Polemical Austria: The Rhetorics of National Identity From Empire to the Second Republic by Anthony Bushell

Author:Anthony Bushell [Bushell, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Europe, Modern, Comparative Politics, 20th Century, Political Science, Austria & Hungary, History, General
ISBN: 9781783165636
Google: Vj4nDAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 27306629
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Published: 2013-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

The language could not have been clearer. Those gathered at three o’clock on that November afternoon were holding a closingdown sale, albeit it an orderly one. The Empire had ceased doing business, and those left behind had no wish to create a new company; they were now not simply inviting tenders from the main competitor but had already begun to trade under its name.

The proclamation paid little heed to what might be going on in Germany where politicians in Berlin were struggling with a series of dire situations in that same month. There had already been a naval mutiny in Kiel in early November and between the 6 and 8 November revolutionary violence had spread throughout the former German Reich. Incorporating the remnants of the Habsburg Empire was therefore not an overriding priority for politicians in Berlin, but quite irrespective of their position, the Allies, especially an embittered France and Belgium, had not the slightest intention of rewarding a detested Germany by allowing the former Reich to acquire a huge extension to its territory in the south.

By contrast, the proclamation of 28 April 1945, published whilst the Second World War was still raging on Austrian territory, could not have appeared without the approval of the major power broker on Austrian soil in the dying days of the War, the Soviet Union, whose Red Army had reached Vienna, as they had Berlin, well before the western allies had arrived. The first two articles of the 1945 proclamation read:

Art. I. Die demokratische Republik Österreich ist wiederhergestellt und im Geiste der Verfassung von 1920 einzurichten. Art. ii. Der im Jahre 1938 dem österreichischen Volke aufgezwungene Anschluß ist null und nichtig.24

(Art I. The democratic Republic of Austria is restored and will conform to the spirit of the constitution of 1920. Art. ii The annexation imposed upon the Austrian people in 1938 is null and void.)

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