Dynamics between the Pan-German nationalist movement and
the supranational Habsburg State during the 1880s in the Dual
Monarchy
MA thesis in European Studies
Graduate School of Humanities
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Author: Renata Ensor
Student number: 10279903
Main Supervisor: Dr. Krisztina Lajosi-Moore
Second Supervisor: Mr. Drs. J.J.C.M. Wirken
Contents
Introduction ... 3
Methodology and Theory ... 7
Background to the emergence of the Pan-German movement in Austria ... 14
Spreading the Pan-German message... 20
Pan-German radical politics in the 1880s ... 26
Pan-Germanism as a movement in civil society ... 32
The dynamic between the state and the Pan-Germans ... 36
Discussion and Comparison ... 40
Conclusion ... 44
Introduction
The Brexit vote in the June 23rd referendum of 2016, and the faltering and hesitant moves towards Brexit negotiations, have challenged the supranational European Union like nothing yet has since the European Union’s inception. Although many other European nation states for now, anno 2017, seem saved from the rise of anti-EU and anti-Muslim populist nationalism, it would be presumptuous to rest assured that the right-wing populist movements throughout mainly Western Europe, such as Front National in France, Partij voor de Vrijheid in the Netherlands, Alternativ für Deutschland in Germany and Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs in Austria, have been vanquished. What these political parties share is Euroscepticism, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and otherwise xenophobic stances, combined with left-wing leaning social policies. The populist movements are to many reminiscent of the lead-up to the war that formed the very justification of the European Communities’ coming into existence, designed to reduce the risk of another disastrous outbreak of war in Europe. For now, there does not seem to be an effective and lasting response to this populist trend though, with Hungary and Poland already having a right-wing party in government. Therefore, research into the development of and approaches to populism are still highly necessary in order to find ways to limit the damage that populism can cause. This research will go back to what may well be one of the first populist movements that developed in Europe since the industrial revolution and the start of the constitutional age, the Pan-German movement.
Not only was the Pan-German movement an example of a populist movement before they became widespread in Europe, it spread through Austria during the reign of Franz Joseph, emperor of the multi-ethnic supranational Habsburg empire, providing a comparison to the populist movements developing within the supranational state structure of the European Union. Although other nationalist parties rose to power in Austria-Hungary in the second half of the 19th century, none of them desired the destruction of the Habsburg empire as badly as the Pan-Germans did. Indeed, many other nationalist movements were quite happy to exist as nations within the larger Habsburg structure1, as will be explained in this research. The Pan-Germans, however, wanted German-Austria to become part of the newly erected German empire under Kaiser Wilhelm I, and for the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, which contained various cultures and ethnicities, to cease to exist. This exploration into the Pan-German movement in Austria will hopefully help illuminate certain questions pertaining to populism, as we face it today, since Pan-Germanism was politically not too successful within the Habsburg empire, although it was popular, while at the same time it formed an inspiration to Adolf Hitler. The example of the Pan-German movement is also one that takes place within the structure of a supranational state apparatus. Therefore, this research will explore how the Pan-German movement
1 Cohen, Gary. B. “Nationalist politics and the dynamics of state and civil society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914.” Central European History 40, no. 2 (2007): 241-278.
spread its message through Cisleithania (the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy), what the dynamic between the movement and the state was, and what the effects of state intervention or non-intervention were.
Over the past couple of decades, not much research has been done on the Austrian Pan-German movement. The recent publication of The Habsburg Empire, a new history by Pieter Judson demonstrates that even general history of The Habsburg Empire has for a long time been neglected by scholars, as previous studies would focus on the nations and nationalisms inside the Habsburg Empire, instead of making “the Habsburg Empire itself the subject of historical inquiry”2. Judson believes research into Habsburg history has gained renewed importance and attention by scholars. While Pan-Germanism could be considered one such nationalist movement, studies on nationalist politics in the Habsburg Empire generally focused on the non-German nationalities, such as the Czechs, the Slovenes, the Slovaks, and the Hungarians. With respect to the Pan-German movement, many historians had for a long time confined it to obscurity due to the movement’s ultimate lack of political success and its popularity and influence reaching no further than a small group of radicals that sporadically gained support but never had any actual legislative power3.
Recently however, with Michael Wladika’s publication of Hitler’s Vatergeneration: die Ursprünge
des Nationalsozialismus in der k.u.k. Monarchie4 has sparked renewed interest in the importance of the Pan-German movement for the later development of Hitler’s national socialism. Wladika focuses particularly on Schönerer, and his followers, and much less on Karl Lueger, who has long been of interest as anti-Semitic mayor of Vienna from 1900 until 1914. With this approach, Wladika departs from the general trend to assign more importance to Karl Lueger’s Christian Socials for the shaping of Hitler’s ideas. Before Wladika, one of the first to offer a detailed account of the rise and demise of the Pan-German movement, was Andrew Gladding Whiteside with The Socialism of Fools5, detailing the
life of the movement’s main protagonist, Georg, Ritter von Schönerer, as well as a chronological examination of the development of the Pan-German movement. Whiteside argues that, rather than merely a populist or nationalist movement, Pan-Germanism was an “extremist” movement that used violence as a means to achieve a form of terrorism. Pieter Judson’s works also belong to the more recent research done on 19th century Austrian politics and Pan-Germanism. Although Judson dedicates no more than two pages of his most recent publication on Habsburg history to the Pan-Germans and Georg von Schönerer, an earlier work of his, Exclusive Revolutionaries, examines in depth the liberal politics in Austria in the 1860s and 1870s, and explains how the liberal social
2 Judson, Pieter. Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914. University of Michigan Press, 1996, 14.
3 See for instance, Boyer, John W. Political radicalism in late imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social movement, 1848-1897. University of Chicago Press, 1995.
4 Wladika, Michael. Hitlers Vätergeneration: die Ursprünge des Nationalsozialismus in der kuk Monarchie. Böhlau Verlag Wien, 2005.
5 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.
framework provided the methods and stage for the Pan-German movement and anti-Semitic politics to develop in the 1880s.
