Austrian declaration of independence

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Basic data
Title: Declaration of Independence
Long title: Proclamation on the independence of Austria
Type: Federal Constitutional Law
Scope: Republic of Austria
Legal matter: federal Constitution
Reference: StGBl. No. 1/1945
Date of law: April 27, 1945
Effective date: May 1, 1945
Legal text: ris.bka
Please note the note on the applicable legal version !

As Austrian Declaration of Independence in the Vienna City Hall by representatives of the three founding parties of the April 27, 1945, the Second Republic ( SPÖ , ÖVP and KPO signed) Proclamation on the independence of Austria called with which the " Anschluss " to the German Empire from the 13th March 1938 was declared null and void. As a political, constitutional and state law declaration of intent, the declaration formed the basis for the constitution of the Provisional State Government, chaired by Karl Renner, on the same day .

Emergence

On March 29, 1945, the Red Army, coming from Hungary, crossed the German Reich border and the former Austrian state border. On April 13, she won the battle for Vienna , in which around 19,000 Wehrmacht and 18,000 Soviet soldiers died. In late April and early May, the Western Allies also penetrated from the west into the “Danube and Alpine Reichsgaue”, so that at the time of the surrender of the Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945, which ended the Second World War in Europe, large parts of today's Austria were under the control of the allied victorious powers.

In the Moscow Declaration of 1943, the Allies ( USA , Great Britain and Soviet Union , a little later also the " French Committee for National Liberation ") stipulated that they considered the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland to the German Reich in 1938 as null and void the liberation of Austria was one of their war aims. As early as 1941 there were Soviet plans to restore the state of Austria after the end of the war. Before the allied agreement, there had also been other models of thought, especially in Great Britain, which included a federal "Alpine state" with Bavaria or a "Danube confederation", similar to the former Danube monarchy , in addition to a separate state .

On April 1, 1945, Karl Renner , the first State Chancellor of the First Republic , made contact with the Soviet troops who had advanced into Burgenland . The Soviets gave him approval to form a new Austrian government. As a result, the SPÖ (made up of Social Democrats and “Revolutionary Socialists”) was founded in Vienna on April 14, and the ÖVP (Christian Social and Land Federation) and the KPÖ on April 17 .

On April 27, 1945 - before the end of the Second World War - these three parties declared Austria's independence. On the same day the newly formed provisional state government met (ten representatives of the SPÖ, nine of the ÖVP, seven of the KPÖ and three independents). The representatives of the KPÖ mostly came directly from Moscow, where they had lived in exile ; the representatives of the two other parties remained in the country, their like-minded people who had fled to the west could not return to Vienna until the summer of 1945. Renner, who originally only wanted to help with the constitution, became chairman of the government and thus state chancellor. The aim of the government was to restore the Austrian Republic on the basis of the constitution of 1920 and the amendment of 1929.

At first the government was recognized only by the Soviet Union and was de facto only fully effective in the Soviet-occupied zone in eastern Austria; Renner, whom Stalin had previously expressed his trust (he knew Renner from before the Second World War), was even suspected by the Western Allies of collaborating with the Soviets . The United States, Great Britain and France did not follow suit until October 20, 1945 by resolution of the Allied Council . The first National Council elections took place on November 25, 1945 .

content

The declaration of independence consists of two parts. In the preamble reference is made to the unification that was in breach of international law and the exploitative behavior of the German Reich towards Austria. Furthermore, reference is made to the will of the victorious powers to want to restore a free and independent Austria. This is followed by the actual declaration of independence.

From a historical perspective it is remarkable that the preamble did not address the disenfranchisement, robbery , expulsion and murder of Jewish Austrians and other "racial" and religious minorities (e.g. Roma and Sinti , Jehovah's Witnesses ), nor did the participation of numerous Austrians the terror regime and genocide .

preamble

  • In view of the fact that the annexation of 1938 was not, as is a matter of course between two sovereign states, agreed to safeguard all interests through negotiations from state to state and concluded through state treaties, but through military threats from outside and the treasonable terror of a Nazi-fascist minority initiated, withdrawn from a defenseless state leadership and pressed, was finally forced upon the helpless people of Austria by military occupation of the country in a warlike manner,
  • In view of the further facts that the annexation of the country that was carried out in this way was immediately abused to eliminate all central state institutions of the former Federal Republic of Austria, its ministries and other government institutions and to move their holdings to Berlin, thus completely dissolving the historically unified holdings of Austria to demolish Austria's capital Vienna, the glorious royal seat of many centuries, to a provincial city, to deprive the federal states of all their historical rights of self-government and to turn them into willless administrative brawls of uncalled governors who are irresponsible to the people,
  • And in addition, in view of the fact that this political annexation of Austria for the economic and cultural deprivation of Vienna and the Austrian federal states has been exploited and abused, to abolish the Austrian National Bank and to kidnap its gold treasure to Berlin, to incorporate all of Austria's large enterprises into Imperial German companies and so that to deprive the Austrian people of all independent access to natural sources of their prosperity; that this abuse has at last also withered the intellectual and cultural resources of the Austrian people by deporting the immeasurable art and cultural treasures of the country, which even the hard peace of Saint-Germain protected by a 20-year ban against any sale, from being carried outside the country has disclosed
  • and finally in view of the fact that the National Socialist Reich government of Adolf Hitler, by virtue of this complete political, economic and cultural annexation of the country, led the powerless and willless people of Austria into a senseless and hopeless war of conquest that no Austrian has ever wanted to ever foresee or to approve of peoples against whom no true Austrian has ever harbored feelings of enmity or hatred, in a war of conquest that stretched from the ice fields of the far north to the sandy deserts of Africa, from the stormy coast of the Atlantic to Many hundreds of thousands of the sons of our country, almost the entire youth and manhood of our people, have sacrificed without hesitation to the rocks of the Caucasus, in order to finally use our native mountains as the last refuge for failed disaster politicians and to expose them to warlike destruction and devastation,
  • In view of these facts and in view of the fact that the three world powers made repeated solemn declarations, in particular the declaration of the Crimean Conference and the Conference of Foreign Ministers Hull, Eden and Molotov in Moscow in October 1943: “The Governments of Great Britain and the Soviet Union and the United States of America agreed that Austria, the first free country to fall victim to Hitler's aggression, must be liberated from German rule. They regard the Anschluss that Germany forced on Austria on March 15, 1938, as null and void. They express their wish to see a free and restored Austria and thereby give the Austrian people themselves, as well as other neighboring states, which will face similar problems, the opportunity to find that political and economic security which is the only basis of lasting peace. "
  • In view of the facts cited and in view of the solemn declarations of the three world powers, which almost all governments of the West have now joined, the undersigned representatives of all anti-fascist parties in Austria without exception issue the following declaration of independence.

