Karl von Vogelsang
Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang , completely Hermann Ludolph Carl Emil von Vogelsang (born September 3, 1818 in Liegnitz (now Legnica, Poland), Silesia ; † November 8, 1890 in Vienna ) was a Catholic publicist , politician and social reformer . He was one of the pioneers of the labor movement in Austria .
life and work
Karl was born as the son of Karl von Vogelsang and Ida, geb. born of the Lühe . He studied law and political science in Bonn , Rostock and Berlin . In Bonn he was a member of the Corps Borussia , in Rostock of the Corps Vandalia . After completing his studies, he entered the Prussian judicial service. He was friends with Franz Chassot von Florencourt , editor of the “ North German Correspondent ” published in Rostock . After the March Revolution in 1848 he inherited the Alt-Guthendorf estate near Rostock, Mecklenburg , which he now managed; there he was elected to the chivalrous official deputy in the Mecklenburg caste representation.
In Berlin he met the provost of St. Hedwig's Cathedral and later Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler of Mainz . This acquaintance in 1850 encouraged him and a group of friends (Franz Chassot von Florencourt, Friedrich Maassen , Emil von Bülow ) to convert from the Protestant to the Catholic faith. Ivan von Glöden had become a Catholic a few months earlier. Vogelsang therefore had to leave the Mecklenburg state parliament. As a publicist he now dealt with current religious questions and the problem of a just social society.
In 1852 he married Bertha Sophie von der Linde, with whom he had eleven children (including the 13 who died early). After stays in Cologne, Sigmaringen and Fußberg near Munich, where he had contact with the "Eos Circle" around Guido Görres , the son of the famous Joseph Görres , and where his family lived for a longer period, he accompanied the young Prince Johann II professionally from 1859 . from and to Liechtenstein on trips through Europe, which allowed him to come into contact with important personalities. In gratitude, he was awarded the title of baron in 1860 . He and the members of his family had been Liechtenstein citizens since 1859 and citizens of the Schellenberg community since 1869 .
In 1864 Vogelsang, who last lived in Fußberg (Bavaria), came to Austria with his family and bought the Magdalenenhof estate on Bisamberg, along with its agriculture and cement factory. At the same time he devoted himself to his writing and published a. a. Article in the “Historisch -politische Blätter” (Munich) and worked for a long time on “Katholik” and “Recht” in Pressburg. In 1875 he became the chief editor of the Viennese Catholic-conservative newspaper “ Das Vaterland ”, which fought against the effects of the French Revolution . There was often disagreement with the publisher and the changing formal editors-in-chief, especially with regard to the socio-political course. That “ conservative ” meant something like “life-enhancing” for him becomes clear when he says: “Only what is alive can be conservative” (Vaterland, November 20, 1887). The editorial line In 1878 he founded the "Austrian Monthly Journal for Social Science and Economics", which later called itself "Monthly Journal for Christian Social Reform".
Through these articles and above all through his writing "The material situation of the working class in Austria", Vogelsang triggered a Christian-social popular and reform movement with the demand for social reforms , which led to the government of Count Eduard Taaffe against the Resistance of the Liberal Party passed a number of social laws: working time limits, Sunday rest, accident and health insurance and the cooperative law. Some of these were considered exemplary in Europe and formed the basis of Austrian social legislation . Even an (almost) universal suffrage would have been planned, but this was prevented by the radical national party.
From 1888/1889, Vogelsang organized a discussion group for social reformers in Vienna, known as the “ Enten-Evenings ” (study round of Catholic social reformers), and coordinated the international cooperation of social reformers at a conference in Haid . Vogelsang is considered the spiritual founder of the "Christian Social Movement", from which the Christian Social Party emerged in 1893 . His ideas influenced Karl Lueger († 1910), Franz Martin Schindler († 1922) and Prince Aloys von Liechtenstein († 1920). Apparently paradoxically, he advocated certain ideas of Marxism , such as the rejection of free capital and free trade . Through his significant work in the "Union de Friborg" he also suggested the encyclical Rerum novarum , which in 1891, one year after his death, by Pope Leo XIII. was issued.
Vogelsang was critical of the increasing economic globalization in the 19th century, as in his opinion it destroyed the "natural order" and one of the causes for these profound upheavals, which were carried out by liberalism , was Judaism. Vogelsang was convinced that the social problems of industrialization and the strong population growth in the cities could be solved by a "natural" order. This order was characterized by corporate - medieval elements, the later attempt to implement this view failed in the Austro - fascist corporate state .
Vogelsang last lived with his family at Laurenzgasse 3 in the 5th district of Vienna, where a memorial plaque was put up for him in 1936. From the house of death, the mortal shell was first consecrated on November 10th in the nearby parish church of St. Florian and, after a renewed consecration at the Penzing cemetery, buried in the family grave of the Klopp family. In 1906 the body was reburied in the final tomb in the same cemetery. This crypt was renovated by the Vogelsang Institute in 2018, 200 years after his birth.
