Vortrag ECNAIS, 20. April 2006

AUSTRIA
AN APPROACH TO ITS CULTURE, HISTORY, AND POSITION REGARDING THE EU

 

0.     Indroductory remarks

Ladies and Gentlemen I am honoured to be invited to make a short introduction to the culture, history and position of Austria regarding the EU. As you can imagine these topics go far beyond a little speech I shall try to line out some basic pillars of Austria’s present day situation. I have to admit, that in preparing these remarks I felt it would be necessary to focus on the principles of the last centuries history and the consequences for today. So I hope to contribute a little bit to your understanding in what historical, political and cultural context you have come by visiting this city and this country. I hereby shall concentrate on two main chapters, the first named „Postwar Austria – a story of success”, and secondly I will make some remarks to „Fighting for Austria’s Identity”.

 

1.     Postwar Austria - a story of success

It has been just a fortnight ago, when in the centre of Vienna, a tent had been erected in front of St. Stephen's cathedral. Inside this tent prominent intellectuals presented „100 Propositions for a Better Austria”. These propositions were published in a book, and the authors read them during this day in the tent. It was a broad coalition of authors that were gathered in this book: conservatives, catholics, left wings atheists, painters, actors, judges, the Cardinal of Vienna, journalists, scientists, musicians and so on. The project of these „100 Propositions for a Better Austria” dated back to the year 2005: On March 12, 2005, the day of the anniversary of the occupation of Austria by Adolf Hitler's Troops in 1938) the 100 authors had participated in a marathon reading of a book, which had been republished. The title of that book was „Sein Kampf – His Fight“, and it was written against Adolf Hitler's Writing „Mein Kampf – My Fight“. The Author of this Book „Sein Kampf“, which had been published as early as 1935 – years before the rest of the world found out, how dangerous Hitler's ideology was, was Irene Harand, a Catholic woman of Vienna. Until today only a few people in Austria even know that Irene Harand existed; she had to emigrate after Hitler's occupation in 1938, and died 1975 in New York.

Irene Harands Book „Sein Kampf“ was a powerful pleading against the racism of Hitler and the Nazi ideology, and it was a pleading out of her Christian faith: As a Christian Irene Harand was convinced, that all human beings deserve equal dignity, and human beings must not be oppressed because of their religion or ethnic relationship.

As I said: Until now very few Austrians even know that Irene Harand existed. Maybe this is a first hint why I started my remarks with this story: Austria is a country, where history plays an important role, be it the shadow of history, be it the light of history.

The Marathon Reading of Irene Harand's Book in 2005 lasted for some 12 or 15 hours, and it took place in the archbishop's palace in Vienna: It was a powerful political sign, that Cardinal Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, opened his rooms for this reading – especially in that year 2005 when Austria cele­brated the 60th anniversary of her resurrection after the big destruction: Like anywhere in Europe the End of World War II in 1945 marked in Austria the new beginning, after seven years being swallowed by the Third Reich the country regained its entity. But in 2005 Austria celebrated an additional anniversary: 50 years ago, in 1955 the so called State Treaty had been signed marking the end of ten years occupation by the winners of World War II. As long as ten years Austria had been divided into four zones occupied by troops of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union.

But despite this division Austria was reinstalled as one state. Despite all suffe­ring after the lost war, the destruction by bombs, the killing of people – both at home and on the battlegrounds, despite the rage of the Nazi Regime who killed 65.000 of the 200.000 Jews of Austria. After the war only a few thousand Jews still lived in this country: Despite all these shadows in April 1945 some politicians were able to reinstall the whole entity of Austria. The country was not separa­ted into a Soviet controlled East-Austria and a Western controlled West-Austria as it was the case with Germany.

Why did this happen in that way? It was on of the lights of history, that the first postwar elections in a country which had been occupied by the Third Reich where held in Austria in December 1945 – and these elections were free, even in the Soviet zone: Stalin, the Soviet Leader had hoped, that the Communist Party would get a large number of votes – a false hope: The Communists gained only five percent of the votes and played even in the first years after 1945 a very subordinate role.

