‘dismissed.’77 At the time that Schmid was dismissed, Vienna was almost unrecognisable from the city it had been before the war, as regular and punishing allied air raids inflicted extensive damage. On 17 October 1944, Father Karl Nowotny at the parish of Reindorf recorded that the parish buildings had been heavily damaged. Nowotny noted that a ‘carpet of bombs’ had fallen on a nearby street. Four months later, the bombing was still continuing. On 21 February 1945, a ‘second heavy bombing’ impacted on the parish. These were the visible signs of changes wrought to the city during the war. However, another extreme change had been brought about, as the Nazi state had turned on its own citizens and had removed the Jewish population of the city. After the start of the war, the Nazis and their supporters rounded up Jews for expulsion. The final destination, for most of them, would be the death camps. Vienna had lost its Jewish heart, as deportation after deportation, often under Adolf Eichmann or one of his deputies, cleared the city of Jews.78 By spring 1945, the city was close to collapse. A ten o’clock Sunday mass at Reindorf was interrupted by air raid sirens, bringing the admission that people were being worn down by persistent air attacks.79 It must have been a relief when these aerial attacks on Vienna ended on 22 March 1945, with a few bombs falling on Keplerplatz in Favoriten.80 It was therefore in relative peace that Easter Sunday was celebrated on 1 April, albeit in a ‘wartime mood,’ as ‘the enemy’ lay before Vienna.81 The relative peace was temporary. Aerial bombardments had likely stopped so that Soviet troops could advance into Vienna unharmed by their own planes, and on 7 April, the Red Army entered Favoriten.82 Next day, on 8 April 1945, ‘the first Russians’ were moving through the streets of Reindorf, where they were met by white flags. Father

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Nowotny noted, ‘The people are breathing out. A dreadful war is coming to its end.’83 In nearby Favoriten, Father Ignaz Wiesböck noted the same destruction from air raids as in Reindorf, and white flags also greeted the Soviets. It had become clear, he remarked, that the war was a lost cause for Germany, and the Nazis continued it solely to prolong their own lives. Father Wiesböck was making his entries retrospectively – all of his comments are in the past tense – but he had clear recollections of the horrors of Vienna as the war ended. Refugees streamed to the city from Hungary, their transports running as far as Purkersdorf, a few kilometres to the west, where they were left to their fate. Among the most numerous to flee Vienna were Nazis.84 The population, including priests, took to the cellars, seeking shelter. Some priests were forced by Red Army soldiers to take them to sources of food and drink, while others were searched at gunpoint by troops who demanded their identification papers. Father Wiesböck witnessed how women were raped in cellars, or behind piles of bricks or coal, with such outrages repeated ‘from house to house.’ As Father Wiesböck remarked, in the early days after the arrival of the Red Army, the Viennese kept their doors locked during the day, and barricaded at night, ‘afraid for their women and about looting.’85 Some encounters bordered on the surreal, such as when Father Wiesböck entered a room where he found ‘a fat Russian.’ The two spoke pidgin German and pidgin Russian, establishing that they were ‘good,’ since they were Austrian and Russian, not German and Russian. Another ‘Russian’ soldier leapt into the room via a window and began to play a polka on a piano.86 At Reindorf, Father Nowotny noted that Austria was being freed from Nazi domination, but it was now also being occupied.87 This acceptance of ‘liberation’ by Soviet troops was a huge contrast with the end of the First World War, when the Church treated the impending takeover of the city by an elected Social Democratic administration as if it was the end of the world. Even before the last elements of the Nazi army had left the old frontiers of Austria, people started trying to pick up the pieces. On 28 April 1945, in an echo of the ‘Solemn Declaration’ of the bishops that had welcomed the Anschluss, the same phrase was used to announce a new republic in Austria, based on a broad front of the Social Democratic Party, which was renamed the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the Austrian People’s Party, successor to the Christian Social Party.88 In Favoriten, the chair of the Communist

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Party issued invitations to a commemorative event to mark the day. Despite its role in bringing down the First Republic, in supporting the corporate state and in bringing about union with Nazi Germany, representatives of the Church were invited to attend.89 On 1 May 1945, in Ottakring, Karl Walcher, who had been parish administrator in place of Father Schwarz since 1939, kept the parish Chronik up to date. The swastika had gone from the parish buildings, and ‘the red-white-red flag, the flag of Austria is flying. God protect our country and our people.’90 On 7 May 1945, war in Europe ended with the death of Hitler. The Chronik of St Anton, in Favoriten, shows contrasting emotions and fates in Vienna. While Soviet soldiers sang in celebration, adherents of the Nazis found their homes confiscated and given to the homeless. Nazis were also forced to clean the streets, ‘as the Jews had been forced to do before them.’91 However, the end of the war brought little relief, since the economy had collapsed, hunger was widespread, streets were disastrously filthy and typhus was claiming thousands of lives. Even coffins could only be obtained through the black market, as Soviet soldiers bartered food, drink and other necessities in exchange for anything of value that civilians could offer.92 Vienna became only a small part of another new order that was settling across Austria and central Europe in general, as justice, sometimes confused with retribution, was distributed. Courts were being put together to try Nazis.93 In a sign of who was now in charge in Austria, Herr Wenzel Sommer, head of the Favoriten chamber of commerce, was obliged to give up his home to the new Soviet commander. Sommer, along with his family and ninety-five-year-old mother-in-law, ‘took refuge’ in the St Anton parish presbytery. It was clear that everyone, regardless of their status or circumstances, had to follow the rules laid down by the new authorities.94 In Ottakring, the wartime story of Father Schwarz was coming to light. The October 1945 Chronik read that there was no sign of him, although the parish had been ‘freed’ for five months, but news then reached Vienna that Schwarz had been seen in a monastery in Bavaria. He was on his way back and ‘he is fine.’95 The Chronik then stated that everything was going back to normal, but this was not so for Schwarz. He returned to Ottakring in 1946, but only briefly. Schwarz retired on the grounds of an illness he had picked up ‘in the field.’96 A biography of Schwarz suggests retirement had more to

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do with the rejection he experienced from his parishioners after his return, where he was still referred to as the ‘Jewish Priest.’97 According to this biography, Schwarz now took rooms in a different district of Vienna, staying until his death in the late 1950s, but correspondence between Schwarz and the Ordinariat reveals a different story. Schwarz did initially retire, but he subsequently wrote to diocesan officials that his experience of not having a parish had come too soon. Quoting from Genesis, he said he was now like Rachel: ‘Give me children, or I will die.’98 He still needed parishioners. So his request was granted, and he was given a parish in Bavaria. Finally retiring after several more years, Schwarz lived to the late 1950s.99 Lessons not learned? Some people never recovered from the psychological and emotional scars inflicted by the Nazi period and the war, and their suffering went on for years. But, whatever the horrors of the war and its immediate aftermath, many people desired a return to normality, in as much as this was possible. As early as 3 June 1945, a Corpus Christi procession was held in Reindorf, apparently ‘as it was in peacetime.’100 Other parishes also recorded their own Corpus Christi processions, with similar sentiments.101 Some form of political normality was quickly instituted. Although Austria was occupied by the four allied powers – the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France – and divided between them, as was Vienna, free elections to a new parliament were held in November 1945. The People’s Party took a narrow majority of seats, while the Socialist Party won 44 per cent. Leopold Figl, as Chancellor, formed a coalition of these parties and the Communists.102 Small signs of normality also appeared in other ways. Father Karl Nowotny, who had been running the parish of Reindorf as spiritual provisor since 1942, was confirmed as parish priest in 1946.103 Parishes organised vacations for their children. New Year celebrations were held, musical performances of composed masses were held.104 Physical reconstructions progressed quickly. Typical of these were new parish buildings in Reindorf, completed in November 1947.105 In the space available here, few answers can be given to the question of how those who survived the war and the decades leading to it reflected on the events through which they had lived, and in which