Apart from the works by Whiteside and Wladika on the Pan-Germans, the movement and Schönerer are often mentioned in scholarly works written on the history of anti-Semitism in 19th century Vienna and before the World War I, such as Fin de Siecle Vienna6 by Carl Schorske, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna7 by John W. Boyer, and The Rise of Political Anti-semitism in Germany &
Austria8 by Peter Pulzer. The direct association is due to the fact that Pan-Germanism and Georg von Schönerer are often considered synonymous to the birth of anti-Semitism in Austrian politics. Other works typically look at the Pan-German activity of the student fraternities during the 1880s, such as William McGrath’s Student Radicalism in Vienna9 and Die Deutschen Hochschulen in Oesterreich10
by Paul Molisch, published in 1922. Apart from these, several shorter papers have focused specifically on individual members of the Pan-German movement, such as Kurt Tweraser’s Carl
Beurle and the Triumph of German Nationalism11, Donald Daviau’s Hermann Bahr and the Radical Politics of Austria in the 1880s12 and The Founder of Modern Political Antisemitism: Georg von Schoenerer by Oscar Karbach13.
What seems to be lacking from the research on the Pan-German movement, is an analysis of the Pan-Germans’ methods in spreading and gathering mass support throughout the Cisleithanian provinces. Gary B. Cohen, who in his research specifically deals with the dynamics between the Habsburg state and civil society in the late 19th century in the context of nationalist movements throughout the Habsburg empire, offers a framework in which to study the dynamic between civil society and the supranational Habsburg state14. According to Cohen, most nationalist movements, such as the Hungarians, Slovaks, and Czechs, within the Empire were quite happy to emancipate while remaining part of the larger imperial structure. He already admits that the Pan-Germans form an exception to this, but does not elaborate on this, and does not explain the reason for the radically different view on coexisting as part of the Habsburg Empire. Therefore, this research will take Cohen’s framework as a base from which to study the Pan-German movement, and will both describe
6 Schorske, Carl E. Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and culture. Vintage, 2012.
7 Boyer, John W. Political radicalism in late imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social movement, 1848-1897. University of Chicago Press, 1995.
8 Pulzer, Peter GJ. The rise of political anti-Semitism in Germany & Austria. Harvard University Press, 1988. 9 McGrath, William J. "Student radicalism in Vienna." Journal of Contemporary History 2, no. 3 (1967): 183-201.
10 Molisch, Paul. Die deutschen Hochschulen in Oesterreich und die politisch-nationale Entwicklung nach dem Jahre 1848: mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Wiener Hochschulen zumeist nach urkundlichen Quellen dargestellt. Drei Masken Verlag, 1922.
11 Tweraser, Kurt. "Carl Beurle and the Triumph of German Nationalism in Austria." German Studies Review 4, no. 3 (1981): 403-426.
12 Daviau, Donald G. "Hermann Bahr and the Radical Politics of Austria in the 1880s." German Studies Review 5, no. 2 (1982): 163-185.
13 Karbach, Oscar. "The Founder of Modern Political Antisemitism: Georg von Schoenerer." Jewish Social Studies (1945): 3-30.
14 Cohen, Gary. B. “Nationalist politics and the dynamics of state and civil society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914.” Central European History 40, no. 2 (2007): 241-278.
how the Pan-German movement spread through civil society, as well as what its dynamic was with the Habsburg state. This thesis will argue that the Pan-German movement in many ways operated like a social movement in terms of how the movement organised and spread, initially advocating cultural German nationalism that sought unification with Germany and social and electoral reform. Later, under Schönerer’s dominance of the Pan-German movement, this turned to ethnic nationalism, and the methods for the movement’s gaining support as well as the content of its message turned increasingly populist and radical, divisive and polarising. The Habsburg state’s dynamic with the Pan-Germans was characterised by their motivation to protect the empire and bring down the power of the liberals in Parliament. Therefore, in instances when the Pan-Germans were expressing themselves in Habsburg terms, the state would intervene, whereas in the instances of Semitic anti-liberalism, Government was less quick to intervene and was more concerned with the survival of the Habsburg imperial state and conquering its opponents. This also influenced the Habsburg state’s more positive dynamic with regard to the other nationalities in the Habsburg Empire.
In the discussion, this research will exploratively reflect on insights the present research can give on current developments concerning nationalisms coexisting under a supranational umbrella, taking the UK and the EU as an example. From this discussion, it emerges that there is no constant dynamic for a nation state within a supranational structure, and that dynamic and potential polarisation between the two can take many different forms. Ultimately, what fostered a positive relation between the Habsburg imperial court and the many nationalities in the Empire, was Emperor Franz Joseph’s dependence on compromise with them in order to maintain his influential position as Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Therefore, a recognition of shared need and dependence on the other has the possibility of fostering a positive dynamic between the supranational and the national.
Methodology and Theory
Methodology
In order to answer the research question, set out in the introduction, the research will introduce the theoretical framework, most notably consisting of theories by Cohen and Arato and Gary Cohen, on “civil society” and the dynamic between the Habsburg state and civil society respectively. Theoretical perspectives on nationalism by Ernest Gellner, populism by Nadia Urbinati, and extremism by Andrew Whiteside, will also be offered, to be consulted later on in the research.
The case study on the Pan-German movement opens with a historical background chapter, to explain in part the events leading up to the formation of the Pan-German movement. Afterwards, there will be an examination on how the Pan-German movement organised and spread their Pan-German message, to be followed by a close examination of two specific controversies involving the Pan-Germans, the Nordbahn affair, and the break-in at the Neues Wiener Tagblatt. The research on the case study will be based on a literature review on the Pan-German movement. Due to the wealth of information available in the works of Andrew Whiteside and Pieter Judson, most of the information concerning the Pan-German movement will be based on the empirical research they have conducted. Both works count as leading authors in the field and have conducted meticulous research on the topic of the Pan-German movement. Although the more recent research by Wladika is available and covers the Pan-German movement, it does not add much in its description of the Pan-German movement, than was already researched and written by Whiteside.15 Since the original historical documents were in German and so is Wladika’s work, this thesis will quote Whiteside’s translations, whenever a historical document is consulted.
The two chapters following the case study will apply the theories from the first chapter to the information from the case study, discussing how the Pan-Germans organised and gained popularity throughout Cisleithania, and what the dynamic was like between the Habsburg state and the Pan-Germans. This chapter will also contain a discussion of the populist, nationalist and extremist elements of the movement by discussing theories by Ernst Gellner, Nadia Urbinati and Andrew Whiteside.
