Die Zerstörung der Demokratie: Österreich März 1933 bis Februar 1934 ed. by Bernhard Hachleitner et al (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Die Zerstörung der Demokratie: Österreich März 1933 bis Februar 1934 ed. by Bernhard Hachleitner et al
• Vincent Kling

Bernhard Hachleitner, Alfred Pfoser, Katharina Prager, and Werner Michael Schwarz, eds., Die Zerstörung der Demokratie: Österreich März 1933 bis Februar 1934. Wienbibliothek im Rathaus and Wien Museum. Vienna: Residenz Verlag, 2023. 328 pp.

If each generation gravitates toward the history enacting the closest parallels to its present, it is no wonder that the erosion—nay, the destruction of democracy by small stages—occupies the mind of present-day historians. The short Austrian Civil War of February 1934 has always intrigued commentators, and there is no dearth of literary and journalistic records about those few ominous days. Anthologies like Februar 1934: Schriftsteller erzählen, edited by Ulrich Weinzierl or Im Kältefieber: Februargeschichten 1934, edited by Erich Hackl and Evelyne Polt-Heinzl, offer vivid and harrowing accounts of the days that solidified Fascist rule in Austria. And while historians working from a more discipline-specific approach have written illuminating accounts of the civil war and the time leading up to it, the edited volume Die Zerstörung der Demokratie, the catalogue of a large-scale exhibition, will for a long time serve as the indispensable source covering every aspect of the topic, thanks to its slow, steady, all-encompassing and chronological datelining of events; its painstaking source documentation; its inclusion of every aspect from popular culture to the arts to legislation to personalities; its lively and mercifully jargon-free writing; and its unprecedented wealth of graphics—photographs, posters, drawings, graphs, reproductions of newspaper pages, many seemingly published here for the first time.

From the very first, parallels with the world of 2023 are made explicit. In their foreword (11), Matti Bunzl, director of the Wien Museum, and Anita Eichinger, director of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, note that ninety years after the event “berichten Gymnasial- und Universitätslehrer*innen, dass die meisten ihrer Schüler*innen und Student*innen mit dem Namen Engelbert Dollfuß wenig bis gar nichts anfangen können [. . .].” If this statement implies that those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it, the point is made very clear in the next paragraph: “Denn die autoritäre Versuchung ist in unserer politischen Gegenwart angekommen. Auf nahezu allen Kontinenten greifen Regierungen zwecks Machterhalts in die Gelenkstellen der Demokratie ein”—what American reader would fail to connect these words with events in the United States since 2016? [End Page 131]

The end of the volume as well, in the short fifth section, “Debatte” (313–21), specifically links the events of 1933–1934 to the present day in a discussion titled “Playbook des Autokratismus.” Hungary and Poland are mentioned, but the danger is more widespread. To keep to one topic for now, that of gender and sexuality touching on women’s rights, Stefan Benedik writes: “Alle reaktionären und faschistischen Bewegungen dieser Zeit in Europa haben extrem reaktionäre Geschlechterbilder gemeinsam und den vermeintlichen Schutz der Familie als ‘Keimzelle der Nation’ [. . .]” (316). In Europe only? And what time period is under discussion when present and past fuse with such frightening congruence? Veronika Helfert’s chapter “Der Kampf um die Moderne: wider die Säkularisierung und Demokratisierung von Sexualmoral, Familienverhältnissen und Erziehung” (50–65) could be taken from today’s debates, including the powerful poster (60) calling for women to rally against new attempts in 1933 to outlaw abortion. Likewise, Gabriella Hauch’s “Frauen unter Druck: Rekatholisierung—(Re) Maskulinisierung—Frauendiskriminerung” (66–71) shows the entire dynamic of today’s evangelism brought to bear on sex and gender roles, personal autonomy, and reproductive rights.

This one area is part of a full narrative divided into five sections. After the foreword and introduction (12–17), five large parts move in order through the year in question. Part 1, “Die Demokratie unter Druck” (19–71), is a kind of prefiguration, tracing the first serious but not yet fatal attacks. The extensive Part 2, “Die Schritte der Zerstörung” (72–245), traces the march of restored censorship after Parliament was dissolved, the emergency decrees issued by Dollfuss, the suppression of the press, the restoration of the death penalty, the arrests and...