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they had perhaps even participated. Whole works have been dedicated to this coming to terms with the past, with remembering and memorialising matters such as war and loss.106 That is not the purpose of this work. However, some examples are given of how, even after the war and the dreadful events that had taken place across Europe, some close to or linked with the Christian Social movement demonstrated the persistence of old thinking, and the survival of a Christian Social world view that had done much to create social divisions and tensions. In 1949, further elections were held to the Austrian Parliament, and the position of the Church towards politics in the newly revived state was clearly set out in, for example, the newsletter of the parish of St Johann Evangelist. This claimed that the Church would not tie itself to any one movement, whether capitalist, socialist or nationalist. Instead, it would ask Christians to vote according to the principles of Christianity, and to protect ‘the freedom of the Church … the Catholic school and Christian marriage.’ Catholics were reminded that it was their duty to vote as citizens.107 It was disingenuous at the very least to suggest that the Church had no ties with any one party. These ties functioned both informally and through Catholic associations, which came back to life after the years of Nazi suppression. For instance, many key figures in the People’s Party were members of influential Catholic organisations. These included the Cartellverband, an association of former Catholic students, whose members were such as Cardinal Innitzer and postwar Chancellor Figl. Pre-war members had included Dollfuss and Schuschnigg.108 The Church may not have endorsed the People’s Party formally, but their long mutual relationship was well known, and it was inconceivable that the Church would support any other party. The Church had also not lost its desire for a Christian state. As a 1949 St Johann parish newsletter noted, the Christian ‘must announce the word of God in the state,’ presumably to ensure that Christianity was a founding principle of the state.109 Such an interpretation is not an overstatement of the position of the Church. Cardinal Innitzer wrote in 1947 that ‘[The Church] recognises every social and economic order that does not contradict the law of God and natural justice.’110 ‘Further, the Church has not only the right, but the duty, to take an authoritative position on human relations.’111 This is, on one level, the exercising of democratic rights. On the other, it is a

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statement that left no room for pluralism. It was a call for the ‘true democracy’ that Seipel promoted. The Church continued to show little capacity to reflect deeply on the past. A 1952 book that celebrated the time Innitzer had spent to date as Cardinal in Vienna contains information on the redrawing of parish boundaries and the significant number of church foundations between 1934 and 1937. No comment is made that these foundations were products of the Corporate State paying off its debts to the Church. The years of Anschluss are described as difficult years for the Church. No reference is made to Jews or to antisemitism.112 No single ‘correct’ way exists to recall and remember the past. The grave of Father Deckert, at the parish of Weinhaus, lies in a garden that is well tended at the rear of his old church. While, for decades, leaflets at the church there made no mention of his antisemitism, praising him instead as the founder of the church, a new generation has taken significant steps to make his activities known. Highly visible, and praiseworthy, efforts at the Weinhaus parish now draw attention to the vicious antisemite that he was. Until very recently in Vienna, certain men and women have been commemorated in street names, in books, or in other ways, but their antisemitic activities have not been mentioned. While Dr KarlLueger-Ring has now been renamed Universitätsring by the Vienna city authorities, other thoroughfares have not seen their names changed, but plaques have been erected that tell the histories of those in whose honour they have been named. A Viennese street, Latschkagasse, remains named after Adam Latschka, and more than one biography has honoured him for his social work among Christians.113 In addition to Father Latschka, two other priests from Alt-Ottakring have received contrasting treatment. Father Johannes Krawarik, the priest injured as Nazis stormed the Diocesan offices, against whom no accusations of antisemitism are laid, served to 1968 as parish priest at Alt-Ottakring, successor to the ‘Jewish priest,’ Father Schwarz. Father Schwarz is mentioned on the Alt-Ottakring parish website, which informs us that he had to ‘go into exile’ during the war. It does not say why. The square next to the church at Ottakring is named after Krawarik. But one priest is unremembered, at least publicly, and there is no immediately visible memorial, no street named after Father Karl Schwarz.

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Notes 1 See Gerhard Botz, Der 13. März 38 und die Anschluss-Bewegung (Vienna: Dr-Karl-Renner-Institut, 1978), for party political positions on Anschluss with Nazi Germany, p. 11. 2 Gedye, Bastions, p. 295. 3 Pauley, Prejudice, pp. 280–281. Gedye, Bastions, p. 296. 4 See Gedye, Bastions, p. 295 and p. 296, and Carsten, Austrian Republic, p. 224. 5 The Times, 14 March 1938, p. 1. 6 Gedye, Bastions, pp. 284–288. 7 Volks-Zeitung, 13 March 1938, pp. 1–2; also Kleine-Volks-Zeitung, 13 March 1938, p. 9. 8 NFP, 13 March 1938, p. 30 and p. 33. 9 NFP, 15 March 1938, p. 12. 10 NFP, 16 March 1938, p. 8. 11 NFP, 15 March 1938, p. 23. 12 Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung, 13 March 1938, p. 3. 13 RP, 13 March 1938, p. 8. 14 RP, 13 March 1938, p. 7. 15 RP, 13 March 1938, p. 4. 16 RP, 13 March 1938, p. 7. 17 NFP, 15 March 1938, p. 24. 18 Quoted in Gedye, Bastions, p. 278. 19 Clare, Vienna, p. 196. 20 Gedye, Bastions, pp. 300–313 presents a narrative of events immediately after Anschluss. 21 AEDW GrCk, 1938. 22 Kleine Volks-Zeitung, 26 March 1938, p. 4. 23 Liebmann, Kirche in Österreich, p. 177. 24 Das kleine-Volksblatt, 15 March 1938, p. 4. Eamon Duffy, Saints & Sinners A History of the Popes (New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2002), p. 344. 25 NWT, 16 March 1938, p. 10. 26 Maximilian Liebmann, Theodor Innitzer und der Anschluss: Österreichs Kirche 1938 (Graz: Styria, 1988) p. 77. 27 See ‘Feierliche Erklärung,’ Wiener Kirchenblatt, 3 April 1938. Available in ABPD 1938/2. See also Diözesanblatt, 22 March 1938, p. 23. 28 See, for instance, Katholische Aktion in der Alservorstadt, hereafter AV Pfarrblatt, April 1938. 29 On the reluctance of Innitzer, see Reimann, Innitzer, p. 110. 30 SR Pfarrblatt, March 1938, pp. 53–57. 31 AEDW SRCk, 1938.

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32 AV Pfarrblatt, 1938, No. 5, pp. 111–113. 33 AV Pfarrblatt, 1938, No. 4, pp. 102–103. 34 See Traude Litzka, Kirchliche Hilfe für verfolgte Juden und Jüdinnen im nationalsozialistischen Wien (Vienna: Lit, 2011) for instances of underground clerical resistance, such as that of Father Alexander Poch in the Leopoldstadt, pp. 84–85. 35 Ernst Panzenböck, Ein Deutscher Traum (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1985), pp. 192–209 for a discussion of the positions of Bauer and Karl Renner. 36 Höbelt, Provisorium, on the Social Democrats, pp. 358–359. 37 Kirk, Nazism, p. 50. 38 See Botz, Anschluss, pp. 24–26 for a longer discussion of the position of the Social Democrats. 39 AEDW WeCk, 1938. 40 Botz, Anschluss, p. 24. 41 Gedye, Bastions, pp. 305–309. 42 See, for example, Ernst Rudiger Starhemberg, Memoiren (Vienna: Amalthea, 1971), pp. 312–313 and pp. 318–319. 43 See George J.E. Mautner Markhof, Major Emil Fey (Graz: Stocker, 2004), pp. 165–177, on the deaths of Fey and his son. 44 See Anton Hopfgartner, Kurt Schuschnigg (Graz: Styria, 1989), pp. 230– 249, for the period of imprisonment under the Nazis, pp. 250–259 for the post-war period. 45 Wolfgang Neugebauer, ‘Repressionsapparat und -maßnahmen,’ in Tálos and Neugebauer (eds), Austrofaschismus, pp. 298–319, here p. 303. 46 Deutsche Biographie: https​://ww​w.deu​tsche​-biog​raphi​e.de/​sfz10​6715.​ html#​ndbco​ntent​(accessed 24 August 2020). 47 Scholz and Heinisch, Christen, p. 76. 48 AO Pfarrblatt, November 1928, p. 2. 49 AEDW AOCk, 24 February 1938. 50 See, for instance, detailed records of church attendance and school registrations at AEDW AOCk, 1875, 1942 and AEDW WeCk, 1861. 51 AEDW AOCk, 1938. 52 AEDW AOCor, 19 October 1939. Memorandum from Minister Wallentin. See also correspondence of 20 October 1939. 53 Kluger and Loidl, Zwei Volksseelsorger, pages unnumbered. Kluger was the son of the housekeeper. 54 Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst reports. Both cited in Franz Loidl, ‘Das Katholische-Konservative Lager,’ in Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes, Widerstand und Verfolgung in Wien 1934– 45, Vol. 3, (Österreichischer Bundesverlag für Unterricht, Wissenschaft und Kunst, 1975), pp. 5–80, here p. 46. 55 Kluger and Loidl, Zwei Volksseelsorger, pages unnumbered.