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework will outline some of the main concepts that will be discussed in the analysis of the case study. The first thing to be discussed will be Cohen and Arato’s definition of civil society, followed by Gary Cohen’s theory on the emergence of civil society in Austria-Hungary, and the dynamic between the Habsburg imperial state and the nationalist parties and movements that
15 Bukey, Evan B. "Hitlers Vätergeneration: Die Ursprünge des Nationalsozialismus in der kuk Monarchie. By Michael Wladika. Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2005.” (2008), 194.
emerged in Austria-Hungary. Afterwards Ernest Gellner’s definition of nationalism, nation, and state, will be covered, followe Nadia Urbinati’s exploration of populist movements in Europe. The theoretical chapter will end with Andrew Whiteside’s own definition of the Pan-German movement, as an extremist movement.
Cohen and Arato’s definition of civil society
The concept of civil society first emerged in Greek as πολιτικη κοινονια (politike koinonia), defined by Cohen and Arato as “a public ethical-political community of free and equal citizens under a legally defined system of rule”16. Since the Greeks introduced it, the concept of civil society has undergone various changes in meaning. A major shift in the concept of civil society, emerged with the development of absolutism in the 17th century after the Peace of Westphalia that constituted the nation-state system and sowed the seeds for international law. As absolutism began to take shape, Enlightenment thinkers of the late 17th and 18th century and other critics came to form associations where they could voice their criticisms and questions concerning the absolutist state and their condition as subjects of the state.17 The public life that emerged during the enlightenment is what Cohen and Arato consider to be the “prototype” of civil society as it developed from the early modern period onwards.18
Political thought on the concept of civil society has emerged in several guises under various great thinkers, among whom Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Montesquieu. Later it was picked up, critiqued and reinterpreted by, most notably, Hegel, Marx, Tocqueville, Hannah Arendt, Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas. An analysis of its evolution is beyond the scope of this research and will therefore not be elaborated on in more detail. However, Cohen and Arato offer a working definition for civil society that will be used as a basis for this research:
“We understand “civil society” as a sphere of social interaction between economy and state, composed above all of the intimate sphere (especially the family), social movements, and forms of public communication. Modern civil society is created through forms of self-constitution and self-mobilization. It is institutionalized and generalized through laws, and especially subjective rights, that stabilize social differentiation. While the self-creative and institutionalized dimensions can exist separately, in the long term both independent action and institutionalization are necessary for the reproduction of civil society.”19
Cohen and Arato further stress that civil society is not necessarily an opposing force in relation to the economy and the state. The idea is that civil society can influence economic and political
16 Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato. Civil Society and Political Theory. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1997), 84.
17 Ibid., 86. 18 Ibid., 87. 19 Ibid., ix.
making and general processes in a “mediating sphere”20. It can happen that civil society does turn to oppose the state, however, as they explain that,
“An antagonistic relation of civil society, or its actors, to the economy or the state, arises only when these mediations fail or when the institutions of economic and political society serve to insulate decision making and decision makers from the influence of social organisations, initiatives, and forms of public discussion.”21
This possible dynamic that results in an “antagonistic relation of civil society” inspires an exploration of the dynamic between the Habsburg state and Pan-Germanism as an example of a movement rooted in civil society, and what the “mediating sphere” looked like.
Ernest Gellner: nations and nationalism
In the discussion on the methods and classification of the Pan-German movement, and its dynamic with regard to the Habsburg state, some theoretical concepts from both theories of nationalism and populism are required to provide an accurate discussion of the movement’s positioning in between these types of movements. According to Ernest Gellner, nationalism is,
“the striving to make culture and polity congruent, to endow a culture with its own political roof, and not more than one roof at that.”22
This culture is a high culture imposed upon a people, because industrialism requires homogeneity of newly emerging social class. Gellner continues to offer definitions of “nation” and of “state”, and offers the following two points about what constitutes a nation:
“1 Two men are of the same nation if and only if they share the same culture, where culture in turn means a system of ideas and signs and associations and ways of behaving and communicating.”23
“2 Two men are of the same nation if and only if they recognise each other as belonging to the same nation. In other words, nation maketh man; nations are the artefacts of men’s convictions and loyalties and solidarities.”24
For his definition of the state, Gellner refers back to Max Weber’s definition, arguing that the state, is the “agency within society which possesses the monopoly on legitimate violence.”25 Although Gellner
20 Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato. Civil Society and Political Theory. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1997), x.
21 Ibid., x, xi.
22 Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publisher Limited, 1983, 43. 23 Ibid., 7.
offers a much more extensive theory on the development of nationalism in the industrial age, to which this coverage of his work does not do justice, explaining the origins and development of nationalism is beyond the scope of this research.
Nadia Urbinati: ‘good’ and ‘bad’ populism
According to Urbinati, populism has become a form of politics in the modern age since the 18th century and specifically emerged from the start of the constitutional age. In her own words, populism,
“both as political rhetoric and as a political movement, has become a viable form of collective expression of resentment against the domestic enemies of “the people”. Its hidden force rested on its belief in an alleged purity of origins against an alleged artificial complexity of civilisation.”26 Basing herself on the earlier works of Aristotle and Tocqueville, Nadia Urbinati highlights the differences between American and European populism respectively. The most significant marker of a populist movement is its antagonism towards elitist representatives, intellectuals, and the judiciary because they make politics unintelligible for the common people and therefore undemocratic. Populism desires direct democracy and direct language, with the aim of giving “the people” a feeling of empowerment, and in order to democratise national politics. In this process, however, the populist movement ends up placing the people (which in their own view is synonymous to democracy) above the law, which, in turn, makes populism a movement that aims to bring down or significantly alter the legal structure that constitutes the democratic nation state and which enables the movement’s very existence. Where Aristotle believed there were “good” and “bad” examples of populism, Tocqueville argued both forms of populism were bad, with the American type being a “lesser evil”27 than the European variant. Urbinati follows Aristotle’s definition of demagoguery to describe the “bad” form that populism takes in Europe, concluding:
“first, that populism which develops from within a democratic society has a good chance of being or becoming “bad”; second, that “bad” populism emerges in democracies that are distressed by social instability and a deep class division; and finally, that populism is a tool by which a class of citizens can convert popular discontent into a strategy of power.”28
Following Urbinati’s conclusion, it proves fruitful to keep these characteristics in mind when researching the Pan-German movement, since current right-wing parties in Western representative democracies, claiming to be nationalist or patriotic parties, employ populist rhetoric and methods to
25 Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publisher Limited, 1983, 3.
