Karl Lueger - Further Influence On Austrian Politics

Further Influence On Austrian Politics

His general style of politics later inspired some of the right-wing leaders of the First Austrian Republic in 1918-1933, such as Ignaz Seipel, Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg, who led the Austrian society towards Austrofascism. Unlike with Hitler, he did not so much inspire antisemitism in them (none of these three were particularly anti-Semitic), but rather provided one important role model for their generally combative, unrelenting stance towards ideological political opponents, which ultimately proved to be detrimental to the cohesion of the Austrian state.

In Vienna, Lueger has a square named after him, at least two statues were erected in his honour and until April 2012 a section of the Ringstraße bore his name. It has been very difficult to decide what to do with monuments honoring historical figures whose reputation has been widely called into question as Europeans (and others) reflect on the historical background to the holocaust. With the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 street names carrying Jewish names or the names of pacifists were changed. After World War II, Austria started a full-scale program of de-Nazification on both cultural and topographical levels. Nazified street signs were torn down and their names changed back from Nazi to Habsburg heroes. Lueger's monuments present a difficult case because they are genuinely local, yet he was inspirational for the Nazis.

For some, the Lueger monuments show that Vienna has sacrificed its obligations to war crimes victims in exchange for keeping its nostalgic appeal as the grand Imperial City. For example, when Austrian-born neurobiologist Eric Kandel won the Nobel Prize in 2000, he "stuck it to the Austrians" by saying it was certainly not an Austrian Nobel, it was a Jewish-American Nobel. After that, he got a call from then Austrian president Thomas Klestil asking him, "How can we make things right?" Kandel said that first, Doktor-Karl-Lueger-Ring should be renamed. Kandel was offended that the address of the University of Vienna is on that street. After yearlong debates, the Ring was renamed to Universitätsring in April 2012. Lueger was the subject of a 1943 biopic Vienna 1910, in which he was played by Rudolf Forster.