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56 Gedye, Bastions, pp. 283–285. 57 AEDW StAPCk, 1938. 58 AEDW StAPCk, 1938. 59 AEDW WäCk, 14 April 1938. 60 AEDW WeCk, 1938. 61 Liebmann, Innitzer und Anschluss, pp. 198–203. 62 Krawarik, from AO Pfarrblatt, Autumn 1963, cited in Loidl, ‘KatholischKonservative Lager,’ pp. 43–44. 63 AEDW WeCk, 1938. 64 Lojka’s date of birth can be found in his Chronik, AEDW WeCk, 1921–1922. 65 AEDW WeCor, 4 March 1941. Correspondence between Lojka and Ordinariat. 66 AEDW WeCk, 3 October 1942. 67 AEDW WeCor, 20 May 1943 and 26 September 1944. Correspondence between Lojka and Ordinariat. 68 Scholz and Heinisch, Christen, p. 76. 69 AEDW WäCk, 1938. 70 AEDW WäCor, 9 May 1939. 71 AEDW WäCor, 1 March 1939. 72 AEDW WäCk, entry for 24 April 1942. 73 Loidl, ‘Katholische-Konservative Lager,’ p. 49. 74 Loidl, ‘Katholische-Konservative Lager,’ p. 65. 75 His appointment was recorded in the Diözesanblatt, 30 November 1934, p. 143. 76 AEDW SRCk, 1944. 77 AEDW SRCk, 1944. 78 See David Cesarani, Eichmann His Life and Crimes (London: Heinemann, 2004), pp. 79–81 and p. 132. 79 AEDW ReCk, 17 October 1944 and 21 February 1945. 80 AEDW StJECk, 1945. 81 AEDW ReCk, Easter 1945. 82 AEDW StJECk, 1945. 83 AEDW ReCk, Easter 1945. 84 AEDW StJECk, 1945. 85 AEDW StJECk, 1945. 86 AEDW StJECk, 1945. 87 AEDW ReCk, 8 April 1945. 88 AEDW StAPCk, 1945. 89 AEDW StAPCk, 1945. 90 AEDW AOCor 1 October 1939. These notes are by Walcher, AEDW AOCk, 1945.

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91 AEDW StAPCk, 1945. 92 AEDW StAPCk 1945. 93 See AEDW StAPCk 1945. 94 AEDW StAPCk, 1945. 95 Both entries AEDW AOCk, 1945. 96 AEDW AOCor, 30 April 1946. 97 Kluger and Loidl, Zwei Volksseelsorger, pages unnumbered. This is Kluger’s comment, based on his experience of Schwarz. 98 AEDW AOCor, 1 December 1946. 99 Kluger and Loidl, Zwei Volksseelsorger, pages unnumbered. 100 AEDW ReCk, 1945. 101 For example, AEDW StJECk, 1945. 102 Das kleine Volksblatt, 27 November 1945, p. 1. 103 AEDW ReCk, 1 January 1946. 104 AEDW StJECk, 1946. 105 AEDW ReCk, 7 November 1947. 106 An excellent starting point can be found in Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 107 SJE Pfarrblatt, September 1949, pp. 1–2. 108 For a history of the Cartellverband (CV) in Austria, see Gerhard Popp, CV in Österreich, 1864–1938 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1984). 109 SJE Pfarrblatt, September 1949, pp. 1–2. 110 Theodor Innitzer, Die Stimme der Kirche zur sozialen Frage (Vienna: Herder, 1946), p. 7. 111 Innitzer, zur sozialen Frage, p. 6. 112 Anonymous, Die Wiener Pfarren von 1932–1952 während des Episkopates Sr. Eminenz des hochwürdigsten Herrn Kardinal-Erzbischofs Dr. Theodor Innitzer (Vienna: Katholische Internationale Soziologische Institut, 1952). 113 Latschkagasse is in the Alsergrund district, where Latschka performed his first charitable work in Vienna.

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11 Principal conclusions and further questions As Peter Pulzer has indicated, antisemitism, ‘pursued for its own sake or as an integral part of a wider political ideology … flourishes only in particular economic and social conditions’ in a post-liberal society.1 However, organised antisemitism also requires a dedicated and coordinated cohort of activists. In Vienna, this was the Christian Social movement, and this chapter draws together a number of points that have been made in this work about this movement. However, this chapter is not a synopsis of everything that has been written here. For instance, the chapter does not revisit the German or socially inclined aspects of the Christian Social movement. New research presented here has shed light on these characteristics, but, while they are important in building a picture of the Christian Socials, they have already been considered adequately in this work. Nor does this chapter revisit the role of associations in creating politically organised antisemitism, except to question the lowly, rebel status that has often been assigned to the associations. Neither does this chapter engage with the much-raised question of whether Christian Social antisemitism was a genuinely held belief or was purely a weapon to be cynically deployed. From many perspectives, this question is important but, as Pieter Judson notes, whether Karl Lueger, say, really believed in antisemitism is less important than the fact that its use by Lueger, and by numerous priests and politicians, helped to embed antisemitic thinking into certain sectors of the social life of Vienna. When the so-called respectable antisemites of Vienna propagated it, they enabled the acceptability of antisemitism, and the erection of walls against Jews.2

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Instead, a number of key points that have been encountered in the course of this book are reiterated, and reflections are presented as to their importance in understanding the history of the Christian Social movement. An examination then follows as to how the results of the research presented here shine a light on existing histories of the subject, and what these findings suggest about how the history of the movement should be approached. Finally, the chapter returns to the scenes of March 1938 in Vienna and their consequences for the Jewish population of the city. The end of liberal Vienna: Christian Socials as a new bourgeois coalition When Peter Pulzer writes of antisemitism flourishing in a ‘post-liberal age,’ he might well have added that this would also be an age of political immaturity, where voting systems were expanding, but where voting rights were still limited to a few, and where this left scope for a discontented minority of the population to air grievances in such a way as to exercise political power. This was the case in late nineteenthcentury Vienna, where liberals, their ranks never having been significant numerically, saw supporters of anti-liberal movements beginning to outnumber them. These anti-liberal supporters came from a lower bourgeoisie that, in other circumstances, might have been a natural constituency for the liberals. They each shared many values, such as talk of public morality, enterprise in business and support for established social structures, even if they interpreted these differently at times. The particular circumstances in Vienna, however, drove a wedge between many of the liberals and the lower bourgeoisie. The long-term power hold that liberals exercised over the city, and especially the financial scandals that were associated with them, left them open to attack. But, as Father Latschka noted, these attacks were rebuffed, until anti-liberals found a liberal Achilles heel: liberals could be associated with Jews, and antisemitism was deployed against liberals with devastating effect. Christian Socials, as John Boyer has noted, built a new bourgeois coalition, but one that excluded the Jewish bourgeoisie. They formed a movement that was based on a caste that aimed to protect or to extend its bourgeois privileges. It has been claimed, with some justification, that in doing this Karl Lueger was attempting to build the largest

