Georg Ritter von Schönerer | |
|---|---|
 Portrait,c. 1900 | |
| Member of theImperial Council | |
| Assumed office 1873 | |
| Succeeded by | 17 July 1842 – 14 August 1921 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1842-07-17)17 July 1842 Vienna, Austria |
| Died | 14 August 1921(1921-08-14) (aged 79) nearZwettl, Austria |
| Citizenship |
|
| Political party | Deutschliberale Partei |
Georg Ritter von Schönerer (17 July 1842 – 14 August 1921) was an Austrian landowner and politician ofAustria-Hungary active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A major exponent ofpan-Germanism andGerman nationalism in Austria who endorsed the annexation of Austrian Germans and Austria to Germany in anAnschluss.
Schönerer was a radical opponent ofpolitical Catholicism and a fierceantisemite who exerted much influence on the youngAdolf Hitler. He was known for a generation as the most radical pan-German nationalist in Austria.[1]
Schönerer was born inVienna as Georg Heinrich Schönerer; his father, the wealthy railroad pioneerMatthias Schönerer (1807–1881), an employee of theHouse of Rothschild, was knighted (adding thehereditary title ofRitter, "Knight", and thenobiliary particle ofvon) by EmperorFranz Joseph in 1860. His wife was a great-granddaughter of Rabbi Samuel Löb Kohen, who died atPohořelice in 1832.[2] He had a younger sister,Alexandrine, later director of theTheater an der Wien, who strongly rejected her brother's politics.
From 1861, Georg studiedagronomy at the universities ofTübingen,Hohenheim andMagyaróvár (Ungarisch-Altenburg, today a campus of theUniversity of West Hungary). He then conducted the business affairs of his father'sestate at Rosenau nearZwettl in the ruralWaldviertel region ofLower Austria, where he became known as a generous patriarch of the local peasants and great benefactor.[citation needed]
Shaken by Austria's defeat in the 1866Austro-Prussian War, the dissolution of theGerman Confederation, and the foundation of theGerman Empire in 1871, Schönerer became a political activist and ardent admirer of the German ChancellorOtto von Bismarck. He wrote passionately admiring letters to Bismarck, and continued doing so even after Bismarck made clear that he rejected any sort of Austro-German nationalism and would not allow Austria's pan-Germans to jeopardize theDual Alliance.[3]
During thePanic of 1873, Schönerer was elected toCisleithanian Austria’sImperial Council as aliberal representative, but became a more and more extreme and vocalGerman nationalist as his career progressed. He became widely known for his oratory and was considered a firebrand in Parliament. He broke with his party three years later, agitating against"Jewish" capitalism, against the Catholic ImperialHouse of Habsburg, and against theAustro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, which he condemned as a betrayal of ethnic German interests. In a speech, he said, "More and more, and ever more loudly, one can hear the German crown provinces exclaim: If only we already belonged to theGerman Reich and were finally rid of Bosnia and its entourage!"[4]
Tensions rose even further in 1879 due to the accession ofminister-presidentEduard Taaffe, a member of theAustrian nobility ofIrish descent and whose Catholic,monarchist, andpro-minority policies so enraged Schönerer and his followers that they accused Taafe of being "anti-German."
In 1882 Schönerer,Viktor Adler, andHeinrich Friedjung, drafted theLinz Program, which they proudly called "notliberal, notclerical, but national", of theAustro-German national movement, which became a major force in Imperial politics.
The framers proposed either complete autonomy for the non-German-speaking Crownlands ofGalicia,Bukovina, andDalmatia or ceding all three to theKingdom of Hungary. They further demanded that Austria's union with Hungary be reduced to having a common monarch, with no other administrative or legislative consequences. Additionally, German was to remain the soleofficial language of Austria, theCzech people inBohemia andMoravia were to be coercivelyGermanized, and aCustoms union, which was to be added to the constitution, was to strengthen ties between Austria and theGerman Empire ruled by theHouse of Hohenzollern.