Vogelsang, the economy and ethics
When Karl von Vogelsang dealt in detail with the social question, which was becoming virulent at the time, on a Catholic day, the Social Democrat Viktor Adler gave a very positive judgment in a report on this Catholic event:
“The most special task of the Catholic Day was undoubtedly the development of the social program. This part was also carefully prepared; Most of the ... presentations were already printed in Vogelsang's monthly magazine half a year ago, just as the whole Austrian 'Christian Social' school is simply a Vogelsang seminar. ... Vogelsang's Catholic moral doctrine [conveys] a far more secure and detailed criticism of today's social and economic conditions ... than reading social democratic writings. "
At the beginning of the ruthless advance of the capitalist economy, he warned that man in his relationship with nature should not "continue to act as robbers and rapists of it ... [but must begin] to act as loving carers of it." At the same time he warned of a revolution and said that it would be the first to break out in Russia. For he saw the pogroms in Russia at the time as a sign of a much worse violent uprising of unworthy people over the people to disempower Tsarism and capitalism. He saw the pogroms as a sign of the brutalization of morals since the moral authority of the church could no longer reach broad sections of the people. History proved him right a few decades later with the October Revolution . After the end of the red dictatorship, which Vogelsang saw looming on the horizon at that time, one had to strive "to plant Christian ideas [again] and thus bring about a new bloom with a Christian-social culture ..."
He warned almost prophetically - long before the two world wars, before the Nazi terror, against Stalin's terror and against today's environmental crisis:
“We have to renounce the presumptuous superstition that we are now at the beginning of a time that has only become sensible. ... We have to recognize that there are moral norms from which social institutions and economic laws have to develop. "
Vogelsang and anti-Semitism
After he worked for some time as the publisher of the monthly magazine Austrian monthly for social sciences, a group of previous supporters of the anti-Semite Georg von Schönerer began to rally around him, including the later mayor of Vienna Karl Lueger . Vogelsang gradually began to combine his rejection of capitalism with a polemic against the “ reform Jews ”, whom he made responsible for that very capitalism:
“The truly Christian people will be able to take in and absorb the Jews without emptying them; But what has fallen away from Christianity in faith, law and morals must crawl helplessly under the Caudinian yoke of bondage; it is plundered, ruled by the Jews, made a pariah . "
Karl Vogelsang first wrote an article in the magazine “Vaterland” against the emerging anti-Semitism under the title “For the Jews”. As a result, the anti-Semites protested against the editors so massively that Vogelsang was forced by the editors to write a counter-article to his own article because otherwise the newspaper would be able to close, namely with the title “Against the Jews”. This second, forced article was then gladly quoted by anti-Semites, but the first article was rather forgotten. Vogelsang had previously written that the Jews were and will remain the first chosen people of God, that the Christians first have to earn the election of God. Social grievances occur with company owners, be they of Jewish or Christian origin, but more with business-liberal atheists than with religious company managers of both faiths. The believing Jews could be partners of the believing Christians for social reform. But:
"The unbelieving Jew ... stands almost as deep in our eyes as the baptized, who has contradicted all the requirements of his higher profession."
The views that have been associated with Vogelsang since then were based on the idea that the economy and the press were controlled by a coordinated and non-religious " World Jewry " and also influenced the "Christian" businesspeople:
“If by some miracle on some blessed day all of our 1,400,000 Jews were withdrawn from us, it would be of little help; because the Jewish spirit has infected us ourselves. "
The economic crisis in Austria, which was triggered by the founder crash of 1873, can only be stopped or resolved by a return to the Christian faith, because Christianity rejects exploitation and promotes charity. This view has been harshly attacked by liberals. Even Georg Jellinek wrote against this trend, without naming Vogelsang:
"The theological doctrine of the state [has] now primarily the modern church social policy ... as the supreme principle ..., [but thereby promoted social democracy and thus has an effect] not in order to preserve the state, but to destroy it."
For problems of the working population caused by crises and massive social contradictions, which Vogelsang was sympathetic to, he sometimes blamed the “Jewish factories”, for example on the occasion of a strike by the Brno textile workers in 1875.
The effects of anti-Semitic agitation, which was not quite rightly attributed to Vogelsang, made themselves felt at the latest during the municipal council election in Vienna in 1886 , when some candidates were successful with a similarly colored instrumentalization of anti-Semitism. At the same time, Karl Lueger, who was still relatively irreligious at the time, also increasingly approached Vogelsang politically. Karl Lueger reduced his political anti-Semitism to the formula "anti-Semitism is actually anti-capitalism", which must first go through the intermediate stage of "vulgar anti-Semitism". After Vogelsang's death in 1890 was in the liberal press Neue Freie pointed it that "he also joined the anti-Semitic movement in touch in order to Clericalismus to make subservient. When he celebrated his 70th birthday in December 1888, there was ovation from the entire anti-liberal league ”. The liberal press of the time was critical of Vogelsang because it feared that the groundbreaking social reforms initiated by the Eduard Taaffe government could weaken the competitiveness of Austrian industry.