It was a light of history, that Austria was first in the postwar elections: In all other countries occupied by the Soviet troops after 1945, those elections were manipulated by the Communists. Stalin and his regime did not allow any more free elections in the territories controlled by the Soviet Union – not in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria and so on. Austria was the first and only exception. This is one of the reasons why Austria – despite of being partially occupied by the Soviets, remained outside the Iron Curtain, which was established by the Soviet Union during the following years of the Cold War. Austria has to be thankful for this historical chance, which led together with skillful politics by the two big political parties – the conservative Peoples Party an the Social democrats, who formed a coalition government through these years – which led finally to that State Treaty, after which all the foreign troops left the country in that year 1955: Austria had been the only country, from where the Soviet Union withdrew its troops deliberately. All the other Central and Eastern European countries had to wait until 1989 to experience that.

In the negotiations of 1955 to reach this State Treaty, Austria offered to declare itself to be neutral like Switzerland – and this offer was one of the keys that these negotiations were successful. Postwar Austria understood herself always as a Western-style democracy, however, she did not join organizations like the NATO or what later was the European Union. It was after Europe’s year of change 1989 that Austria thought of becoming a member of the EU, and it las­ted until 1995 that the country joined the Union.

Nevertheless one has to admit that during all these years after World War II. Austria managed to raise its position from a poor country to one of the rich na­tions of the continent: According to the gross domestic Product per capita (around 30.000 Euro in 2005) Austria is Nr. 10 in the list of the wealthiest countries of the world, and the rate of unemployment around 5 per cent is still quite low compared with other European countries. Of course, like in other countries there are similar economic and social problems resulting from that in Austria, too, but until now the situation is less dramatic than in other countries of the EU.

One may ask, why this Wirtschaftswunder – economical miracle – was possible: Immediately after the World War II the political forces both from center right and center left dedicated themselves to the vision of building one state to­gether. So in the first 20 years after 1945 the conservative Austrian People’s Party and the Social democrats formed coalition governments, followed by four years of conservative rule. And afterwards around 15 years the Social demo­crats led the governemt, from the second half of the eighties to the millennium again a socialdemocratic-conservative coalition government was in office. One can say, despite the daily conflicts of politics there was situation of political stability.

This situation was very much underlined by a typical Austrian institution the so called „Social Partnership“. Social Partnership means an institutional dialogue between economical partners – the employers of the country and the employees  sit together and negotiate their relevant political issues. Institutional dialogue means means, that the lobbying organizations of industry, the Chambers of Commerce and similar organizations are the one party of the social partnership and the workers and employees organizations – mainly the trade unions – sit on the other side of the table. This Social Partnership made it possible, that nearly all social disputes in the country have been solved on the negotiation table, according to strikes or other labour disputes for years Austria has been on the bottom of a list of industrialized countries.

Again there are historical reasons for this situation: During the first years after the War, when Austria was occupied, it was crucial for the reestablished state to survive as a „team“ which solves its internal problems without open social conflicts. A second reason was the experience from the time before Word War II, which lead both the political left and the political right, the employers, the farmers, the workers and so on to try to solve in a maximum of consensus. I will refer to the conflicts in between the two World Wars later. No doubt: The Social Partnership guaranteed social peace for decades.

However, there were also problems: The Social Partnership was not an institu­tion legitimated by democratic elections. A lot of political decisions was nego­tiated there, and the democratically elected parliamentary institutions only adop­ted these decisions. So policy was made not in parliament or by the government, but the main lines were designed in this social partnership. Some political observers therefore criticized the Social Partnership as a sort of government beside the official government. And secondly this construction led to a lack of flexibility: Reforms in the structures of the social and financial politics where hard to execute. During the last decade the importance of of the social partner­ship – which still remains important! – has diminished. Nevertheless one still has to explain the function of “Social Partnership” if he wants to explain, who public decisions are made in this country.

