Action for political renewal

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The campaign for political renewal was a right-wing conservative organization in Austria that existed from 1951 to 1956 and cooperated with the VdU .

founding

On July 14, 1951, Ernst Strachwitz , member of the National Council, left the ÖVP club after he was criticized within the party for his support for the independent candidate for the 1951 federal presidential election , Burghard Breitner . Strachwitz was previously chairman of the Junge Front , an association that was supposed to win over German national electorate and war returnees for the People's Party; Strachwitz had worked closely with Alfons Gorbach , whose strategy of reconciliation was clearly aimed at former National Socialists. Willfried Gredler and Hans Steinacher were among the leaders in the Junge Front .

In October of the same year, former functionaries of the Junge Front founded the campaign for political renewal , which quickly entered into cooperation negotiations with the VdU, whose basic national liberal stance was largely shared. Former officers and aristocrats were represented above average in the “Aktion”; the mockery of the “party of the colonels and counts” was around. Kunata Kottulinsky, who later became general secretary of the Federation of Industrialists, was part of the management team of “Aktion” . The chairman of the VdU, Herbert Kraus , hoped that a merger with the "Aktion" would strengthen the liberal wing of his party and gain access to competent leaders. However, there were strong reservations within the party towards the "action": they were considered to be a numerically insignificant group, to which, moreover, legitimist ideas were ascribed. The VdU's employees' wing also criticized the exclusive social background of the leading members.

Decline

In the National Council election in 1953 , VdU and Aktion ran together as the electoral party of the Independent , two of the 16 mandates won went to the representatives of the "Aktion", Gredler and Max Herzele . Overall, however, the election result was disappointing, and the VdU fell into decline. The failure of the merger between the two organizations led to the resignation of Kraus as VdU chairman on October 26, 1952. In 1954 renewed negotiations between Strachwitz and representatives of VdU and the small party Freedom Collection Austria failed . The "action" lasted until June 1, 1956. Most of the functionaries and members finally turned to the FPÖ or withdrew completely from political life.

literature

  • Lothar Höbelt : From the fourth party to the third force. The history of the VdU. Leopold Stocker Verlag, Graz et al. 1999, ISBN 3-7020-0866-7 .
  • Silvia Kornberger: Disintegration and a new beginning - the foundation of the FPÖ . Grin Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-640-25658-7 .