26 Urbinati, Nadia. “Democracy and Populism”. Constellations 5, no. 1 (1998): 111. 27 Ibid., 112.
get their message across, come into power, and use that power to perform what they argue is the “will of the people”.
Andrew G. Whiteside: Georg von Schönerer, Pan-Germanism as an extremist movement
Whiteside, who has conducted detailed research on the Pan-German movement, takes a different approach altogether to Pan-Germanism than Gary Cohen and Pieter Judson, by equating this type of political movement with “extremism” and explains the workings of such a movement by first clarifying the definition of extremism, and by subsequently explaining its method of violence to achieve the aim of terrorism.29
Whiteside explains the characteristics of extremism in the following terms,
“The objective characteristics of extremism are generally agreed upon: high emotional indignation and intolerance; pervasive suspicion, violence, and terrorism; contempt for middle-class political parties; and a tendency to exert pressure through underground or front organisations. Extremist leaders tend to emphasise that they are not party chairmen, in the usual sense, and to inspire respect by claims of superior conspiratorial technique or ruthlessness. They offer decisive acts, not discussion and votes; and they do not rely on democratic elections to get power, though they usually confirm their power by plebiscites.”30 Violence, in relation to extremism, is the method and basis for political action under extremism.31 He terms violence an “abuse of power” that is employed to achieve the smothering or repression of political opposition in a non-emergency situation, i.e. in a situation where there is technically still space for compromise and discussion of issues at hand. This violence is legitimized by the movement as a value and a justified means to promote and to bring about political change and structural reform.32
He goes on to argue that “the policy of achieving aims by violence is terrorism.”33 In his definition of terrorism, Whiteside suggests that terrorism can be a course of action for both factions in the opposition, as well as for government actors, who resort to terrorism “in order to extinguish opposition”34. When terrorism is used by government, he argues that it is usually employed under the guise of a feigned emergency or is legitimised as invoking the rule of law in such an “emergency”35.
29 Andrew Gladding Whiteside. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 4.
30 Ibid., 3. 31 Ibid., 4. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., 4. 35 Ibid., 4.
Gary B. Cohen’s theory of late Imperial Austrian civil society
Gary Cohen’s theory concerning development of nationalist movements within the construct of the Austro-Hungarian Empire investigates the manner in which nationalist movements in all areas of Austria-Hungary interacted with the larger apparatus and political structure of the Habsburg State. Cohen bases himself in opposition to the presupposition of many historians before him that the Habsburg state ultimately crumbled due to the incompatibility of all the various nationalist factions and a repressive Habsburg state. Cohen argues that the Habsburg state was, in fact, very accommodating to the many nationalist aspirations within the empire and that nationalism and allegiance to the Habsburg state were in most cases not mutually exclusive.36 In his theory, Cohen offers a chronological reconstruction of the development of nationalist parties in the Habsburg Empire between 1848 and 1914.
The nationalist movements of the Czechs, Germans and Italians had a character similar to the traditional liberal nationalist movements of Central Europe. They enjoyed support from the urban middle classes, as well as from elites who were landowners in the region. Towards the late 1860s and 1870s, these liberal nationalist movements gained support within the Austrian Crown Lands through various tactics. Cohen specifically mentions “systems of limited suffrage and gerrymandering of the parliamentary voting districts to bolster the strength of their propertied and educated constituents and protect their own partisan interests”37. By the mid-1880s mass politics was taking over the Austrian political landscape, which was characterized by similar methods as the liberal nationalists, but increasingly making use of populist rhetoric and thereby criticizing the liberal elite, that they had distanced themselves from38. This shift was accompanied and facilitated by the ongoing capitalist developments, which brought more workers to the city who began participating in civil society.
Civil society gained ever more power after the 1880s, as civil society grew and pressed on domestic issues that concerned nationalist political parties, as well as interest groups who were not part of the enfranchised. Through their methods, they managed to get the Austrian government to compromise on certain issues. Civil society only continued to flourish in terms of civil society activities and by the end of the 19th century there was a large body of written criticism towards and debate concerning the Habsburg state in newspapers, journals and books.39
As a result of the pressure from nationalist parties and interest groups, many social and public services began to separate society along these national lines, with the exception of certain groups who remained nationally neutral, such as religious or charity organisations.40 Cohen illustrates how all these nationalist forces destabilized the political system, but argues that this was “more the product of
36 Gary B. Cohen. "Nationalist politics and the dynamics of state and civil society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914." Central European History 40, no. 2 (2007): 241-278.
37 Ibid., 249. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 257. 40 Ibid., 261.
the transformation of civil society and political life, of which the radicalization of national politics was only one of many results.”41 Radicalisation of nationalist political parties through their rhetoric and the demands they made to the Habsburg state, and polarization in Habsburg society in general, increased even further as the various parties competed with each other at grass-root level.42
Cohen stresses how, “the great majority of nationalist politicians and organizations throughout the monarchy during the dualist era were eager to work within the framework of the Habsburg state”43 and agrees with John Boyer on this, recognized scholar on the Habsburg monarchy and radical politics in Vienna of the late 19th century.44 He too noted how, rather than a separatist development, the developments in the Habsburg empire could be seen as emancipatory within the larger Habsburg state in a consolidating way. Although Cohen mentions Pan-German nationalism in passing, he does not focus specifically on the Pan-German nationalist movement, how they operated within Habsburg society, and how they related to the Habsburg state and the Emperor.
41 Gary B. Cohen. "Nationalist politics and the dynamics of state and civil society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914." Central European History 40, no. 2 (2007): 266.
42 Ibid., 268. 43 Ibid., 276.
44 Boyer, John W. Political radicalism in late imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social movement, 1848-1897. University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Background to the emergence of the Pan-German movement in
Austria
The Pan-German movement was a radical German populist nationalist movement that developed during the 1880s throughout Cisleithania, the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary. Part of the German nationalism these radical nationalists initially advocated was one of the possible answers to “The German Question”, namely how to reorganise the mainly German princely states that were no longer part of the Holy Roman Empire after its dissolution in 1806. In order to understand the modus operandi of the Pan-German movement as a civil society movement, and its dynamic with the Habsburg state, this chapter will elaborate on some of the political, social, and technological developments in Europe and in the Habsburg Empire that took place in the 19th century and set the stage for Pan-Germanism to arise.