The period of Postwar Austria ended in the nineties. In that decade fundamental changes in the political landscape took place. These years showed the raise of other political parties than the two “big” ones. Until the beginning of the nineties Austria had been more or less a two party state, divided into the sphere of the centre-right „Peoples Party“ and the centre-left „Social democrats“ which  held the federal chancellor, the head of the Austrian government from 1970 to 1999. In the nineties the Green Party became a small, but constant factor of political reality (with 5 to 10 percent of voters). The outstanding development, however, was the rise of the right wing Freedom party . This Party had been founded al­ready in the late forties as a platform for collecting the old German nationalists (I will refer to this later on), but remained small – until its leader Jörg Haider took over the leadership. The political landscape came into a sort of turmoil, populist slogans and aggressive agitation disturbed the calm, boring style of politics. Themes as corruption in the public sector, privileges of the political class, and – again and again – xenophobia were the ingredients of a political cocktail, which seemed to be more and more popular amongst voters, and especially the theme of xenophobia remains on the political agenda until today.

The biggest success of Jörg Haider and his Freedom Party were the general elections in 1999, when his party gained 27 per cent of the votes and became – behind the social democrats – the second biggest party in parliament. The turn of the year 1999/2000 was a real turn in politics for Austria, too. The Social Democrats and the People’s Party, the latter experiencing a historical backlash in the 1999 election by becoming only third, these "old" parties failed in forming a new coalition government. Wolfgang Schüssel, head of the People's Party and only third in the voters’ ranking, formed a government together with the Free­dom Party. Jörg Haider did not join this government personally. This coalition is in office until today. There had been a lot of turbulence inside the Freedom Party, so that the government broke down in 2002, but in the following elections Wolfgang Schüssel and the People's Party became – after 32 years time – the Number One Party in parliament. This was due to the fall of the Freedom party, who fell from 27 to 10 per cent of the votes. The coalition under Wolfgang Schüssel was renewed with a much weaker Freedom Party in it. In 2005 the Freedom Party split into two parts: Jörg Haider, who is still not a member of the national government, and the ministers of his Party founded a new Party named „Alliance Future of Austria“, but the Freedom Party still exists. In autumn 2006 there will be the next general elections – nobody knows, how the voters will react to the two parts of the former Freedom Party, and which government Austria will have after these elections. We are heading for an extra thrilling campaign – this is fur sure.

The nineties brought another big change for the country's political and economical situation: The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 reopened the historical region of Central Europe, that had been divided for nearly half a century. One has to state, that the political division had caused a division also in the heads of people, which could not be overcome until today. On the other hand on the level of economy Austrian enterprises committed themselves in the former socialist countries in a way nobody would have imagined before 1989: From Poland to the Balkans you find Austrian firms – nearly all of the major banks of Austria own banks in these countries, the same with assurance and telecommunication companies, supermarket chains or publishing houses. Only a few examples: the biggest oil company of Romania is owned by the Austrian oil business OMV, Austrian banks own major banks in Romania, the Ukraine, in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Hungary, the Austrian telecom company hold the majority of the mobile phone company of Bulgaria, a major Austrian publishing house owns the two most sold daily papers in Croatia and so on.

This economical breakup of Austrian enterprises towards the East is differs a lot from the public mood about opening Austria towards the East. When the neighbours of Austria joined the EU two years ago Austria was one of the countries that opposed the opening of frontiers for citizens of the new EU-members: Austria – mainly together with Germany – postponed this opening until 2011. The official arguments for that sound like: The Austrian job market has to be protected – and in fact the public opinion is very much in favour of this position, although there is for instance a lack of nurses in Austria, which could be filled up with Slovak or Czech nurses. So today there is a ambivalent situa­tion – an overwhelming economic commitment of Austria in Eastern and South­eastern Europe, but still a xenophobic fear amongst many people of Austria.