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possible bourgeois coalition that he could, ready to face the likely coming threat of the Social Democrats.3 Yet, he started by alienating a significant part of the bourgeoisie, by differentiating his supporters from them on racial grounds, thereby rendering impossible any future meaningful reconciliation between all parts of the Viennese bourgeoisie. It was a bourgeois coalition which, in Vienna at least, could only succeed as long as the state kept the Social Democrats from power. A movement of rebellion? The Christian Socials have been defined as a movement that was, in its early days at least, characterised by rebellion. One of their rebellions, according to Friedrich Funder, was against a disapproving non-liberal establishment, which may not have had much in common with the liberals, but which was generally hostile to Christian Social language and political tactics. Yet, as has been seen, this part of the establishment quickly reconciled itself with the Christian Socials after 1895. This can hardly have been difficult to achieve, given the men that Funder singled out as being the subjects of admiration from the Christian Socials: Karl Lueger, Prince Liechtenstein and Father Abel. Liechtenstein was an aristocrat, with a place in high society; Lueger was well received at Church gatherings; and Father Abel, as mentioned earlier, was seen in 1891 in the company of, among others, Count zur Lippe, Princess Rohan, Countess Wilczek, Countess Jankovic and Count Strachwitz.4 If the Christian Socials started off as outsiders from the establishment, the wall that divided them from each other seems to have been thin or even non-existent, in places. An even more significant rebellion that has been indicated in much of the history of the Christian Socials was said to be an uprising of the lower clergy against the liberals of Vienna and Lower Austria. This rebellion has been portrayed as a reaction to the state of affairs that existed there in the 1860s and into the 1870s, when a combination of attacks, of many kinds, by the liberal state and its press caused derision and humiliation to be heaped on the lower clergy. In addition, the declining standards of living of the clergy, caused by fixed incomes that had not been revalued in decades, led to a loss of status and left them socially isolated, without a meaningful public role beyond their priestly duties. In reaction, a radicalised, younger generation of priests

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has been said to have emerged from the seminaries in the 1870s. Unlike their predecessors, this new generation campaigned against the liberals and eventually convinced their fellow clergy to wake from apathy with regard to this state of affairs. This narrative contains elements of charged language, which leave it open to challenge through a number of questions. The first of these concerns liberal attacks on the lower clergy. Certainly, liberals and the Church came into conflict, and some elements of the liberal press in Vienna, usually professional journals, have been cited as attacking priests, but as has been stated, their reach would have been limited. Attacks from these journals also did not go unanswered, as the Catholic-oriented press launched its own assaults on liberals and liberalism.5 In fact, the Catholic press attacked liberalism even before liberal administrations had been formed, so these attacks were not reactions to anything that liberals had done. As the evidence in this work shows, an undifferentiated, black-and-white picture of exclusion is incorrect. In the 1860s and 1870s, many priests played a part in ‘public affairs.’ The second question is the notion that the liberal state and ‘its press’ provided the source of attacks on the lower clergy.6 A liberalinclined press did exist, but it was a free press. It was neither owned nor controlled by the state and, generally, and within certain limits, it was able to write what it liked. Any censorship was more likely to come from the Imperial administration than from liberal governments. A third, and crucial, question concerns the apathy from which a younger generation of priests were said to be attempting to shake their colleagues and, therefore, in which direction, and against what or whom, they should they be stirred into action. There are several possible candidates as aims for their activism. One might have been to stir priests into defensive action against the state and the press; but this was already happening. The existence of more than reasonable relationships between lower clergy and politicians indicates that priests were not excluded from society. Into the 1870s, Cardinal Rauscher pursued his policy of accommodation with the state. Another possible aim in stirring up activism was to go on the offensive, and to demand better financial treatment by the state. Yet, even when this was achieved, and salaries were raised, the lower clergy continued to attack liberals.

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The reality is that, however they were treated by the liberal state, this emerging generation would have turned on it. To repeat John Boyer,

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Toward political and cultural liberalism there was only bitter enmity … Priests rejected the entire structure of cultural norms which they thought liberalism to symbolize.7

Any other ‘reason’ that might be advanced to ‘explain’ clerical antisemitism is, at bottom, a red herring. These men attacked those they saw as dangerous to their religion. In the late 1860s, and then in the 1870s, the revocation of the Concordat was presented as the most important issue facing the Church in Austria. It must be significant that the revocation coincided with the arrival in Vienna of ‘radicalised’ priests who were trained in the seminaries in the 1860s and 1870s. Local priests who came before them would likely have been no admirers of liberalism, but many of them maintained relationships with politicians. This changed with the likes of Fathers Deckert and Dittrich, and it does appear to be linked with men emerging then from the seminaries. Without further research into what happened in the seminaries, it is impossible to identify a root cause. One other point about these radicalised priests is worth noting. They have been portrayed as a rebellious younger generation, and no doubt many of them were relatively young, but the man who gave up his post as head of a seminary to take up a parish in 1874, Carl Dittrich, was fifty-two at this point. His anti-liberalism was long and deeply held. Dittrich advocated Catholic associations as the way to reverse liberal policies. The Concordat had previously given the Church pre-eminence. The new generation had seen liberalism place the Catholic Church at the same level as other religious groups, with the same rights and privileges. These priests wanted that pre-eminence back. But the reality was that only the state could have sufficient power and authority to reimpose a Concordat. And the only state that could do that would be an authoritarian state, given that it would have to work against the kind of pluralism that the modern world had brought into being. It would be another sixty years after Dittrich took up his position at Ottakring before such a state came into being, but the intervening years never saw the Church in Vienna, nor many of its allies in the wider Christian Social movement, give up on the aim of achieving this objective.



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The Viennese senior clergy A few organisations in Vienna attempted, with different degrees of success, and with different tactics, to counter the Christian Socials and their antisemitism. The most successful political grouping in Vienna was the Social Democratic Party, although its leaders always underestimated the importance of antisemitism. As Marxists, they placed this a long way down the scale of the problems they should attack, believing antisemitism would die out with changing economic circumstances.8 A small, liberally inclined movement, the League Against Antisemitism, was also formed, with gentile members, including composer Johannes Brahms and world-famous surgeon Theodor Billroth, but it never really took off.9 These groups had neither power nor influence over the lower clergy, and the only group that could really have exercised these was the senior clergy in Vienna. As has been noted, the senior clergy, which usually refers to the bishops of Cisleithania, are said to have attempted to ban the lower clergy from political activities from the 1870s to the mid-1890s. In particular, the bishops organised a mission to Rome in the 1890s, to win a papal condemnation of the Christian Social Party, which could be used to bring into line politically campaigning priests. It is worth repeating that the motivations behind the mission to Rome have been much debated, but the mission was highly unlikely to have been primarily concerned with the issue of disciplining the lower clergy for political activism. Certainly, the bishops were engaged in a well-documented dispute with the lay leadership of the Christian Social Party, but other factors indicate that notions of a seriously disputatious relationship between senior and lower clergy do not ring true.10 The bishops did lay down parameters for clerical political activism, but these did not dictate a ban on all political involvement. Instead, the bishops gave free rein to the lower clergy, who participated in a range of political activities below the parliamentary level, writing newspaper columns attacking liberals, running for election to various city and regional bodies and participating in Catholic political casinos. Priests in the 1880s were active politically before the Christian Socials existed. Fathers Deckert and Abel did not fall foul of any disapproval on the part of the bishops. Neither Scheicher nor Latschka, who after all was a co-founder of the Christian Social Association, faltered in their careers. As campaigners and candidates for the Party, the lower clergy helped

