Kurt Schuschnigg
Kurt Alois Josef Johann Schuschnigg, since 1898 Edler von Schuschnigg[1] (b. 14 December 1897 in Reiff am Gartsee, Austria-Hungary; d. 18 November 1977 Mutters, Tyrol, Austria), was an Austrian officer, jurist and politician who was the Chancellor of the Federal State of Austria from the 1934 assassination of his predecessor Engelbert Dollfuss until the 1938 Anschluss with National Socialist Germany.
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Life
Kurt Schuschnigg was the oldest son of an old Austrian officer's family based in Tyrol. His grandfather Alois Schuschnigg (1833–1911) was promoted to Major General and raised to nobility on 2 April 1898. His father Artur (1865–1938) was a honorary Major General (March 1922), later a honorary Lieutenant Field Marshal (January 1938). Kurt's younger brother was the later art historian and radio employee Artur (1904–1990).
As a member of the “AV Austria Innsbruck”, Kurt attended the Jesuit Gymnasium “Stella Matutina” in Feldkirch (Matura in 1915).
2nd Lieutenant of the Reserves Edler von Schuschnigg fought with the k. u. k. Army on the war front in the First World War from 1915 to 1918 and was taken prisoner by Italy, from which he was released in September 1919. He was awarded: Military Merit Cross, 3rd class with war decoration and swords, silver Signum laudis, Signum laudis on ribbon with swords, silver Bravery Medal, 2nd class and Karl Troop Cross.[2]
- From Treviso the prisoners were transferred to the "Campo di concentramento" (Monte) Cassino, where Schuschnigg spent the Christmas season of 1918. In his war diary, he describes the dreary mood within the groups of prisoners condemned to do nothing as well as the lonely and barren area on the steep foothills of Abruzzo, from which his father Arthur finally brought him, who was in a camp for Agnano Terme near Naples higher-ranking officers were accommodated and, as a brigadier, enjoyed certain privileges and could "be free". The two spent the remaining months of their captivity together in Agnano Terme before Arthur Schuschnigg was the first to travel home in July 1919. Kurt, who continued his study of law, which he had begun during the war, in a practically self-taught manner by reading legal literature during his captivity, now fully felt the consequences of the definition of the new borders in favor of Italy. Since he was born in Riva del Garda, he was initially classified as an Italian, only after a month's delay and a forced stay in Meran was it possible to return to the area that was left of the former glorious monarchy.[3]
After studying law at the universities of Freiburg im Breisgau and Innsbruck and earning his doctorate as Dr. iur., he opened a law firm in 1924. Under his leadership, Schuschnigg continued the persecution of Austrian National Socialists. He was strongly opposed to Adolf Hitler's goal for unification with Austria and wished for it to remain independent.
- On March 9, 1938, he announced a plebiscite on the future of Austria in just four days’ time. Voting would not to be anonymous, and “a vote-of-confidence question in Schuschnigg was to be phrased in terms as confusing and misleading as possible.” The breathtaking speed of the events which followed resulted from Schuschnigg’s insistence on holding his plebiscite within such a short time.
- Schuschnigg was informed by Seyss-Inquart on March 11, 1938, at 10:00 a.m., that he must agree within one hour to revoke the fraudulent plebiscite, and agree to a fair and secret-ballot plebiscite within three to four weeks, on the question of whether Austria should remain independent or be reunited with the rest of Germany. Otherwise the German Army would occupy Austria. The failure of a reply within the specified time produced a new ultimatum demanding that Seyss-Inquart succeed Schuschnigg as Chancellor of Austria.[4]
After the Anschluss, Schuschnigg was arrested, kept in solitary confinement and eventually interned in various concentration camps. He was liberated in 1945 by the United States Army and spent most of the rest of his life in academia in the United States. St. Louis becomes his second home. On the campus of the university, the oldest Jesuit college west of the Mississippi, students whisper about the tall, gaunt professor from Europe who has a strong accent and is said to have once been an important politician. Schuschnigg gained American citizenship in 1956. In 2018, retired judge Seneca Nolan remembered Kurt von Schuschnigg, whose lecture he first attended in 1959:
- “He was a good-looking man who appeared as if he had come from the military. He had a very upright posture and his gait was also military.”
In 1968, he returned to the Republic of Austria, but was no longer politically active. Schuschnigg spent the last years of his life in Tyrol.
Family
In 1926, Dr. Schuschnigg met his fiancée from South Tyrol, Herma Masera, with whom he had son Kurt (1926–2018). Herma died on 13 July 1935 due to a car accident near Pichling near Linz (memorial stone on Bundesstraße 1). On 1 June 1938, he married his second wife Vera, divorced Gräfin Fugger von Babenhausen, née Gräfin Czernin von Chudenitz, a friend of his late wife, with whom he had daughter Maria Dolores Elisabeth.
Quotes
- “Everyone knows that Austria is a German country, has never been ashamed of its Germanness and has set its ambition to be at the forefront of the interests of the German spirit and German culture.” – Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler) Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg (1935)
External links
References
- ↑ Edler von Schuschnigg was his official surname until 1919, when noble titles in Austria were forbidden. After the accession of Austria in 1938, he was once again titled Kurt von Schuschnigg. In the USA he was always listed as Kurt von Schuschnigg, also his Austrian gravesite shows him as "Professor Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg, Altbundeskanzler".
- ↑ BK a.D. Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg
- ↑ „Kurt Schuschnigg als Katholischer “Kulturdeutscher“: Analyse eines politischen Weltbilds“ by Leonhard Woldan, 2013, p. 17
- ↑ Hitler the Peacemaker, David L. Hoggan’s The Forced War Part 1