This, of course, affects Austria's positions towards the EU – which also should also be a theme of my remarks. Let me put a flashlight on the situation there: As I mentioned, during the Cold War Austria could not even think of joining the EU. Immediately after 1989 a political discussion started, if Austria should do this now. This broad and intense discussion resulted in the application of Austria to the EU, in negotiations and finally 1994 in a Referendum on that issue. Two thirds of the Austrians who participated in that referendum voted in favour of joining the European Union. This referendum was the biggest success of mainstream politics in the nineties. So on January 1, 1995 Austria joined the EU.

And now a big jump ten years later: In 2006 the last polls of the so called „Eurobarometer“, which tries to figure out the public opinion in the EU, showed a very disillusioning result: Less than a third of Austrians see nowadays gains in EU membership. less than a third. The Austrian scores are the lowest within the 25 members of the EU. So within ten years the overwhelming acceptance of the EU had been replaced by a profound disappointment.

What has happened? I think there is a bundle of reasons. On one hand, there are some conflicts between Austrian people and goals of the European Union, which were not handled in a proper way. One of the major topics is the transit problem: The main transit route from the North to the South of Europe passes through Western Austria. There's just one Alpine valley where the enormous traffic is passing through, and this valley has reached the ceiling of its capacity. Until now there is no satisfactory solution to the problem. The other big issue, which changed the Austrian public opinion towards the EU were the so called „diplomatic sanctions“ by the other member states of the EU in february 2000, when chancellor Schüssel formed his coalition government with the Freedom Party: These sanctions should be some sort of punishment due to the fact, that a party from the far right was on power now. The problem with that sanction was, that the Freedom party did not violate basic laws which are – regarding right wing extremism quite strong in Austria. It is a political consensus throughout Austria, that the EU-states did not treat Austria in a fair way: Even those who strongly oppose the xenophobic and populist ideology of that party, had to admit, that there are populist parties participate in ruling several other European countries. Especially when Silvio Berlusconi and his political partners, amongst whom there were also very right wing parties, won the 2001 elections in Italy, there was no „European“ reaction comparable to what happened to Austria one year before. Besides these „sanctions“ had no legal effect, because they we made outside the legal framework of the European Union. However, the affair made the Austrian's enthusiasm about the EU very lukewarm, until it reached, as I mentioned, its low in the autumn Eurobarometer. This is  quite a delicate situation especially in these months, where Austria is President of the European Union. However, the Austrian government and the mainstream of intellectuals and elites try hard to maintain their pro-european attitude. But not doubt, at the moment there's a broader gap between the elites an eurosceptic  majority of the Austrian population.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will stop now this tour de force through present day his­tory and political situation of Austria. I admit, it has been just an overview on the surface, but I would like - again going back to some history - to offer in the se­cond part of my reflection some hints on the cultural question of Austrian iden­tity – away from the clichés of Mozart, Strauss, an the good imperial past of this country.

 

2.     „Fighting for Austria's Identity“

This headline of my second part is the title of a Book by Friedrich Heer, one of Austria's big thinkers. Some days ago Heer would have celebrated his 100. birthday. This man was one of the main historical and philsophical intellectuals who thought about European history and the role of Austria in it – in light and in shadows. The titel of his book „Fighting for Austria's identitiy“ is still valid, since this is a process which has not yet come to an end. I would like to describe a little bit, why this is so.

As you remember at the beginning of my remarks I told you about a marathon reading by 100 intellectuals two weeks ago, a reading from the Book „100 Propositions for a Better Austria“. One of the propositions in this book was made by Peter Turrini, one of Austria’s well-known playwrights – it is a very short one, so I read a translation: Turrini writes:

„The real improvement of Austria will occur, when the Austrian gets it, that he does not exist as a pure ethnic entity. The Austrian is a mongrel“ – a dog mixed of different races – „the Austrian is a mongrel, a joint central European Mixture, and that is the most beautiful thing one could say about him. And as long as he does not understand this completely, he is staying in the misfortune of his pure-bloodiness.“

What Peter Turrini wants to say with these words is, firstly, that the Austrian still is seeking his identity, and secondly, that this identity is a mixture of many things which came out of the Central European regions and cultures. Although many Austrians see themselves as pure-blooded: it is for sure, they are not! And this is not meant in a biological way: Austria is a mixture of cultures, a mixture of histories, a mixture of peoples and so on.