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to make up or to motivate the groups that formed the wider movement of social associations, and the bishops allowed their clergy to spread the vilest antisemitic propaganda, when only they had the power to prevent this. For this, they should be considered as responsible as the lower clergy for the rise of political antisemitism in Vienna. Antisemitism everywhere? It has been suggested in other works that antisemitism was widespread in Vienna. If this is true, then the role of the Christian Socials in generating antisemitism becomes less significant. However, this view of widespread antisemitism seems to be based on unjust accusations of antisemitism against individuals and groups, several of which are discussed here. Such accusations diminish the significance of genuinely antisemitic actions. Incorrect identifications can occur by drawing conclusions from only one source of information. For instance, the accusation that Father Karl Schwarz was an antisemite is based on one parish newsletter article, when other sources show Schwarz as victim, not perpetrator.11 He was a priest at a time of extreme clerical antisemitism, but guilt by association should not put a false interpretation on his words. As George Clare points out, not even every Christian Social was antisemitic.12 Another reason for unjust accusations can be misunderstanding a chronology, as in the singling out for antisemitism of prominent Social Democrat Adelheid Popp.13 A work on Popp highlights an admission in her memoirs that she engaged in antisemitic activities, but the author omits key facts. Popp explained that at the time of her transgressions she was an immature schoolgirl, encouraged by priests to boycott Jewish shops. Popp’s attachment to antisemitism went the same way as youthful beliefs in monarchism and God.14 As Mary Jo Maynes summarises, Popp the adult ‘clearly left [these views] behind her as she turned to socialism.’15 Some works claim that the Social Democratic movement was widely infected by antisemitism. Even Social Democratic leaders with Jewish origins, such as Victor Adler, have been condemned for distancing themselves from their ‘co-religionists,’ for creating a comfortable atmosphere only for Jews who abandoned their religion.16 Yet the Social Democrats, a Marxist, atheist party, would expect people who joined them to be in sympathy with their aims, whatever their original

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religious backgrounds. Adler, an atheist, converted to Protestantism solely to help his children to avoid the social stigma of being konfessionslos.17 Adler had no ‘co-religionists.’ Peter Pulzer judges that an awareness that there was ‘an antisemitism of the left in the course of the nineteenth century is nothing new,’ but he believes that the socialist left in Europe was, ‘with some qualifications, anti-antisemitic.’18 This does not mean that no member of the Social Democrats was antisemitic. The views of some individuals within the party were incompatible with universal socialism, but it is important to distinguish between socialism as an ideology, individual members and their attitudes and the movement as a whole. Uncertainty If, as Pieter Judson has claimed, a tendency exists among some historians to make ‘hermetically sealed claims about almost every aspect of Austrian history,’ this work is a challenge to such certainty.19 It is a challenge to allow multiple, parallel stories to be told, where they exist; to encourage questioning and doubt about aspects of the history of the Christian Socials; and to perceive grey areas that are difficult to explain. Such a situation arises with Father Albert Schubert of the parish of Währing. Schubert was the self-confessed antisemite who ran into conflict with local Nazis, who accused him of being close to Jews.20 If Schubert was an antisemite, it would be surprising for him to be close to Jews, yet a single letter kept within the pages of his Chronik suggests more to his story.21 The anonymous letter reports the ‘suicide’ of Egon Friedl, a Jewish intellectual who lived a few hundred metres from Schubert’s church, who threw himself from the upper floors of his home as SS officers prepared to break in and arrest him during the Anschluss. The letter raises uncertainty. When Schubert said he was an antisemite, did he mean that he was an anti-liberal? If Schubert and Friedl did not know each other, they would have known of each other, and someone wanted to let Schubert know of the death. Perhaps it was to remind Schubert about the ultimate consequences of antisemitism. The constitution of the corporate state placed Jews below Christians, no matter that it guaranteed Jewish rights, yet radio in Vienna had broadcast a talk by Friedl, historian, cabaret performer and raconteur, for his sixtieth birthday in January 1938.22 In this world based on ambiguous

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relationships, even Schubert’s admission of antisemitism perhaps needs a second consideration. Uncertainty also has to apply to Cardinal Piffl and his attitudes towards Jews. Piffl, when a young priest, left a note in his personal diary that has been interpreted as his regret at having to ally himself with antisemites in his struggle against the liberals.23 However, the quotation could just as easily suggest that he regretted allying with Pan-Germans, especially given that Piffl had shown no reluctance in promoting antisemitism. As a twenty-five-year old Kooperator, he wrote to Vaterland to upbraid the Christian members of the Donaufeld bei Floridsdorf town council, who had elected a Jew to the local school board. This, Piffl continued, ran counter to the efforts of all those who had attempted to prevent the election of a single Jew to the local council.24 Yet, it must be repeated that Piffl appointed Father Schwarz to the Alt-Ottakring parish, declaring him to have shown himself worthy of the position. Had he really used antisemitism purely as a weapon against the liberals? The correct answer is unlikely to be known. Legacy and aftermath The antisemitism that was unleashed in March 1938 did come from a chain of international political, military and diplomatic events; but the long-term effects of propaganda in Vienna, for which the Christian Socials were mainly responsible, contributed to an atmosphere where, if the worst excesses were not always accepted, they were expected, or not possible to resist. The early embedding of antisemitic ideas created an accepted narrative that made possible the ill-treatment of Jews, or the confiscation of their homes and businesses. It also led ultimately to the Austria that revived in 1944 being profoundly changed from the Austria lost in the Anschluss. The six years that had passed had been enough to bring about the end of Jewish Vienna. More than 176,000 Jews lived in Vienna in 1934. After the Anschluss, emigration left little more than 91,000 in the city by May 1939, then the extermination camps reduced this to under 7,000 by December 1945.25 The ultimate cause was the Nazi era, but mass emigration had begun under the corporate state. This was essentially a Christian Social creation, and over decades, Christian Socials had taken a lead in attacking Jews. It was therefore unsurprising that Jews rushed to leave a state founded on Christian Social ideas.

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Christian Social activists, lay and clerical, poisoned the atmosphere of Vienna. They have been described as a ‘social bourgeois protest movement’ that used antisemitism to campaign against ‘unwarranted social change.’26 Analysis of their antisemitism may reveal that it was constructed as ‘an exceedingly complex defence mechanism,’ but, in essence, their ‘reasonings’ were simply smokescreens constructed to disguise their prejudice. Social change may have been ‘unwarranted’ to them, but antisemitism was not justifiable, on any level. The Christian Social legacy should not be assessed in a moral vacuum. While it has rightly been said that ‘The history of the Christian Social party can be seen only within the limits of its time and judged in the context of its time,’27

there needs to be a qualification of this statement. If not, it suggests that the Christian Socials were unable to act outside this context, and that aspects of their character were determined by this context. It must be remembered that Vienna was not just an antisemitic context – others in the city opposed antisemitism. The antisemitic context in which the Christian Socials existed was not just of their making, but they contributed greatly to it. Christian Social antisemites spread hatred and discrimination, and not just against Jews. The clergy alone were not responsible for this, but many played significant roles. It was not the case that ‘the more radical Liberals would have preferred that the clergy remain socially isolated.’28 The priests were not socially isolated: the lower clergy simply hated secular, liberal society, against which they used Jews as scapegoats. It is unfortunate, given the significant numbers of priests who campaigned for antisemitism, that their superiors could not find it in themselves to restrain and to educate them. Intentionally or not, the clergy at many levels helped to shape a wider Christian Social movement which contributed to an environment where the limitless violence against Jews from 1938 onwards was not beyond imagining. Notes 1 Pulzer, Political Antisemitism, p. 285. 2 On Karl Lueger and antisemitism as instrumental, see Judson, ‘John Boyer,’ p. 186.