The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century had profoundly challenged the existing order in Europe, to which the Habsburg-ruled territories formed no exception. The Holy Roman Empire, which had for centuries been ruled by a Habsburg Emperor, was dissolved by Kaiser Franz II/I in 1806 after its most important defeat against Napoleon at Austerlitz in 1805. The German states that ceased to be part of the Holy Roman Empire came to form the Confederation of the Rhine, and after the Congress of Vienna, the German Confederation, while the remaining Habsburg territories came to form the Austrian Empire. Austria did not emerge as a winner of the Napoleonic wars once Napoleon was defeated and the Congress of Vienna was signed. The Empire’s weaknesses as a European power were painfully exposed and the empire never regained its former position in Europe from this point onwards.45
The Congress of Vienna, negotiated by the European powers in order to bring back a level of peace and stability in Europe, coincided with the rise of popular romantic nationalist and liberalist movements throughout Europe. Especially in the German Confederation, German nationalism was gaining momentum as a unifying force for these smaller states.46 Over time, the practical meaning of the Congress of Vienna became more about repressing change from mainly liberal revolutionaries, than it was about keeping peace in Europe.47 In Austria, nationalism and liberalism were met with repression and an attempt at continuation of the Ancien Régime by Franz I of Austria and his key diplomat, Klemens von Metternich, which was continued after Leopold V replaced Franz I in 1835 until 1848. In 1848, revolutionaries across Europe demanded the drafting of liberal constitutions along national lines that would ensure the protection of the people’s civil rights. For the Austrian Empire and the German Confederation, however, the adoption of a liberal constitution as an act of national consolidation was not merely a formal procedure, but exposed what came to be known as the
45 Beller, Steven. A Concise History of Austria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 114. 46 Ibid.
“German Question”, which saw two opposing visions of German unification, one being the
Kleindeutsche Lösung, a “Lesser” Germany composed of the German Confederation under Prussian
rule and excluding Austria, the other being the Grossdeutsche Lösung, which would entail the unification of the German Confederation and the Habsburg territories, spanning large parts of Eastern Europe, into one “Greater” Germany, in which the Habsburgs would have a prominent ruling position.48
The answer to the “German Question” came with the defining victory over the Austrian troops by Prussia in the Battle of Königgrätz that ended the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, which resulted in the unification of German states into a “Lesser” German nation under Prussian rule. Austria’s defeat in both the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and its prior defeat in the Second Italian War of Independence of 1859, landed the Empire into severe debt, forcing Franz Joseph I, who had succeeded Leopold V after the revolution in 1848, to give into some of the demands of Hungarian political leaders, which resulted in the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the establishment of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.49 Both Austria’s exclusion from the unification of the German states into the German Empire, and its loss of supremacy over other nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire since the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, signalled Austria’s rapidly declining powerful presence on the European stage, an ongoing trend since the Napoleonic Wars, and had a profound impact on the ideological direction nationalism in Austria would be taking until the start of the First World War.
Although the Austrian Empire was confronted with wars that severely reduced its territories in size, Franz Joseph was also fighting his own domestic war against the liberal revolutionary forces within Austria that had introduced a constitution, which Franz Joseph abolished again in order to reimpose his absolutist rule, while holding onto some of the liberal principles that could make him pass for an Enlightened despot. The revolutions of 1848-49 in Europe were the culmination of a liberal movement that had been gaining ground in Europe during the Vormärz era between the end of the Napoleonic wars and the 1848 revolution. In a climate of social and political repression, imposed by Metternich’s policies, they advocated change in the form of adopting liberal constitutions, allowing for the freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of association.50 Although there was no universal franchise, the Austrian people had become active citizens and had found new ways to have their voices heard in such a way that could not easily be ignored. Ordinary people organised in what Tocqueville around the same time termed “civil society” clubs and associations, as local interest groups began to organize around matters that united and concerned them.51 Not only workers associations flourished, but also reading clubs, such as the Legal-Political Reading Club (established
48 Beller, Steven. A Concise History of Austria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 114-115. 49 Ibid.
50 Judson, Pieter. Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914. University of Michigan Press, 1996.
in 1842), fostering exchange of political ideas, as well as gymnastic associations52. The 1848 revolution in Austria did not achieve the success it was supposed to achieve though. Emperor Franz Joseph refused to accept change and kept imposing his rule on the Austrian people, by rejecting the newly crafted constitution and imposing his neo-absolutist rule. As Judson puts it, “[i]n 1867 [the Austrian liberals] imposed a constitution largely of their own making on an unwilling emperor”53.
Over time, however, Franz Joseph found another way of influencing Austrian politics, after he was forced to accept defeat concerning the constitution. Although he had initially given the liberals a chance to rule and form a coalition, he had grown increasingly impatient with them because of their defiance against government policy, which they repeatedly voted against in Parliamentary sessions.54 Franz Joseph appointed Eduard Taaffe, childhood friend of Emperor Franz Joseph and loyal to him, minister of the interior. This effectively put Taaffe in charge of the next Reichsrat elections, which were to be held in 1879. Franz Joseph asked him to “[put] together a new cabinet whose loyalty was above the parties” (i.e. loyal to the emperor himself)55. In practice, this meant that Taaffe had to form coalitions with other political parties to ensure the liberals did not win a majority. His tactics worked, and in 1979 he formed the “Iron Ring” coalition, composed of the conservatives, the German aristocrats, the Slavs, and the clericals. One important policy, which was meant to please one of the coalition partners, but which outraged the German liberal party, were the Stremayr language ordinances of 1880, which would make Czech, in addition to German, an official administrative language in Bohemia and Moravia. This was interpreted by the German liberals as an attack on their rights and interests in these regions of the empire, and signalled the beginning of a German nationalist retaliation that had as its principle aim to represent the interests of the German people in an empire-allegiant political landscape that, in their eyes, ignored and neglected them as Germans.56
It is possible to track this transformation from liberalism to nationalism from the liberal point of view. As Judson puts it, the German liberals “began to redefine themselves as an interest group rather than as a Staatsvolk interested only in the universal community good”57. It was, therefore, the emperor and Taaffe’s policy of including other Cisleithanian nationalist parties to form a coalition, with the ulterior motive of deliberately excluding the German liberals, who challenged Franz Joseph’s imperial reign, from a governing position, that resulted in the German liberals’ turn towards nationalism. The campaign that followed, in Judson’s words, “required a war on two fronts”58: “ignorant peasants and workers had to be taught their national identity, and liberal party politicians had to abandon their