One of the most obvious indicators for this statement is found when you enter a Viennese restaurant: Whatever there is offered as Viennese or Austrian cuisine is a mixture of cooking of all the surrounding regions: a little bit Italian, German, Slavonic, Hungarian and so on.

And this mixture continues through all aspects of life. The same way with history: In this country you will find a lot a history which also turns about to be a mixture. If you walk through the City of Vienna you will find history by every pace you make. And although you are visiting a small country this history tells you about a large empire – which of course does not exist any more, bur still is in the genes of the people.

And there are still aspects – despite the tourist businesses which of course make quite an amount of money out of the Habsburg-Nostalgy. No, I mean something politically relevant. Just an example: In 1908 the Habsburg Monarchy annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, and by this act to the many peoples of which the Austro-Hungarian Empire existed, one was added a religion that was not present in the Empire before: the Muslims. Because of that the Islam was recognized in 1912 as own religion, religious education in public schools was possible from that time on, an official Islamic community was installed, that became the official vis-à-vis for the state, and in the Austro-Hungarian army military imams were recruited - similar to the Christian Military Chaplains or the Jewish military Rabbis. After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918 this law – as most other laws in Austria remained valid, though it was not used, since there were no Muslims in the country. But in the sixties and seventies Muslims came as immigrant workers into Austria; so at the beginning of the eighties the Habsburgs Islam-regulations were applied. It was not necessary to make new laws. So by this historical fact Islam is fully recognized in Austria by the state, there is an official Islamic organization, religious instruction-classes at public schools. And at the moment military chaplaincy for Muslims is being organized. So the 350.000 Muslims who live nowadays in Austria have an official status, I do not know any country within the European Union, where this situation is similar. Of course, there are Austria – like other European countries – faces problems regarding the integration of Muslims, but history helped, to handle these problems in a less tense way than other countries.

Of course one has to refer to that history in order to understand also the actual public mood in Austria according to Europe: Austria has experienced being part of a multinational, multilingual, multiethnical state. And she experienced the failure of that entity: When in 1918 the Habsburg Monarchy broke away into its ethnic pieces – and the relatively small Central European states came into existence, Austria had to find a new identity - and had decades of struggle to build a new one.

Before I will explain that I would like to draw your attention how Europe’s history and politics were mingled in this city and in this country: If I refer to the year 1913 – one year before the First World War started, there lived the two big political criminals of the 20th century in this town - and did not know of each other: Adolf Hitler, born in Upper Austria, was in Vienna as a poor artist painting postcards. He stayed at an asylum for homeless men and he inhaled the anti-Semitic mood which was present in this city. At the same time Yossif Stalin lived in Vienna, too – he had been exiled by the Russian authorities. And in the same year 1913 another figure of later politics lived in Vienna: Josip Broz Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia after World War two, was working as a locksmith in Vienna. And, turning to the (Jewish) cultural aspect, of course, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, practised here, too. Or – just a last example: Arnold Schönberg, the revolutionary of modern music directed 1913 a scandalous concert-programme, the Viennese called it later the „slap-in-the-face-concert“, because there was a physical fight during the concert between followers of Schönberg and conservatives, who protested against the scandalous music... You see, all the political and cultural tensions were present in this city.

All these agglomerations of politics, culture, ethnic tensions and a fruitful together ended 1918, after the First World War. That was still named "Austria" were the remains with a far too big capital city. It’s not the time to analyse and comment why the old state fell into its ethnic pieces. But these remains were not seen as a vital state: Cut off from infrastructure, industry, farmland and many other economic necessities, many of the people wanted to become part of Germany - that had also lost the War. But the winners of World War I did not allow that…

So a German nationalist movement remained active in the new little state – again you find traces of that until today: If in Austria someone is called “Nationalist”, nobody thinks him to be an extreme Austrain patriot. “Nationalist” even today means, that he is a German nationalist.