Aftermath
In 1901 Heinegasse in Vienna- Margareten (5th district) was renamed Vogelsanggasse after him.
In 1990 the Austrian Post issued a special stamp on the 100th anniversary of his death.
The "Karl von Vogelsang Institute for Research into the History of Christian Democracy in Austria", based in Vienna, published a quarterly journal Christian Democracy from 1983 to 1996 and published works on the history of Christian democracy in Austria. A yearbook with the title Democracy and History has been published since 1997 .
“The Karl von Vogelsang State Prize” is an Austrian State Prize for the History of Social Sciences. It is awarded every two years by the Federal Minister for Science and Research.
Fonts
- The peasant movement in the Austrian Alpine countries . 1881
- Competitiveness in the industry . 1883
- The material situation of the working class in Austria . 3 parts. 1883-84
- Interest and usury . 1884
- Austrian Monthly for social science, for economic and related questions ; later under the name: Österr. Monthly for christl. Social reform, for social science, economic and related issues . Edited and author of numerous articles. 1878-1890.
He wrote down his ideas mainly in articles in the daily press and in magazines. Parts of it can be found in:
- Collected articles on social-political and related topics . Huttler, Augsburg 1886
literature
- Johann Christoph Allmayer-Beck : Vogelsang. From feudalism to popular movement . Herold, Vienna 1952.
- Erwin Bader : Karl v. Vogelsang. The spiritual foundation of Christian social reform . Herder, Vienna 1990.
- Maximilian Aichern , Erwin Bader, Ernst Bruckmüller and others: Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang. Christian democracy . Writings of the Karl von Vogelsang Institute, 1991/92, 2.
- Ernst Joseph Görlich: Karl von Vogelsang. A man fights for social justice . Veritas, Vienna et al. 1968.
- Wiard von Klopp (ed.): The social teachings of Freiherr Karl von Vogelsang. Fundamentals of a Christian social and economic theory based on Vogelsang's writings . Reinhold, Vienna et al. 1938.
- Anton Orel : Vogelsang's life and teachings. His social and economic theory . 3rd edition. Society for the promotion of science. Research, Vienna 1957.
- Gerhard Silberbauer: Austria's Catholics and the Worker Question . Styria, Graz et al. 1966.
- W., K .: Vogelsang, Karl Freiherr von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 40, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, p. 156.
- Gerhard Seewann : Vogelsang, Karl . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
Web links
- Literature by and about Karl von Vogelsang in the catalog of the German National Library
- Karl von Vogelsang in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
- Entry on Karl von Vogelsang in the Austria Forum (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
- “Karl von Vogelsang Institute for Research into the History of Christian Democracy in Austria” based in Vienna
- Karl Frhr. von Vogelsang on the part of the Austrian Cartel Association . Retrieved June 5, 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Winter semester 1843/44, entry in the Rostock matriculation portal .
- ↑ Cornelius Goop: Rich and famous Schellenberger . In: Community Schellenberg (Ed.): Schellenberg. My magazine . Schellenberg July 2020, p. 34-37 ( gmgnet.li ).
- ↑ See the reprint of the “Haider Theses”. In: Collection of sources on the history of German social policy from 1867 to 1914 . Section II: From the Imperial Social Message to the February Decrees of Wilhelm II (1881–1890) , Volume 1: Basic Issues of Social Policy. The discussion of the workers question on the government side and in public. Edited by Wolfgang Ayaß , Florian Tennstedt and Heidi Winter, Darmstadt 2003, No. 38.
- ↑ a b c d e Oliver Rathkolb : 5. Vogelsanggasse, named since 1901 (previously Heinegasse) after Karl von Vogelsang (* 03.09.1818, † 08.11.1890) . In: Association for the Scientific Processing of Contemporary History, Vienna (Ed.): Final research project report: Vienna's street names since 1860 as “political places of remembrance” . Vienna July 2013, p. 188 ff . ( online on the website of the City of Vienna (PDF; 4.4 MB)).
- ^ Austrian monthly for social sciences and economics, Volume I, Vienna 1979, p. 506.
- ^ Karl Vogelsang: The Jew-baiting in Russia. In: Collected Essays. P. 72.
- ^ Karl Vogelsang, Das rothe Gespenst; in: monthly, volume 12, p. 228 ff.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vogelsang, Karl von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Vogelsang, Karl Freiherr von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Catholic publicist, politician and social reformer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 3, 1818 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Liegnitz , Silesia |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 8, 1890 |
| Place of death | Vienna |