Declaration of Independence

  • Art. I: The democratic republic of Austria is to be restored and to be established in the spirit of the 1920 constitution.
  • Art. II: The Anschluss imposed on the Austrian people in 1938 is null and void.
  • Art. III: To carry out this declaration, a provisional state government is set up with the participation of all anti-fascist party structures and, subject to the rights of the occupying powers, is entrusted with full legislative and executive powers. (Note: The installation took place on the same day.)
  • Art. IV: From the day this declaration of independence was announced (note: May 1, 1945) all military, official or personal vows made by Austrians to the German Reich and its leadership are null and non-binding.
  • Art. V: From this day on, all Austrians are again in a civic duty and loyalty relationship to the Republic of Austria.
  • In dutiful consideration of the suffix of the Moscow conference mentioned, which reads: “However, Austria is made aware that it bears responsibility for participating in the war on the part of Hitler's Germany, which it cannot escape, and that in the final settlement its own contribution is inevitable will be taken into account for his liberation. ", the state government to be set up will immediately take the measures to make every possible contribution to its liberation, but feels compelled to determine that this contribution in view of the enfeeblement of our people and the indignation of our country their regrets can only be modest.
Vienna, April 27, 1945.
Document of which the handwritten signatures of the boards of the Austrian political parties:
For the board of the Austrian Social Democrats, now the Socialist Party of Austria (Social Democrats and Revolutionary Socialists):
Dr. Karl Renner m. p. [=  Manu propria ]
Dr. Adolf Schärf m. p.
For the board of the Christian Social People's Party or now Austrian People's Party:
Leopold Kunschak m. p.
For the Communist Party of Austria:
Johann Koplenig m. p.

Signatory of the Declaration of Independence

The signatories formed the Political Cabinet Council of the Provisional State Government, consisting of the State Chancellor and a Political State Secretary [= Minister] from the ÖVP, SPÖ and KPÖ.

Renner was elected the first Federal President of the Second Republic in the same year. Schärf was Vice Chancellor for twelve years before he was also elected Federal President in 1957. Kunschak was elected President of the National Council and remained so until his death in 1953. Koplenig was a member of the National Council until 1959, when the KPÖ left the National Council.

useful information

During the re-establishment of the Republic of Austria, as with the founding of the state in 1918, terms beginning with the word state were initially used (State Chancellor, State Secretary [= Minister], Undersecretary [= State Secretary], State Office [= Ministry], Provisional State Government, etc.). Accordingly, the legal announcement was initially still referred to as the State Law Gazette (StGBl.) And only later as the Federal Law Gazette for the Republic of Austria (BGBl.), Per issue as a piece . Part 1 of the Second Republic in 1945 was published on May 1, 1945: In this, No. 1, the declaration of independence of the consecutively numbered laws was announced. This was followed as No. 2 the announcement about the establishment of a provisional state government and its allocation of responsibilities and list of ministers, as well as No. 3 the first government declaration , expressly addressed to the "Men and Women of Austria!"

In commemoration of the declaration of independence, the founding monument was erected on October 25, 1966 in Vienna's Schweizergarten . On the floor in front of the memorial there are stone and concrete writing desks with the text of the Declaration of Independence. Excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and the names of its signatories are carved on the “Stone of the Republic”, part of the 1988 Memorial against War and Fascism in Vienna .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b See § 0 Declaration of Independence [= preamble and metadata] in the RIS : Type BVG [= "legal provision with constitutional status (Federal Constitutional Law)". In: RIS Query Manual - Consolidated Federal Law (PDF; p. 9) in the version March 2017, accessed on November 2, 2017].
  2. ↑ a b Staatsgesetzblatt, year 1945, issued on May 1, 1945, Item 1, No.  1. Proclamation on the independence of Austria (=  StGBl. No. 1/1945 ).
  3. ↑ Partly also referred to as the “historically first constitutional document” from which the entire later (constitutional) legal position was derived, cf. on this Alexander Balthasar: The Austrian constitutional order with special consideration of the democratic principle: attempt of an interpretation. Springer, Vienna / New York 2006, ISBN 3-211-35435-2 , p. 74.
  4. ↑ Cf. Manfried Welan in: Entry on the declaration of independence in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
  5. ↑ a b Staatsgesetzblatt, year 1945, issued on May 1, 1945, Item 1, No.  2. Announcement on the establishment of a provisional state government (=  StGBl. No. 2/1945 ).
  6. ^ Adolf Schärf : Between Democracy and People's Democracy. Austria's unification and rebuilding in 1945. Verlag der Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, Vienna 1950, p. 25.
  7. ↑ Staatsgesetzblatt, year 1945, issued on May 1, 1945, Item 1, No.  3. Government declaration (=  StGBl. No. 3/1945 ).