Austria after 1918 was a „state nobody wanted“. It politics were lead by the Christian Social Party which had close ties to the Catholic Church and on nthe opposite side by the Social Democrats - both sides established paramilitary organization. Political and social tensions rose and resulted in a short Civil war in 1934, which was won by the Christian Social Leaders who changed democracy  to an Austrian style of fascism: the Social Democrats were forbidden, an authoritarian regime etsablished. But in the underground illegally followers of the Nazi-Party in Germany grew and grew; in 1938 Hitler forced the chancellor of Austria to resign, and on 12 March 1938 German troops marched into Austria, the Republic of Austria ended.

Austrians participated afterwards in building up the Nazi-regime, some prominent Nazi criminals were Austrians (not only Adolf Hitler, who was born in Austria, but also e.g. Adolf Eichmann, the organizer of the Holo­caust), in November 1938 when there were fierce pogroms against Jews all over the German Reich, the occurences in Vienna were extraordinary cruel, when 100s of Jewish shops were demolished, and synagogues were burnt down etc.

This was the darkest part of Austrian History. At the same time the old politicians - both Christian Socials and Social Democrats were put into concentration camps by the Nazis - and there they shared mutual misery and found out, that the civil war in Austria in the thirties was a big misfortune and should not happen any more, and so they began to think together for a common Austria after the fall of Hitler's Regime. These joint experience in the concentration camps was one of the pillars. that after World War II Austria started to became a nation and Conservatives and Social democrats collaborated in governments for a long time. (Besides the Catholic Church which was tied to the Christian Social Party and to,the authoritarian regime after 1934 drew its lesson and did not interfere into party politics any more.) The second pillar of Austrian identity was the common slogan, that Austria was the first victim of the Hitler's aggression.  This is true and not true. It is true because Austria in fact was the first political entity annexed by the Third Reich. But it is at the same time not true because many, too many Austrians are co-responsible for the crimes of the Nazi-Regimes. Neglecting this co-responsibility became one of the outstanding cultural crises of postwar Austria.

However, immediately after 1945 the Austrians elites did not lose time in reflecting their co-responsibility but went on building an Austrian nation – and they were successful not only in economic and political terms, but also in terms of identity. One of the political signs of this new identity was the political Neutrality which was declared, as I already mentioned, in 1955. If anyone of you would question this neutrality to be anachronistic after the fall of the Iron Curtain and Austria being a member of the European Union of today, any observer would agree. But – and that is the point in this topic: being neutral has become part of this national identity, so no politician in Austria really will question it.

The severe topic of widespread neglecting the role of Austrians during the Nazi years turned out to be an open wound which had not been treated for decades – despite it was risen soon after 1945 by Austrian contemporary literature – all famous writers of Austrian made it a topic of their writings. But it lasted until 1986 until the presidential election campaign of Kurt Waldheim. Waldheim, a former Secretary General of the UN, was accused by the world's media leadings intellectuals of the West of inadequate dealing with his role as officer in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Waldheim, who was elected president until 1992, was no important figure in the Wehrmacht at all, but it was his fate to become the global symbol of the Austrian society's untidy dealing with its role between 1938 and 1945. It was a painful experience to accept the co-responsi­bility of Austrian society, but it turned out to be a healing cultural discussion from 1986 on – a catharsis which cleaned the common public memory and star­ted to offer justice for the - mostly Jewish - victims of that time. Many things were investigated in the years after 1986, it came out, that many precious works of arts, many houses, flats, real estates, banking accounts and insurance policies still had not been restituted to their Jewish owners or the heirs thereof. These questions still are being processed – just some weeks ago Austria had to restitute five of the most famous paintings of the Art Noveau-painter Gustav Klimt to the heirs of the original owners in the United States.

To conclude I would like to state that the Fight for an Austrian Identity has showed until now successful results. And in this identity the shadows of history seem to be included: Austria does not need to keep its painful past secret. And in my opinion this is quite a sign of maturity and hope.

Thank you very much.