52 Judson, Pieter. The Habsburg empire; a new history. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016.
53 Judson, Pieter. Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914. University of Michigan Press, 1996, 1.
54 Ibid., p. 187.
55 Judson, Pieter. Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914. University of Michigan Press, 1996, 187.
56 Ibid., 197. 57 Ibid., 201. 58 Ibid.
traditional identification with the state”59. It was at a German liberal party conference in Vienna that the liberals had their first encounter with the university students of Vienna who at this point were becoming politically active, and began participating politically and in civil society, beyond the confines of their fraternities.
These university fraternities at Vienna, Graz and Prague were first formed in the early 1940s, when they still operated secretively because of Metternich’s repressive policies. Romantic nationalism had begun to take root throughout Europe during the Romantic Period in the decades leading up to the 1848-49 revolutions. Particularly German nationalism in Austria flourished in a period before the Austro-Prussian war had ended the dream of a Greater Germany that included Austria, and was very popular among university students. By 1960, there were twenty such fraternities in the Austrian Provinces of the Habsburg Empire, but the most active ones were still at Vienna, Graz, and Prague. These fraternities were very secretive and cult-like, and were in most cases intensely engaged with the political events of the time. There was a distinction between the Burschenschaften, which consisted of the “poorer, more nationalistic and radical students”60, and the Korps61
, which consisted of upper
middle-class students who were characterized as being politically more conservative. Particularly, the
Burschenschaften were active proponents of Kleindeutsch nationalism, the name for German
nationalism that was allegiant to the German Kaiser Wilhelm I, and desired Austria to become part of the German Empire. Their discussion of matters concerning nationalism were usually partly supported by intellectual perspectives on cultural German nationalism, which their classes had familiarised them with. It was here that German nationalism first began to organise as a movement and to make its way into the political life and civil society of Austria’s German population.
At the liberal party’s conference in 1880, Engelbert Pernerstorfer, former member of one of the Viennese Burschenshaften, suggested forming a Deutscher Volkspartei that exclusively represented the German population’s interests, instead of a party seeking the best for society. This was a step too far for the liberals, though, and the young university alumni, Engelbert Pernerstorfer, Victor Adler, Heinrich Friedjung and Victor von Krauss, turned their efforts to founding a newspaper, Deutsche
Worte, and developing the Linz Program, a manifesto that set out the aims and values of the
Pan-German movement, which was published in Deutsche Worte in 1882.62
Ally in the drafting of the Linz Program and cofounder of Deutsche Worte was Georg Ritter von Schönerer, son of a wealthy engineer, whose German nationalist sentiments largely stemmed from deep concern for agriculture and the interests of the peasantry and artisans in times of modernity and
59 Judson, Pieter. Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914. University of Michigan Press, 1996, 201.
60 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975, 45.
61 Ibid., 45.
62 Judson, Pieter. Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914. University of Michigan Press, 1996, 202.
change.63 Whiteside believes that “the combination of the students and Schönerer was the most important single factor in the creation of the Austrian Pan-German movement”64. The Linz program, which founded the Pan-German movement, advocated a combination of national and social points, which demonstrates how the two traditions of nationalism culminated in the Linz Program. The Linz Programme was primarily drafted by Heinrich Friedjung and Georg von Schönerer in the time before Pan-Germanism became synonymous to anti-Semitism. The Linz Program had a total of 12 points.65 The first, second, third, and fourth points addressed Austria’s relations with surrounding countries, advocating the dissolution of the monarchical union with Hungary, “closer alliance with Germany”66, and a distancing from the regions of Galicia, Bukovina, Dalmatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina, by either annexation to Hungary or formal national independence. Additionally, the fifth point demanded a customs union with Germany, as well as with the neighbouring Balkan states and Hungary. The sixth and ninth points concern institutionalising German as the dominant language and securing a “good and progressive education” for young Germans respectively. The seventh and eighth points seek a franchise reform and exclusion of civil servants, capitalists and priests from running for a position as member of Parliament. Then tenth point advocated the raising of taxes on capitalists, the twelfth the protection of peasants, and the eleventh a more effective and efficient judiciary, including the introduction of “penal settlements.”67
While the young radicals and Schönerer agreed on the orientation of their German kleindeutsch nationalism and resentment towards the Austrian state, the two factions differed in their origin of nationalism. Where the students had developed their kleindeutsch nationalism from an intellectual, theoretical, and artistic perspective, that derived from the liberal tradition, Schönerer’s nationalism had developed from his concern with the peasantry who were suffering from the effects of modernity, capitalism, liberalism, and industrialism. Since Schönerer associated the forces of modernity with Jewry, German nationalism, for him, became synonymous to anti-Semitism, which he saw as the “cornerstone of German nationalism” and one of the most important inventions of the age. On this point, however, Schönerer and the Pernerstorfer circle could not reconcile their differences, since many of the young student radicals were in fact Jewish and did not see Jews as the source of all dissatisfaction in Cisleithania. Ultimately, the student group and Schönerer parted ways in 1883 over an anti-Semitic speech that Schönerer wanted published in Deutsche Worte, which Pernerstorfer refused to do.68 Schönerer then set up his separate newspaper Unverfälschte Deutsche Worte, while Pernerstorfer continued with Deutsche Worte.
63 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975, 69.
64 Ibid., 63.
65 Karbach, Oscar. “The Founder of Modern Political Antisemitism: Georg von Schoenerer.” Jewish Social Studies 7, no. 1 (Jan., 1945), pp. 3-30, 8.
66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid., 101.
