 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Part ofa series on |
| Conservatism in Austria |
|---|
 |
Literature
|
Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang (3 September 1818 – 8 November 1890), a journalist, politician andCatholic socialreformer, was one of the mentors of theChristian Social movement inAustria-Hungary.[1]
He was born inLiegnitz in theSilesia Province ofPrussia, studiedjurisprudence atBonn,Rostock andBerlin, and settled at his family's estate Alt-Guthendorf nearMarlow inMecklenburg-Schwerin. After theRevolutions of 1848 Vogelsang moved toBerlin, where he made the acquaintance ofWilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr von Ketteler andFriedrich Maassen. Like Maassen he converted to Catholicism in 1850,[1] whereafter he had to resign as deputy to theProtestant MecklenburgLandtag. Vogelsang then worked as a journalist in CatholicSouthern Germany and spent several years inMunich, where he wrote for periodical publications established by the circles aroundGuido Görres. From 1859 he accompanied PrinceJohann II of Liechtenstein on his voyages throughout Europe.
Vogelsang finally settled inAustria in 1864. In 1875, he became editor of the Catholic newspaperDas Vaterland ("The Native Country") edited byLeo von Thun-Hohenstein. Thisconservative publication was highly influential onCatholic social teaching, helping to establish the40-hour work week and nationalhealth insurance for workers under the government of Minister-PresidentEduard Taaffe. Vogelsang died atVienna in 1890, aged 72. Many of his thoughts found entrance into the 1891Rerum novarum encyclical issued byPope Leo XIII. As a social reformer, he was later seen as a precursor by the "Ständestaat" authoritarian state of the 1930s; he was quoted in the regime's propaganda by its leader, ChancellorEngelbert Dollfuss.
Vogelsang was the initiator of the rising Christian people's movement in Austria and in some neighboring countries. Since some former members of theantisemitic people's movement ofGeorg Ritter von Schönerer (for example the Viennese mayorKarl Lueger) joined Vogelsang, some authors call Vogelsang an antisemite too. But Vogelsang said as well that Christians not only should pray to God but also do good works for the poor so as to be God's people on the side of the Jews, His first chosen and forever beloved people.
However, some of Vogelsang's pronouncedly disfavourable remarks about Jews related to his anti-liberal andanti-capitalist views were included by his admirer, the onceAustrofascist and later European federalist who survived theBuchenwald concentration camp,Eugen Kogon, in a volume entitled "Catholic-Conservative Heritage" which called for the establishment of a Catholic Third Reich and was edited by the Benedictine abbot ofMaria Laach,Ildefons Herwegen [de], in 1934, to be distributed to a large share of Catholic households in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland by theHerder publishing house.
Many of the people who gathered into Vogelsang's movement, established theChristian Social Party in 1893, and some successors likeAnton Orel [de] developed strong antisemitic views. Another group of followers likeKarl Lugmayer,Irene Harand, PaterCyrill Fischer [de],Ernst Karl Winter (Sociologist and Vice-mayor of Vienna, who in 1938 emigrated to USA),Alfred Missong [de] andHildegard Burjan, understood Vogelsang's thoughts as laying stress on social questions. They, like some other Christians, strained to help the poor and to establish new social laws, but they also tried to change people's minds and to help persecuted Jews, Karl before and during theNazi period.
