Franz Xaver Kießling

Franz Xaver Kießling (born April 4, 1859 in Vienna , † October 20, 1940 in Krems ) was an Austrian homeland researcher , ethno-German national writer and functionary of the gymnastics movement.

Life

He completed a degree at the Technical University in Vienna, which he graduated as an engineer. In addition, he continued his autodidactic training in Latin and Middle High German, mineralogy , geology , ethnology and prehistory .

Since 1884 he lived mostly in Drosendorf in the Waldviertel , where, after having to give up his job for health reasons, he devoted himself to a variety of research and, among other things, maintained friendly contact with the German national politician and radical anti-Semite Georg Ritter von Schönerer .

Local lore

He dealt with mountains , earth stables and shell stones . His main field of activity, however, was the exploration of the mineral deposits of the Waldviertel and the processing of the oldest history of the Thaya area around Drosendorf and Raabs an der Thaya . In addition, he collected legends and folklore realities. His research results were presented in the Drosendorfer "Roland Museum", which was closed in 1912. The extensive collections were subsequently transferred to various other museums in Vienna , Krems and Baden near Vienna , where a large part is still stored today. The Drosendorf City Museum , which is still named after him today, contains only a small part of his collection, mainly from later collections.

Between 1891 and 1939, Kießling published numerous publications on geology and on prehistory and early history and on folklore of the Waldviertel. He was in lively correspondence and exchanging views with many of his contemporaries, such as Johann Krahuletz , Josef Höbarth , Angela Stifft-Gottlieb , Anton Hrodegh , Josef Bayer and Matthäus Much . His numerous publications are still used today as the basis of local history publications due to the extensive source material they contain, but are problematic due to their ethnic-German-national and anti-Semitic orientation.

Volkish ideologist

As a supporter of Georg von Schönerer , Kießling was active as a functionary in the German gymnastics movement and has been a member of the gymnastics council of the 1st Vienna gymnastics club since 1882. In 1886 he excluded gymnasts of Jewish origin from a competition, which led to the Austrian gymnastics council taking him away from his position. Kiessling then published the text Feind deutscher Turnerei in the Schönerers publishing house . In this he spoke out in favor of racial anti-Semitism in gymnastics clubs. Subsequently, he was largely responsible for the enforcement of a constitutional provision in the 1st Vienna Gymnastics Club, which was later adopted in other parts of Austria. It included the exclusion of Jewish members and was viewed by the German National Socialists in the 1930s as a direct forerunner of the Aryan paragraph . The conflict led to the exclusion of Kießling and his supporters from the German gymnastics association . The entire Turngau in Lower Austria followed him into an "Aryan" association, whose associations excluded Jews from membership. He was also a fan of the Los-of-Rome movement . Kießling was close friends with Guido von List and was active in the 1930s for the National Socialist movement, which was still illegal in Austria.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Wladika: Hitler's generation of fathers. The origins of National Socialism in the k.uk. Monarchie, Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 2005, pp. 447–452.
2. ↑ Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism. Berlin u. a., 2000 p. 59
3. ↑ New acquisitions by the Austrian National Library ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Pammer Leopold: Hitler and his models. Hamburg, 2009 p. 58

Fonts

• Enemies of German gymnastics , Vienna no year
• Monuments of prehistoric times in the Lower Austrian Waldviertel. Vienna 1891.
• The sanctuaries of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Horn 1897.
• Adulterated and lost German blood , Vienna 1897.
• A hike in the Poigreich. Scenic, prehistoric, mythological and folk-historical considerations about the locations Horn, Rosenburg, Alteburg, Drei-Eichen ... , Horn 1898.
• Germanism and the Roman papal church. A reference to the causes of the German nationalist Los von Rom movement in the Ostmark , Eger 1899.
• The fountain and old pillars of thought in Drosendorf and the surrounding area. A contribution to folklore. Horn 1899 (2nd edition: Horn 1922)
• The plateau clay palaeolithic of the northeastern Waldviertel of Lower Austria. Communications from the Anthropological Society 41, 1911, pp. 1ff. (with Hugo Obermaier ).
• New contributions to the plateau clay paleolithic of the north-eastern Waldviertel in Lower Austria. Communications from the Anthropological Society 42, 1912, pp. 209ff.
• Ancient criss-cross trains. Local, regional and geographic communications, especially from the Lower Austrian Waldviertel, along with a number of communications relating to Vienna. Vienna 1914.
• The Aurignac station in Gruebgraben near Kammern in Lower Austria. Communications from the Anthropological Society 48/49, 1918/19, p. 229ff.
• About the Germanic heritage in some Lower Austrian folk customs and place names , Vienna 1921
• About the mystery of the earth stables. Vienna 1923.
• Mrs. Saga in the Lower Austrian Waldviertel. A collection of fairy tales, legends and stories. 9 volumes, Vienna 1924–1932.
• The black kitchen. A contribution to the folkloristic and museum-related importance of the old kitchen. Vienna 1927.
• The aurignacia in the plateau. A contribution to the assessment of the age and culture level of primitive man in the northern Waldviertel, Lower Austria. Vienna 1928.
• The stone kingdom of the Lower Austrian Waldviertel. Vienna 1931.
• Contributions to the prehistory, prehistory and early history of Lower Austria and South Moravia. In addition to reports on medieval castles and ceramics, etc. With special consideration of the Waldviertel . Vienna 1934 (also contains a comprehensive list of Kießling's writings).
• On the history of the exploration of the Drosendorfer Plateau Clay Paleolithic. Communications of the Anthropological Society 66, 1936, p. 261ff.
• To the "Diluvial Age" remains of coal and bones in the plateau of the north-eastern Waldviertel. Communications of the Anthropological Society 67, 1937, pp. 351ff.
• On the coal and bone deposits in the plateau clay in the vicinity of Japons in Lower Austria. Communications of the Anthropological Society 68, 1938, p. 6ff.
• City of Drosendorf and the surrounding area from prehistoric times to the present. Drosendorf 1938.
• From the stone kingdom in the area of ​​the main team Horn. Horner Calendar 1939.

literature

• Kiessling, Franz Xaver. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1965, p. 329.
• Eduard Beninger : Franz Kießling (1859–1940). In: Viennese prehistoric magazine. 27, 1940, p. 202ff.
• Friedrich Berg : Franz Kießling and the municipal museum in Drosendorf. In: The Waldviertel. 8, 1959, pp. 65ff.
• Robert Bouchal - Johannes Sachslehner : Waldviertel. Mystical - mysterious - unknown . Vienna: Pichler Verlag 2002, ISBN 3-85431-274-1 , p. 35
• Hermann Maurer : The most important prehistoric researchers in the Waldviertel and their burial places. In: The Waldviertel. 24, 1975, 17ff.
• Pammer Leopold: Hitler and his role models . Hamburg, 2009 p. 58, ISBN 3-639-10178-2 .
• Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism , Berlin-New York 1998, p. 59, ISBN 3-110-19549-6
• Hermann Steininger: Franz Xaver Kießling and folklore and local history in Lower Austria. In: The Waldviertel. 43, 1994, p. 49ff.
• Michael Wladika : Hitler's generation of fathers. The origins of National Socialism in the k.uk. Monarchie , Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 2005, pp. 200–204 and 447–452, ISBN 3-205-77337-3 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Franz Xaver Kießling in the catalog of the German National Library