The break with Pernerstorfer made the Pan-German movement, and especially Schönerer, increasingly radical and anti-Semitic. In the years that followed, the Pan-German movement began spreading its message through the Cisleithanian provinces, to gain a “national constituency”69. Apart from this active campaigning, Schönerer also developed his political tactics by causing several scandals, using vulgar language, and inciting and participating in violent confrontations with the police. Judson emphasises how it was liberalism that made it possible for the Pan-German movement to organise and radicalise the way that it did. Liberalism had enabled the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, parliamentary immunity, and the flourishing of civil society. The state’s response, which at certain moments attempted to crush the Pan-Germans, had the effect of further radicalising the movement. The case study in the next chapters will explore in detail the methods used by the Pan-Germans to spread their movement and message through Austrian society, and gain support for their movement. The case study will also cover the confrontational method employed by Schönerer himself and some of his supporters to express anti-Semitic nationalism in the political arena, how this impacted Austrian politics overall, and how the state’s response impacted the intensity and popularity of the movement.
69 Boyer, John W. Political radicalism in late imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social movement, 1848-1897. University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Spreading the Pan-German message
This chapter will focus on the mechanisms, associations, tactics, and forms of mobilisation during the 1880s, used by the Pan-Germans to appeal to the masses. Of course, the language and rhetoric is of importance here, but this will be addressed in more detail in the next chapter.
Civil society in the Habsburg Empire had begun taking shape under the Metternich regime, during the Biedermeier era between 1815 and 1848. This era was signified by the emergence of bourgeois society, an economic middle class that was able to organise and be independently economically active. This is evident from the various civic organisations that were becoming actively engaged in matters concerning the education of the local population, charitable work, and matters of trade, among other things. Although the Metternich government tried to repress Austrian society and keep organisations from forming, the state simply did not have the financial means to provide its people what these new organisations could. These organisations also brought newspapers, and organised into associations surrounding many different activities.70
The civil society associations and the press developed further after the final adoption of the Constitution in 1867. While university fraternities had been a breeding ground for German intellectual nationalism from the 1840s71, many of them began turning anti-Semitic towards the end of the 1870s. The 1870s saw both a financial crisis in 1873, and an influx of predominantly young male Jewish refugees as a result of Russian pogroms, who enrolled at the universities. From 1879, student fraternities and associations began to exclude Jews from membership. The intellectual backing of the Pan-German movement, was formed mainly by the Jewish Austrian intellectual community. Not long after the establishment of the Linz Program, however, Georg von Schönerer turned on them, making anti-Semitism an integral part of the Pan-German movement, which led to Jewish expulsion from many of the Vereins that were formed and that they had been members of.
Although Boyer argues the Pan-Germans as a movement was “stillborn”, Whiteside’s research would suggest a slightly different picture. In terms of the movement’s organisation in associations, clubs, and meetings, the most important one was the Deutschnationalen Verein. This verein was founded as a kleindeutsch nationalist version of the already existing Österreichischer Reformverein. The German national association consisted of a diverse group of members, including journalists, school teachers, politicians, university professors and small business men72. In the statutes of the
Deutschnationalen Verein, the purpose of this association is described as,
70 Judson, Pieter. The Habsburg empire; a new history. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016, 140.
71 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.
“to raise ethnic consciousness throughout German-Austria and organize, or work indirectly through other sympathetic local vereins, to hold mass meetings, found discussion groups, print and distribute propaganda, pass resolutions on public questions, circulate petitions, and work for the election of radical nationalists to legislative bodies.”73
The Deutschnationaler Verein was formed somewhat before the publication of the Linz Program, constituting the Germans, but the Verein contained the main players who would become the Pan-Germans. The members of the Deutschnationaler Verein went on a campaign throughout the Austrian provinces. Apart from Vienna, some of the members were campaigning in Klagenfurt and Graz in the provinces of Carinthia and Styria in the South of Austria respectively. Schönerer himself also went on a campaign in the provinces of Tyrol and Styria to the South, and the province Lower Austria, surrounding Vienna. In addition to this, he also visited parts of Bohemia and Silesia (modern-day southern Poland)74.
During the Nordbahn affair, which will be elaborated on in the next chapter, the Deutschnationalen
Verein had petitioned for the nationalization of the railway, and for the Rothschild’s franchise not to
be extended. Schönerer presented parliament with twenty-five hundred petitions, sent to him by local towns and cities, containing “more than thirty thousand” of signatures against the extension of the railway contract, in favour of railway nationalisation75. When this did not have the desired effect on the direction Parliament was taking, the Deutschnationalen Verein intensified the campaign, and produced even more signatures, which had Schönerer confident enough to claim that he represented “a population of millions”76.
In 1885, the members of the Deutschnationalen Verein founded their own political party, the
Verband der Deutschnationalen, to bolster support for the Pan-Germans as an official political party
throughout the provinces. Local Bezirksvereine (local associations) in Vienna began supporting Schönerer, issuing newsletters, pamphlets, and his newspaper Unverfälschte Deutsche Worte. These Bezirksvereine also organized meetings and congresses where Schönerer and other Pan-Germans were invited to speak77. Schönerer would also give speeches on the streets of Austrian cities, where students, workers, peasants and artisans would gather to listen to Schönerer.
In 1885, the Pan-Germans, as the Verband der Deutschnationalen, partook in the Reichsrat elections. Their campaign and the expansion of the franchise by that time worked in favour of the Pan-Germans, who got three seats in Parliament. On his campaigns, he particularly visited vereins in Graz and Lower Austria78. According to Whiteside, Schönerer was well-known “in virtually every
73 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975, 90.
74 Ibid., 91. 75 Ibid.,108. 76 Ibid., 109. 77 Ibid., 123. 78 Ibid., 112.
Austrian province”79. In 1886, the Pan-Germans founded the Schulverein für Deutsche, after a failed attempt to take over the already existing Deutscher Schulverein. This Pan-German Schulverein had the intent to teach children völkisch principles and culture. Schoolteachers, who were also members of this verein would teach their children völkisch and Pan-German principles. Whiteside includes some of the topics that schoolteachers would ask their students to discuss, such as, “Illuminate Schönerer’s slogan Durch [Völkische] Reinheit zur [nationalen] Einheit”80, or, “Explain why it is
disgraceful for a German to be a Jewish stooge.”81
Of course, through all the campaigns, Unverfälschte Deutsche Worte was an important means to spread the message of the Pan-Germans. Whiteside notes that in 1885, Schönerer’s newspaper had a circulation of 3000 to 5000 during a two-week period. Since many people in the Austrian empire were becoming literate, this was an important means of reaching German-Austrian citizens.82 It seems the method of organizing in Vereins was the most effective way, though, of organizing supporters and potential future supporters for their cause. This was the initial way the university students organized, and was how the Deutschnationalen Verein connected with Vereins in the other Austrian provinces, who would work together to attract new Pan-Germans for support, and connect existing ones to strengthen the cooperation between them. Many Pan-German supporters were usually members of more than one of these German nationalist Vereins, and Schönerer was certainly a member, if not an honorary member of many of them.