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3 For comments on the bourgeois coalition, see Beller, ‘John Boyer,’ pp. 190–192. 4 See Chapter 3 of this work. 5 Lewis, Kirche und Partei, p. 57. 6 See Chapter 1 of this work for reference to the liberal state and ‘its press.’ 7 Boyer, Lower Austria, p. 356. 8 See Jack Jacobs, On Socialists and ‘The Jewish Question’ after Marx (New York: New York University Press, 1992), pp. 98–99 for how Viktor Adler reacted to attempts to challenge antisemitism. 9 Despite his membership of the League, Billroth was wrongly accused of antisemitism. See Boyer, Radicalism, pp. 455–456. 10 See Lewis, Kirche und Partei, Chapter 7, Die Partei gegen die Bischöfe, 1890–1895, pp. 289–350. See also Miko, ‘Mission,’ pp. 181–224. 11 See Chapter 10 of this work. 12 Clare, Vienna, p. 196. 13 Susanne Böck, ‘Kuhl bis ans Herz hinan?’ in Elisabeth Klamper (ed.), Die Macht der Bilder. Antisemitische Vorurteile und Mythen (Vienna: Picus, 1995), pp. 272–283. 14 Adelheid Popp, Die Jugendgeschichte einer Arbeiterinnen (Munich: Reinhardt, 1909), pp. 53–59. 15 Mary Jo Maynes, Taking the Hard Road (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1995), p. 164. 16 Pauley, Prejudice, pp. 139–140. See also Robert S. Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson, 1982), p. 352. 17 See Jacobs, On Socialists, p. 89 and p. 211. 18 Peter Pulzer, ‘Third Thoughts On German and Austrian Antisemitism,’ Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 4:2 (2005), 137–178, here 150. 19 Judson, ‘John Boyer,’ p. 182. 20 See Chapter 8 of this work. 21 AEDW WäCk, 1938. 22 RP, 11 January 1938, p. 13. 23 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 163. 24 Vaterland, 11 May 1890, p. 7. 25 Albert Lichtblau, ‘Vernichtungsversuch und Neubeginn – Österreichischjüdische Geschichte 1848 bis zur Gegenwart,’ in Eveline Brugger et al. (eds), Geschichte der Juden in Österreich (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2013), pp. 447–565, here p. 502, p. 530 and p. 540. 26 Boyer, Radicalism, pp. x–xiii. 27 Boyer, In Power, p. 462. 28 Boyer, Radicalism, p. 137.

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Appendix: Elections in Vienna, 1932 District Turnout

Change in Turnout from 1930

Christian German Social Socials Nationalists Democrats

National Socialists

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI Totals

−3349 −1362 150 −2361 −2700 −2936 −2997 −2142 −3625 3064 −417 −70 −262 −1963 −1775 −3161 −1760 −3729 −1220 −293 3243

7522 13409 19278 9507 11474 8216 10068 7494 11525 13530 7239 13280 17649 8904 7646 15251 12023 12737 7720 8811 10178 233461

3574 14153 20007 9840 11415 7351 9043 7533 10755 9398 2320 10128 15542 6072 6540 11700 9416 15065 7705 6200 7705 202875

20367 84536 86048 31633 58420 30829 36365 26992 50846 95831 31857 71871 85716 46633 35600 98354 55504 53535 35800 55793 63537

176 312 1252 6472 7197 4621 5595 4832 537 319 134 361 783 190 254 400 216 933 333 143 216 35276

8919 55153 43980 11367 33474 14567 16277 11106 27270 69366 21619 46081 49441 29843 20246 65390 31778 23903 19439 41970 43751 684940

Sources: Seliger and Ucakar, Politische Geschichte, Vol. 2, pp. 1158–1178; RP, 25 April 1932; and NZ, 25 April 1932. Note: This table compares results for the Christian Socials, German Nationalists and Nazis in the 1932 Vienna elections. Districts where the Nazi vote alone exceeded that of the Christian Socials in 1932 are in bold italics: 15065. Districts where the combined total of Nazi and German Nationalist votes outnumbered those of the Christian Socials are bold: 7703.

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Bibliography

This is a very small selection of essential works that have been referenced in the production of this book. It is a far from exhaustive list. Beller, Steven, Vienna and the Jews 1867–1938, A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) Beller, Steven, ‘John Boyer’s Fin-de-Siècle Vienna,’ Contemporary Austrian Studies, 6 (1998), 189–201 Bowman, William D., Priest and Parish in Vienna, 1780–1880 (Boston: Humanities Press, 1999) Boyer, John, Catholic Priests in Lower Austria: Anti-Liberalism, Occupational Anxiety, and Radical Political Action in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 188:4 (1974), 337–369 Boyer, John, Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna: Christian Socialism in Power (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1995) Boyer, John, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848–1897 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1981) Carsten, F.L., Fascist Movements in Austria (London: Sage, 1977) Carsten, F.L., The First Austrian Republic, 1918–38: A Study Based on British and American Documents (Aldershot: Gower Publishing, 1986) Carter-Sinclair, Michael, ‘All the German Princes Driven Out: The Catholic Church in Vienna and the First Austrian Republic,’ in Paul Miller and Claire Morelon (eds), Embers of Empire (New York: Berghahn, 2019) Clare, George, Last Waltz In Vienna (London: Macmillan, 1982) Cornwall, Mark, The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000) Deak, John, Forging a Multinational State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015) Diamant, Alfred, Austrian Catholics and The First Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960)

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Edmondson, C. Earl, The Heimwehr and Austrian Politics, 1918–1936 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1978) Gedye, G.E.R., Fallen Bastions: The Central European Tragedy (London: Gollancz, 1942) Good, David F., The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire 1750–1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984) Hanisch, Ernst, ‘John Boyer and Austrian Twentieth-Century History,’ Contemporary Austrian Studies, 6 (1998), 202–212 Healy, Maureen, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) Höbelt, Lothar, Die erste Republik Österreich (1918–1938): das Provisorium (Vienna: Böhlau, 2018) Höbelt, Lothar, Kornblume und Kaiseradler: die deutschfreiheitlichen Parteien Altösterreichs 1882–1918 (Munich: Oldenburg, 1993) Jacobs, Jack, On Socialists and ‘The Jewish Question’ After Marx (New York: New York University Press, 1992) Judson, Pieter M., Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848–1914 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996) Judson, Pieter M., Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006) Judson, Pieter M., ‘John Boyer’s Work in a Comparative Context,’ Contemporary Austrian Studies, 6 (1998), 175–188 Kirk, Timothy, The Nazis and the Austrian Working Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) Lauridsen, John T., Nazism and the Radical Right in Austria 1918–1934 (Copenhagen: Royal Library, 2007) Leisching, Peter, ‘Die römisch-katholische Kirche in Cisleithanien,’ in Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (eds), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, Vol. IV: Die Konfessionen (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1985) Lewis, Gavin, Kirche und Partei im politischen Katholizismus: Klerus und Christlichsoziale in Niederosterreich, 1885–1907 (Salzburg: Geyer, 1977) Low, Alfred D., The Anschluss Movement 1931–1938 (New York: East European Monographs, 1984) Pauley, B.F., From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992) Popp, Adelheid, Die Jugendgeschichte einer Arbeiterin (Munich: Ernst Reinhardt, 1909) Pulzer, Peter, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988)

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Rechter, David, The Jews of Vienna and the First World War (London: Littman, 2001) Rozenblit, Marsha T., The Jews of Vienna 1867–1914 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983) Scholz, Nina and Heinisch, Heine, ‘… alles werden sich die Christen nicht verfallen lassen.’ Wiener Pfarren und die Juden in der Zwischenkriegszeit (Vienna: Czernin, 2001) Schorske, Carl, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (New York: Random House, 1981) Seliger, Maren and Ucakar, Karl, Wien: Politische Geschichte 1740–1934, 2 Vols (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1985) Sterling, Eleonore, Judenhass. Die Anfänge des politischen Antisemitismus in Deutschland, 1815–1850 (Frankfurt-am-Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1969) Tálos, Emmerich and Neugebauer, Wolfgang (eds), Austrofaschismus. Politik – Ökonomie – Kultur 1933–1938 (Vienna: Lit, 2005) Thorpe, Julie, Pan-Germanism and the Austro-Fascist State, 1933–38 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011) Volkov, Shulamit, ‘Antisemitism as a Cultural Code,’ in Benjamin Ziemann and Thomas Mergel (eds), European Political History 1870–1913 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007) Whiteside, Andrew, The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan Germanism (Berkeley: University of California, 1975) Wistrich, Robert S., The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Josef (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) Wistrich, Robert S., Socialism and the Jews (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson, 1982)

