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Österreichische Aktion: Monarchism, Authoritarianism, and the Unity of the Austrian Conservative Ideological Field during the First Republic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2014
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Even as recently as 2011, in the wake of Otto Habsburg's death, Austrians have contested the place of the monarchy in Austrian identity. For many, the Habsburg monarchy represents a defining feature of Austria's past glory. Dating from late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the earliest examples of an “Austrian myth” stressed the unifying function of the Habsburgs in Mitteleuropa and the importance of German and Catholic traditions for the advancement of European culture. This nostalgic view tended to overlook the myriad problems of the late imperial period—ethnonationalist tensions, declining imperial might, undemocratic government, social unrest. Not surprisingly, many of the earliest proponents of a distinct, pro-Habsburg and non-German Austrian identity—which emerged after the Great War—were Catholic conservatives who wished to create an animating myth for Austrian Germans that would distinguish them from Prussians. This became increasingly important after the establishment of the Austrian Republic, when many of these individuals pressed for a restoration of the Habsburg Kaiser and a return to the prewar status quo.
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References
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63 Boyer, Political Radicalism, 166–180. Boyer points out a delightful irony about Vogelsang that likewise applies to the Österreichische Aktion: though he professed allegiance to a brand of Romanticism, Vogelsang's ideology hewed closer to the statist and heavy-handed politics of Joseph II.
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65 Though Zessner-Spitzenberg served in the Verfassungsdienst of the Bundeskanzleramt from 1919 to 1931, he served without a political affiliation.
66 Rerum Novarum, paragraphs 32–33, May 15, 1891. Diamant argues that Rerum Novarum was a victory for Sozialpolitik over Sozialreform, though Austrians resisted. See Diamant, Austrian Catholics, 25.
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84 It was only after WWII that the pan-Europe and monarchist movements found common cause. Of course, Otto Habsburg headed the Pan-European Union from 1973 to 2004.
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86 Winter, “Vorwort,” 9.
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88 Sternhell, Neither Right Nor Left. Sternhell's model is not perfect for the Austrian case. I merely wish to suggest that the conservatism of die Aktion was novel and not a mere continuation of prewar tendencies.
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92 Ibid., 233–234. Only Winter condemned Italian Fascism as a distortion of conservatism. See Winter, “Souveränität,” in Die österreichische Aktion, 155.
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