Ironically, this manifesto fit in very well with the dreams ofPolish,Hungarian andCroatian nationalists. The anti-Slavic inclinations of the framers, however, are well represented in the following excerpt from their manifesto: "We protest against all attempts to convert Austria into aSlavic state. We shall continue to agitate for the maintenance of German as theofficial language and to oppose the extension offederalism ... [W]e are steadfast supporters of the alliance with Germany and theforeign policy now being followed by the empire."[5]
During the 1880s, Schönerer came to consider his struggle for the German Austrians a fight against the Jews.[6] By the peak of his career, he had transformed into afar-right politician. Schönerer developed a political philosophy that featured elements of a violentracial opposition to Jews that disregarded religious affiliations. His campaigning became especially vocal upon the arrival of Jewish refugees during theRussian Empire's pogroms, starting in 1881. He fiercely denounced the influence of "exploitative international Jews" and in 1885 had anAryan paragraph added to the Linz program, which led to the ultimate breach between him and Adler and Friedjung.
Schönerer's approach became the model for German nationalBurschenschaften (student fraternities) and numerous associations in Cisleithanian Austria. In turn, Jewish activists likeTheodor Herzl began to adopt the idea ofZionism. Schönerer's authoritarianism, popular solidarism, nationalism, pan-Germanism,anti-Slavism, andanti-Catholicism appealed to many Viennese, mostly working-class. This appeal made him a powerful political figure in Austria, and he considered himself leader of the German Austrians. Defying the Austrian education ministry's prohibition of pan-German symbols in schools and colleges, Schönerer urged German Austrians to wear blue cornflowers (known to be the favourite flower of German Emperor William I) in their buttonholes, along with cockades in the German national colours (black, red, and yellow), as a way to show pride in their German identity and dismissal of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire.[7][8] Like many other Austrian pan-Germans, Schönerer hoped for the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and anAnschluss with Germany.[3]
Schönerer's movement had various strict criteria: it only allowed its members to be Germans; none of the members could have relatives or friends who were Jews or Slavs, and before any member could marry, they had to prove "Aryan" descent and be checked for health defects.[9] Other pan-German movements generally followed suit by expelling Jews and generally Slavs as well.[10]
Schönerer was addressed by his supporters as the "Führer," and he and his followers also used the "Heil" greeting, things Hitler and the Nazis later adopted.[11] Schönerer and his followers often met during the summer and winter to celebrate German history and listen to German battle songs. Schönerer told his followers to prepare for a battle between Germans and Jews; he said, "If we don't expel the Jews, we Germans will be expelled!"[10]
In 1888, Schönerer was temporarily imprisoned for ransacking a Jewish-owned newspaper office and assaulting its employees for prematurely reporting the imminent death of the German emperorWilhelm I. His attack increased his popularity and helped members of his party get elected to the Austrian Parliament. Nevertheless, the prison sentence also resulted not only in the loss of his status as anoble, but also of hismandate in parliament. Schönerer was not reelected to the Imperial Council until 1897, while rivals like the Vienna mayorKarl Lueger and hisChristian Social Party took the chance created by his disfavor to get ahead.
Schönerer left theCatholic Church in January 1900, and converted to theLutheran denomination.[12]
In 1897, Schönerer helped orchestrate the expulsion ofMinister-President ofCisleithaniaKasimir Felix Graf Badeni from office. Badeni had proclaimed that civil servants in Austrian-controlledBohemia must know theCzech language, an ordinance that prevented many Bohemian ethnic German speakers, most of whom did not speak Czech, from applying for government jobs. Schönerer staged mass protests against the ordinance and disrupted parliamentary proceedings, actions that eventually led EmperorFranz Joseph to dismiss Badeni.
During these years, while theKulturkampf dividedImperial Germany, Schönerer founded theLos von Rom! ("Away from Rome!") movement, which advocated the conversion of all Roman Catholic German-speaking people of Austria to LutheranProtestantism, or, in some cases, to theOld Catholic Churches. Schönerer became even more powerful in 1901, when 21 members of his party gained seats in the Parliament. But his influence and career rapidly declined thereafter due to his forceful views and personality. His party also suffered, and had virtually disintegrated by 1907. But his views and philosophy, not to mention his great skill as an agitator, influenced and inspiredHitler and theNazi Party.[13]
Schönerer died at his Rosenau manor near Zwettl, Lower Austria on 14 August 1921. He had arranged to be buried nearBismarck's mausoleum on his estate atFriedrichsruh,Lauenburg, in present-daySchleswig-Holstein, northern Germany.
Hannah Arendt, in her book "The Origins of Totalitarianism", described Georg Schönerer as the "spiritual father" ofAdolf Hitler.[14]