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Index Note: ‘n.’ after a page reference indicates the number of a note on that page Anschluss (union of Austria with Germany) Christian Social attitudes towards 170, 171nn.77–78, 172, 178 events of 1938 219, 224–231 foreign powers and 158, 204 proponents of union of Germany and Austria 14, 50, 153, 218 Social Democratic attitudes towards 228–229 antisemitism definitions and theories of 9–10 justifications for 34, 70, 149, 200 opponents of 249–250 Social Democrats and 250–251 used by Karl Lueger as an instrument or out of conviction 67, 244 Austrian Corporate State extent of support for 204–206 founding 200–201 Jews and 200, 213 principles behind 200 Austrian First Republic creation of 158–159 opposed by Catholic Church as not being a ‘true democracy’ 162, 164–166, 177 replaced by Corporate State 200–201 shock of the Catholic Church at its creation 161 Austrian People’s Party grand coalition post-Second World War 235

links with the Catholic Church 238 successor to Christian Social Party 235 Catholic Church attitudes towards democracy and the modern world 6–8, 34, 151, 161, 165 attitudes towards First World War 134, 138–140 Catholic Action (Katholische Aktion) 206–207, 210–211 Catholic casinos 33, 42, 72, 96, 249 encyclicals and pronouncements ad beatissimi Apostolorum 139–140, 165 Austrian bishops on 1938 Anschluss 227 de rerum novarum 102 mit brennender Sorge 227 regarding 1934 Austrian constitution 201 links between the Austrian Corporate State and the Catholic Church 201–202 papal blessing for Christian Social newspaper 84, 86 political activity of priests in early liberal Austria 21–22, 72 relationships between senior and lower clergy 72–73, 102, 249–250 support for right-wing authoritarian regimes in Europe 165–167, 201

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Catholic Church in Austria, selected individuals Abel, Father Heinrich 74 connections in society 79–80 pilgrimages for men and antisemitic campaigning 78–80 as a ‘preacher of hatred’ 80 Aumann, Father Ignaz 88 Bauer, Father Anton 180 Brunner, Father Sebastian antisemitic propagandist 22 appeals beyond the Church 22–23 Deckert, Father Josef antisemitic propagandist 45, 49n.60, 74–75 burial location 214, 239 immediate legacy 99–100 racial antisemite 75 rapid ascent within Church 44 wealth 74, 99 Dittrich, Father Carl Catholic casinos 33, 42 connections with upper hierarchy of Church 34 fall from favour 73 head of seminary for boys 34 parish priest and activist 42, 56 Eichhorn, Father Rudolf 52, 55, 59, 86 Eisterer, Father Matthias arrival at Favoriten 127 Cardinal Gruscha’s conditions for Eisterer to take over a parish 126 Fürst, Father Ignaz 49, 55, 124 Galen, Father Count Augustin 106–107 Gruscha, Cardinal Archbishop Anton ‘disappoints’ Lueger 83 donation to Christian Socials 85 position regarding ‘German’ Vienna 126 Hulesch, Father Wilhelm charitable work 95 despair at ‘the Social Question’ 109

interactions with local politicians 33, 43–44 Innitzer, Cardinal Archbishop Theodor becomes Archbishop of Vienna 189 at grave of Father Deckert 214 memorialises Dollfuss 203 post-war pronouncement on role of the Church in society 238–239 praises Hitler and the Nazis, March 1938 227 stands against Hitler, October 1938 231–232 supports Austrian Corporate State 200 welcomes Anschluss, March 1938 227 Karabaczek, Father Eduard ‘Czech’ mass 125 disputes with local German nationalists 125–126 personal German identity 124 Krawarik, Father Johannes 239 events of October 1938 232 Latschka, Father Adam antisemitism as a political weapon 77 charitable and associational work 75–76 connections 77–78 early career 59, 75–76 founding of Christian Social Association 55 later career 77, 100–101 open antisemitism 59 Lojka, Father Leopold approval of Fascism 184, 186, 203 arrives at Weinhaus 168 on creation of Corporate State 192, 202 on events of 1927 181 on independence of Austria 215–216 motivations to become a priest 168

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observations on elections 169–170 observations on feared and actual Anschluss 169, 218, 229, 232 views on Socialists 168–169 Paletz, Father Emanuel against antisemitism 25 cooperation with evangelical minister and Jews 32 dispute over local nursery school 24 interactions with local politicians 26 praised by Neue Freie Presse 39 welcomed to Alt-Ottakring by locals 1848 25 Pax, Father Johannes fails in application for Ottakring parish 76–77 legal battles and removal from parish 171 Piffl, Cardinal Friedrich Gustav appointment of Father Karl Schwarz to Alt-Ottakring 171 complaint regarding appointment of a Jew to a local school board 252 pronouncements on First Austrian Republic 161 stance on First World War 134, 138–139, 141, 147 Pokorny, Father Wilhelm scandal at Alt-Ottakring 76 Rauscher, Cardinal Archbishop Josef does not restrain anti-liberal activist priests 42–43, 45 relationship with liberals and the Austrian state 43, 247 Roczek, Father Aldobrand views on parishioners and Anschluss 226 Rudigier, Bishop Franz Josef conflict with liberals 32 Scheicher, Father Josef

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political activism and active antisemitism 72–73, 81, 96, 102 relationships with senior clergy 72–73 status within Church 73, 73n.44 Schmid, Father Leopold at 1921 German nationalist rally 170 at 1936 Fatherland Front rally 217 collaboration with Nazis 234 rejoicing at Anschluss 228 replaced by Father Anton Pichler 234 Schubert, Father Albert accused of being close to Jews 251 on Corporate State 202 death of Egon Friedl 251 opponent of Nazis 189–190, 231–233 self-confessed antisemitism 190 Schwandner, Father Adam 20–21 Schwarz, Father Karl accused of being an antisemite 229–230 disputes with curates at his parish 190 flees Nazis after Anschluss 230–231 involvement in community 190–191 post-war fate 236–237 reports incumbent priest at AltOttakring to Archbishop 171 takes on parish of Alt-Ottakring 171 witnesses February 1934 events 198 Seipel, Monsignor Ignaz antisemitism of 164 authoritarianism of 164, 182–183 as Chancellor of Austria 167, 172–173 closeness to right-wing militia 164–165, 172 idea of Anschluss 171–172

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Seipel, Monsignor Ignaz (Cont.) political theoretician and defender of the Habsburg Empire 146 ‘True Democracy’ as rejection of pluralism and secularism 164–165 Wiesböck, Father Ignaz Second World War in Vienna and 235 Wiesinger, Father Albert antisemitic and anti-liberal propagandist 23, 33, 39, 41–42, 49, 88 Catholic press in Austria 82, 97, 103, 107, 205–206 Christian Social political party Bürgerklub and 59, 87, 94 Christian Social Association and 55–58, 60, 249 manifesto for 1927 elections 177–178 United Christians and 54–55, 57–60, 68, 77 Unity List 179 Czechs alleged Czech revenge on ‘Germans’ post-First World War 159 Badeni language ordinances and 114–116 Czech aristocrats and support for Czech nationalism 127 growing Czech nationalism 17 integration in Vienna 114 see also Hernals Dollfuss, Engelbert 1933 attempted assassination of 192 1934 assassination of 202–203 crushes Social Democratic revolt 198 plans for authoritarian Austria 191 stages coup against democracy in Austria 191 elections (selected) 1860s and Catholic clergy as participants and candidates in 21–22

