A Concise History of Austria

For a small, prosperous country in the middle of Europe, modern Austria has a very large and complex history, extending far beyond its current borders. Today’s Austrians have a problematic relationship with that history, whether with the multi-national history of the Habsburg Monarchy, or with the time between 1938 and 1945 when Austrians were Germans in Hitler’s Third Reich. Steven Beller’s gripping and comprehensive account traces the remarkable career of Austria through its many transformations, from German borderland, to dynastic enterprise, imperial house, Central European great power, failed Alpine republic, German province, and then successful Alpine republic, building up a picture of the layers of Austrian identity and heritage and their diverse sources. It is a story full of anomalies and ironies, a case study of the other side of European history, without the easy answers of more clearly national narratives, and hence far more relevant to today’s world.

STEVEN BELLER is an independent scholar. He has already published a number of books on Austrian history, including Vienna and the Jews, 1867–1938: a Cultural History (1989), Theodor Herzl (1991) and Francis Joseph (1996).

CAMBRIDGE CONCISE HISTORIES

This is a series of illustrated ‘concise histories’ of selected individual countries, intended both as university and college textbooks and as general historical introductions for general readers, travellers and members of the business community.

For a list of titles in the series, please see the end of the book.

A Concise History
of Austria

STEVEN BELLER

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521478861

© Cambridge University Press 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN-13 978-0-521-47305-7 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-47305-5 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-47886-1 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-47886-3 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

*Photograph taken by the author.

**Photograph taken by Esther Diane Brimmer.

MAPS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many years ago, when Bill Davies asked whether I knew of anyone interested in writing a Concise History of Austria, it was an easy, if immodest decision on my part to suggest myself. Writing such a book seemed a challenging prospect, but one that could be done fairly simply and in not too much time. It took me a long time to realize that conciseness is very time-consuming, and that a Concise History of Austria is, in any case, verging on a non sequitur – and for such a small state too. It took me even longer to write the book, but now that it has finally been completed, my hope is that it will help to give both an understanding of the broad outlines of Austria’s fascinating history, and some sense of how its extensiveness and its complexity make an easy, concise rendering of it more problematic than might at first appear (or at least as it appeared to me back then). It is also true that part of the fascination lies in that very extensiveness and complexity, but I leave readers to make that discovery for themselves in the following pages.

At the outset of research for this project I benefited greatly from being a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and subsequently a Fellow of the International Research Centre for Cultural Studies (IFK) in Vienna. I would also like to thank the History Department of George Washington University for giving me the opportunity to teach a course on the Habsburg Monarchy. Apart from that, I would like to thank Doris and Andrew Brimmer for their generosity, and my beautiful and patient wife, Esther Diane Brimmer, whose support is the main reason why I was able to bring this book to completion.

Many friends and colleagues – far too numerous, I fear, to be each named in such a short acknowledgement – helped, stimulated and advised me in the writing of this book, even when they on occasion did so through disagreement. To all of them, in Austria, the United States, Britain and elsewhere, I give my thanks. There are also more specific debts of gratitude: Bruce Martin at the Library of Congress was most helpful in facilitating my research; Derek Beales graciously replied to my ill-informed query about an illustration, which is now in the book; Erhard Stackl at Der Standard in Vienna was also most helpful on several questions concerning the book; Klaus Nellen at the Institute for the Human Sciences in Vienna is always helpful and a good listener. I would like to thank Julian Sofaer for his generosity concerning permission to reproduce two of Gerhart Frankl’s paintings for this book, and Mag. Franz Huemer, for allowing several pictures from the Heimatbuch of Bad Leonfelden to be printed here. I am also most grateful to Hans Haider, Regina Huber, Wolfgang Leschanz, Gerhard Milchram, Renate Pein, Rudolf Semotan and Wilhelm Wadl for their generosity concerning illustrations.

Evan Bukey, Allan Janik, Aviel Roshwald and David Sorkin were kind enough to read parts of the manuscript and offer suggestions as to how the text could be improved, for which I am very thankful. They are not responsible for any mistakes in the end result.

I also would like to thank the personnel at Cambridge University Press, starting with Bill Davies, who gave me this opportunity, and stuck with me as long as possible. Marigold Acland, Chris Harrison and Elizabeth Howard also are to be thanked for their extreme patience with this author. Isabelle Dambricourt, Jo Breeze, Carol Fellingham Webb and the production team have been both patient and helpful in finally bringing this book to publication.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge several people not yet mentioned whose hospitality and example over the years have done much to give this book what character it possesses: George and Christl Clare; Elisabeth de Gelsey; Werner Eichbauer; Christl Fabrizii; Marcel Faust; Kurt Rudolf Fischer; Mascha Hoff; Ingeborg Lau; Hilde Spiel; Nike Wagner and all the members of the extended Haiboeck family, whether in Bad Leonfelden, Marseilles, Salzburg, Linz or New York. Alan and Bea Corgan, and Jan and Herta Palme also contributed, in ways they might not always have realized. During the course of my writing this book, many in the above list have passed on, as has my father, Milton ‘Mickey’ Beller. It is because he loved an Austrian so, my mother, Hermi Beller, that I – and this book – exist. It is only fitting, therefore, that this book be dedicated to my parents, and to their grandson Nathaniel, for the story in these pages is also part of his.

Steven Beller
Washington DC

The Austrian Republic, 2006