Apart from these organisational tactics, there are some examples of the Pan-German movement organising cultural events in local towns and villages, such as the “Bismarck Feier” and the “Kaiser Wilhelm Kommers”83. These were exceptions though, since Schönerer was busier winning votes than actually spreading German culture, which was evident from the motto of the Deutschnationalen
Verein, to “spread ethnic consciousness”, and to make sure that Pan-Germans were elected for
legislative functions. Spreading German culture, in forms other than “ethnic consciousness”, was not directly one of its aims, more so that of the Schulverein für Deutsche, and the “Bismarck Feier” and the “Kaiser Wilhelm Kommers” are examples of pro-Hohenzollern and anti-Habsburg sentiments, rather than romantic German nationalism, based on a shared culture. Although there was a trend, throughout the provinces, to organise festivals that celebrated “völkisch” culture, these largely emerged separate from Schönerer and were strictly culturally focused, and not engaged in parliamentary politics or Pan-German organisations, although they generally credited Schönerer as a
79 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975, 112.
80 Ibid., 126. 81 Ibid., 126.
82 Judson, Pieter. The Habsburg empire; a new history. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016.
83 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975, 123.
source of German national inspiration. One example of this is the Germanenbund in Salzburg, which organised such festivities in order to popularise, among its local citizenry, the Teutonic legends84.
Although the Pan-Germans had a relatively well-developed base in civil society, the Pan-Germans did not have an altogether solid and constant support from “the people” in a political sense though. As Boyer argues, Schönerer himself was a very popular political figure, but mass support from the people was generally sporadic, but could also be massive at certain instances, particularly during the controversies that Schönerer orchestrated.85 In terms of voters, Schönerer of course only appealed to the ethnically German populations in Austria, and mainly tried to gain support from those who already had the vote, since they could actually secure him and his movement seats in the Reichsrat86. This became a more powerful tool to obtain power after the franchise had expanded between 1882 and 1885.87
Schönerer’s primary source of support were still the university fraternity students, who were as radical, anti-Semitic, and rebellious as Schönerer was himself.88 Although Schönerer had broken with his co-drafters of the Linz Program, the Burschenshaften kept supporting him throughout the 1880s. They operated independently from Schönerer, although they associated themselves with him, and often met each other at Pan-German meetings or political kommers. These in particular were good occasions for the students to express their Pan-German sentiments and come together in a public manifestation to seek confrontations with the police, since becoming a martyr for Pan-Germanism was an attractive goal for many students. One particularly eventful kommers, was the Wagner memorial service, which turned into a rioutous kommers. Richard Wagner, the German composer, who is known for his romantic German nationalistic sentiments, was well-known among the Pan-Germans, as well as the kleindeutsch Burschenschaften. His memorial service in 1883 was also clothed in kleindeutsch sentiments. By the end of the memorial service, Georg von Schönerer gave a speech, igniting the crowd’s fury. The police intervened and the memorial service turned into a kommers. According to police reports, Schönerer yelled things like “Long live Bismarck” and “our rightful master is the German Kaiser”89, although Schönerer himself denied having said this. Whiteside argues these kommers had a radicalising effect on the students. Therefore, rebel rousing and provoking the police was a key method to dedicating more students more fervently to Pan-Germanism.90
84 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975, 122.
85 Boyer, John W. Political radicalism in late imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social movement, 1848-1897. University of Chicago Press, 1995, 79.
86 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975, 122.
87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid., 95. 90 Ibid.
During his political campaigns, Schönerer gained much popularity among artisans, workers, and peasants, although they did not formally exercise their devotion to Pan-Germanism by joining any of the Pan-German inspired vereins. In the more rural areas of Austria, and on a local level, German nationalism began to be inserted in many cultural parts of life, such as demonstrated in the
Turnvereins and the many singing and cultural associations that adopted a German nationalistic
streak. According to Whiteside, these associations, rather than being set up by Pan-German organisations, would merely pledge their allegiance to Schönerer and proclaim that he was their source of inspiration.91
Although, according to these sources, it seems Pan-Germanism had quite a following, it is difficult to determine exactly how many members were actually dedicated members or volunteers, or completely agreed with all aspects of the Pan-Germans’ advocacy. Judson stresses that in many cases, members were not just members of one association, but members of many, and they were more dedicated to some than to others. Therefore, it is possible that the membership count for vereins were relatively high, but for the overall movement not the accumulated amount, because there were double memberships.92 Whiteside also mentions that the Pan-Germans were not very successful at organising the peasant community and factory workers. These populations were still very Habsburg-allegiant, although they shared Schönerer’s anti-Semitism, anti-capitalism, and anti-liberalism, and supported him for this reason.93
This exploration of how the Pan-German movement operated through the environment of Habsburg civil society gives us an idea of the movement’s spread, mainly in the Austrian provinces, but also in the rest of Cisleithania. The main form of organisation was through the various vereins that operated in Vienna, had contact with those in the more rural areas and with those that had emerged independently or after being inspired by Schönerer. Although these campaigns were often met with support from the local populations, the support groups and individuals had very different reasons for supporting Pan-Germanism. In many cases, Schönerer was the main event, idea, and representation of Pan-Germanism. He was regarded as a celebrity and behaved like one too, rather than a strategic politician, interested in a governing position and seeking compromise for a lasting solution to problems. Causing scandals, making headlines, giving speeches, provoking confrontations, and only accepting complete control and obedience to him, these were all for a large part a means of getting attention and becoming in the eyes of many a notorious, but also venerated, individual.
The Pan-German vereins that had an organisational function, as the Deutschnationalen Verein, the
Schulverein für Deutschen, and the Verband der Deutschnationalen, managed to organise a wide
91 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975, 122, 123.
92 Judson, Pieter. The Habsburg empire; a new history. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016.
93 Whiteside, Andrew Gladding. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975, 127.