1891 City Council elections 68–70 1895 and clerical support for Christian Socials and allies in 87 1919 Austrian constituent assembly 158, 161, 163, 167 1923 national elections 169 1927 national elections 179 1930 national elections 184–185 1932 provincial elections 191 1932 Vienna City Council elections 187 female activism, importance in 101 voting systems 19 Fatherland Front creation of and intended role for 192 extent of appeal and success 204–205, 214, 216–217 Nazi dissolution of 225 First World War alliances and declarations of war 134 Burgfriede (civilian truce) 134, 138, 144 defeat and collapse of Habsburg Empire 151–152 deprivation and bitterness 137–138, 140–141 effects on antisemitism 138–139 material effects on Church 135 refugee crises 135–137, 142–144 right-wing plans for post-war changes 145–146, 148–149 rumours of betrayals and spies in Vienna 144 shortages and hardships in Vienna 137 ‘stab in the back’ myth 160 support of the Church for Austrian war aims 139, 141 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke assassination 129 plans for post-Franz Josef era reforms 129 Franz Joseph I, Emperor attitudes towards reform of Empire via neo-absolutism 15

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comes to the throne 14 control of foreign policy and the military 16 death 147 declares war on Serbia 133 reaction to Italian declaration of war 141 Funder, Friedrich founding myths of the antisemites and 69–70 on Heinrich Abel 74, 80 German Nationalists in Austria 1932 electoral collapse in Vienna 187 aims and conflicts between 50 numbers and significance 145–146 see also Schönerer; Seyss-Inquart ‘Germany’ 1871 German Unification 31 German Confederation (from 1815) 14, 27–28 pre-1815 13–14 Prussian influence and hegemony 14, 29, 31 Schleswig Holstein dispute 27–29 Habsburg Empire/Austrian Empire/ Austria-Hungary defined 3n.5 multiple threats to the Empire 14–16, 134, 147, 150 reorganisation of Empire and 1867 Constitutional Compromise (Ausgleich) 29 underlying foundations of 139, 160 Heimwehr and other rightist militia allegations of support from wealthy Jews 184 Korneuburg Oath 183–184, 187 origins 159–160 Pfrimer, Walter attempted coup 187 Starhemberg, Prince Ernst Rüdiger von 186–187, 203, 229 Steidle, Richard 183–186 Hernals 1899 Czech-German disturbances 117–123

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1907 installation of Father Stöber 97–98 Hitler, Adolf arrival in Austria in 1938 225 forces through Anschluss 225 Nazis in Austria and 218 pressurises Austria 192, 215, 218–219 rapprochement with Mussolini 215 Hohe Wand, tragedy of pilgrimage to 210–211 Horthy, Miklós dictatorship legitimated by churches in Hungary 167 presumed links with planned coup in Austria 171 takes power in Hungary 167 Hungarian nationalism under the Empire 17, 29 Italy admiration for Fascist Italy from Austrian right 183–184 creation of Kingdom of 16 expansion of 29 loans to First Austrian Republic 171 own version of ‘Kulturkampf’ against Church 46–47 war against Habsburgs 141–142 Jews 1938 attacks on 2, 4, 224, 226, 231 attacks on Jewish refugees and local Jews during First World War 136–138, 148 eliminated from Vienna 234 populations in Vienna 67 Karl I, Emperor aim to build constitutional monarchy around 152 effective abdication 152–153 excuses for continuing a ‘lost’ war 160 mooted reforms of Empire 152 recalls parliament during war 147 takes the throne 147

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Kuffner, Franz elections in Döbling and 19 Kuffner, Ignaz as Bürgermeister of Ottakring 33 cooperation with Father Paletz 32 liberals called to government 16 decline in Vienna 39, 66–69, 80–82, 86–88 origins and beliefs 13, 16–18, 20 positive interactions with priests 32–33, 39, 43–44 secularisation aims 3, 34, 70 seeming political hegemony in Vienna 40 Liechtenstein, Alois von during First World War 148–149 influence within Church 77 as key figure for antisemites 246 political activism 82, 85, 106 Lueger, Karl antisemitism of 67, 244n.2 becomes Mayor of Vienna 114 death of, and subsequent Christian Social internal struggles 128 early political career 47 joins the antisemitic cause 47, 59 Mussolini, Benito moves towards Hitler 215 support for Austrian independence 203–204 National Socialist Party activities in Vienna post-Anschluss 231–232 complaints about, and attacks on, Father Schubert in Währing 190, 231 electoral breakthrough in Vienna 187–188 terrorist campaigns in Austria in 1930s 214 underground operations when banned in Austria 197–198, 202, 214 Nordbahn scandal 49–51

Österreichischer Reformverein 47–48 Pattai, Robert 48–49, 52, 54, 57 Schober, Johannes as Chancellor of Austria 187 death of 189 as Police chief in Vienna 181–182 as politician 185 Schönerer, Georg (von) 1882 German nationalist Linz declaration 48 jailing of 58 police surveillance of 51 radical statements in parliament 50 resumption and ultimate failure of political career 114–116 Schuschnigg, Kurt von assumes leadership of Austria 203 brings Nazis into cabinet 216 Church and 205–206, 208 execution of workers and 199, 204, 229 Hitler and 215, 219 Mussolini and 204, 215 Nazis and 205, 213, 215, 219 negotiations with Social Democrats for resistance to Hitler 225 resignation as Chancellor 219 resistance to Anschluss 219 return to Austria after exile in USA 229 Second World War and its immediate aftermath in Vienna Allied air raids 234–235 deprivation and disease 236 post-war elections 237–238 Red Army in Vienna 234–235 Seyss-Inquart, Arthur aligned with Schuschnigg government 217 as ‘Catholic National’ 218 as Chancellor of Austria 219 social, charitable and religious associations Aktion Mittagstisch, für hungernden Kindern 212

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Association of Catholic Working Women in the twelfth district of Vienna 103 Bürgervereinigung 98, 101 Christliche-Deutsche Turnerschaft 208–210 Christliche Familie 97–99 Christlicher Wiener Frauenbund 80, 97, 106 Christlicher Wiener Frauenbund, Ortsgruppe III 106 estimates of numbers of associations 102–103 Genossenschaft der Kaufleute 18 Katholischer Männerverein (Reindorf ) 107–108, 128–129 Katholischer Volksverein für Niederösterreich 106 Josefstädter Männergesang-Verein 123 Marianische Congregation für Kaufleute 78–79 Ottakringer Liedertafel 28, 123 St Severinus Association 79 Society for the Eternal Honouring of St Joseph 45 Verband der Wiener Beamten 81 Vincent de Paul Society 43, 95, 100, 104, 109 Social Democrats 1934 revolt against Austro-Fascist dictatorship 198 Adler, Viktor and 48, 250–251 allegations of being an antisemitic party 9, 250 attitudes towards idea and implementation of an Anschluss 228

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encourage followers to leave the Church 169, 182 events of July 1927 and 180–181 funeral of Max Winter 217 members killed at Schattendorf 178–179 militia (Republikanischer Schutzbund) 165, 172, 179–181, 184, 198, 214 negotiations with Schuschnigg for resistance to Hitler 225 Popp, Adelheid 250 street clashes with Nazis in Vienna 200 strength in Vienna 162, 187 Vergani, Ernst 68, 98–99 Vienna alleged ‘German’ character of the city 98, 118, 121, 126 demographic change and 19 expansion of city boundaries 66, 97 industrialisation and 3, 15 inflation riots 108 March 1938 violence 224–231 Socialist uprising of February 1934 and effects on 198–200 urbanisation and 3, 25 see also First World War; Second World War Vogelsang, Karl von 39, 59 Weiskirchner, Richard cooperation with German nationalists and political threats from Cardinal Piffl 148–149 as Mayor of Vienna 137 refugee crises and 142, 148