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Ignaz Seipel as European Statesman1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Klemens von Klemperer
Klemens von Klemperer
Affiliation:
Smith College
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Extract

European historians and statesmen of the postwar period have little inclination to admire the statesmen of the period between the two world wars. In history books one reads again and again of the mediocrity, if not inadequacy, of those who presided over European affairs at that time. This judgment may apply to most of the statesmen of Great Britain and France and also to the majority of those in the Weimar Republic and its sister republic, Austria. When Hermann Bahr prepared the young priest, Ignaz Seipel, for a political career, he warned him of the “shortage” of “literate politicians” in Austria. And yet one should not too quickly generalize this phenomenon of mediocrity.

Type
The First Austrian Republic
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1976 , pp. 209 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1976

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Footnotes

1

Editor's note: This article is an English translation of the keynote address which Prof, von Klemperer delivered at the University of Vienna on May 25, 1976, at the symposium “Seipel und der Staat” commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Seipel's birth.

References

2 Undated letter of Hermann Bahr to Josef Redlich, in “Unveröffentliches von Hermann Bahr,” Die Furche, April 4, 1953.

3 Seipel diary, August 8, 1928, Erzdiözesan Archiv (Vienna), Seipel Archiv. See also Blüml, Rudolf, Ignaz Seipel. Mensch, Christ, Priester in seinem Tagebuch (Vienna: Hilfswerk für Schulsiedlungen, 1934), p. 164.Google Scholar

4 Seipel, Ignaz, “Lebenslauf” (manuscript), Erzdiözesan Archiv (Vienna), Seipel ArchivGoogle Scholar See also the section on “Ignaz Seipel” in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

5 Winter, Ernst Karl, “Am Beispiel Österreichs,” in Christentum und Zivilisation (Vienna: Amandus, 1956), p. 410. This statement was confirmed by August Maria Knoll in an interview on April 8, 1958.Google Scholar

6 Seipel, Ignaz, Die wirlschaftselhischen Lehren der Kirchenväter (Vienna: Mayer, 1907).Google Scholar

7 Seipel, Ignaz, “Kirchliche Autorität und persönliche Freiheit,” Über den Wassern, Vol. VI (1913), p. 181.Google Scholar

8 Seipel, Ignaz, Wesen und Aufgaben der Politik (Innsbruck, 1930), p. 17.Google Scholar

9 Seipel, Ignaz,Im Dienst dses Wortes (Vienna: Herold, 1955), p. 161.Google Scholar

10 Österreich 1927–1938 (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1973).Google Scholar

11 Eschenburg, Theodor, Die improvisierte Demokratie. Gesammelie Aufsätze zur Weimarer Republik (Munich: Piper, 1963).Google Scholar

12 Fellner, Fritz (ed.), Schicksalsjahre Österreichs 1908–1919. Das politische Tagebuch Josef Redlichs (2 vols., Graz: Böhlau, 1953), Vol. I, p. xi.Google Scholar

13 Öslerreich 1927–1938, p. 44.

14 Seipel to “Lieber hochw. Kollege,” December 17, 1918, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (Vienna) (hereafter cited as “Staatsarchiv [Vienna]”), Neues Politische Archiv, 1918–1938, Carton CCLXII, No. Z.703-Präs.

15 Seipel, Ignaz, “Die Märzrevolution im Reiche und wir,” in Ignaz Seipel, Der Kampf um die österreichische Verfassung (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumtüller, 1930), p. 82.Google Scholar

16 Liechtenstein, Alois, “Politische Streiflichter,” Das Neue Reich, Vol. II (January 18, 1920), p. 245.Google Scholar

17 Seipel, Ignaz, “Österreichs wirtschaftliche und politische Lage,” Reichspost, October 24, 1921.Google Scholar

18 Seipel, Der Kampf um die österreichische Verfassung, pp. 49–66.

19 Reichspost, April 3, 1922.

20 Ignaz Seipel, “Die Tübinger Kritik der Demokratie,” in Seipel, Der Kampf über die öslerreichische Verfassung, p. 188.

21 Ignaz Seipel, “Der Ruf nach echter Demokratie,” in ibid., p. 133.

22 Stenographische Protokolle über die Sitzungen des Nationalrales der Republik Österreich, 56th session, 3rd legislative period, October 3, 1928, p. 1,624.

23 Arbeiter-Zeitung, August 3, 1932.

24 Wirth, Joseph, “Ein Logiker der Politik,” Reichspost, August 7, 1932.Google Scholar

25 See Seipel, Der Kampf um die Österreichische Verfassung, p. 42.

26 Die Katholiken im gegenwärtigen Weltkrieg. Kriegsflugblätter (Salzburg: Georg Lorenz, 1914), pp. 5 and 8Google Scholar. See also Seipel, Ignaz, “Vaterland, Nationalismus und Religion,” Katholische Kirchenzeitung, October 15 and 20, 1914.Google Scholar

27 Seipel, Ignaz, Nation und Staat (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1916), p. 17.Google Scholar

28 Droz, Jacques, L'Europe Centrale. Évolution historique de i'dée de “Mitteleuropa” (Paris: Payot, 1960), p. 270.Google Scholar

29 Gedye, G. E. R., Fallen Bastions: The Central European Tragedy (London: Gollancz, 1939), p. 28.Google Scholar

30 Gessl, Josef (ed.), Seipels Reden in Ösierreich und anderwärts (Vienna: Heros, 1926), pp. 30 and 101.Google Scholar

31 Ward, Barbara, “Ignaz Seipel and the Anschluss,” Dublin Review, Vol. CCIII (July-September, 1938), p. 33.Google Scholar

32 Interview with Ambassador Lothar C. F. Wimmer, April 2, 1958. See also Seipel, to Mataja, Heinrich, Vienna, November 21, 1930, Staatsarchiv (Vienna), Richard Schmitz Archiv.Google Scholar

33 Zehrer, Hans, “Der höchste Trumph,” Vossische Zeitung, April 24, 1931.Google Scholar

34 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeilung, December 8, 1922.

35 Stenographische Protokolle über die Sitzungen des Nationalrates der Republik Österreich, 138th session, 1st legislative period, October 12, 1922, p. 4,433.

36 Stolper, Gustav, “Sanierungskrise,” Der Österreichische Volkswirt, Vol. XVI (December 15, 1923), p. 314.Google Scholar

37 See Staatsarchiv (Vienna), Liasse Österreich 7/1, Geheim, Carton CDLXX, Fos. 84–92.

38 Neue Freie Presse, March 4, 1928 (morning edition).

39 Highly confidential report by Maximilian Pfeiffer entitled “Das Österreichische Problem und die Anschlussfrage,” Vienna, April 15–18, 1925, p. 16, in Auswartiges Amt (Bonn), Polilisches Archiv, Geheimakten 11-Ö.: Politik 2, Vol. I.

40 Winter, Ernst Karl, in Wiener Politische Blätter, No. 1 (April 16, 1933), p. 23.Google Scholar

41 Thomas, Hugh, The Spanish Civil War (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961), pp. 780–781Google Scholar