Karl R. Stadler

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Karl R. Stadler , born as Karl Rudolf Stavaritsch (born October 8, 1913 in Vienna ; † July 7, 1987 in Linz ), was an Austrian contemporary historian.

Life

Stadler, son of the railway employee Karl Stavaritsch and the housewife Franziska, b. Müller, spent his childhood and youth in the Vienna working-class district of Favoriten . After graduating from the Federal Education Institute in Vienna-Breitensee, Stadler began studying law at the University of Vienna in 1931, but after three semesters switched to English and German studies, which his later wife Regina, née. Friedmann (1914-2003) were occupied. He left the university without a degree in the winter semester of 1936/37. Karl and Regina used the time when they did not study to travel to Europe, mainly to the British Isles, where they made numerous contacts.

Stadler had already been politicized among socialist secondary school students at the end of the 1920s, but in the early 1930s, like his friend Christian Broda , converted to the Communist Youth Association. Soon, however, dissatisfied with the political processes in the Soviet Union and the official stance of the Austrian communists, Stadler, Broda and Eduard Rabofsky founded the group “Ziel und Weg” as the main proponents, initially unnoticed by the exiled party leadership in Prague, and published an illegal magazine of the same name . After their exposure, Stadler and Broda were excluded from the KPÖ because of factional activity ( Trotskyism ) , but remained politically active until the " Anschluss of Austria " in 1938.

A few days after the "Anschluss" in 1938, Karl Stadler had to flee to Great Britain with Regina Friedmann, who was of Jewish origin, because of his political commitment, where he initially kept himself afloat with various jobs. Both were then able to continue their English studies at the University of Bristol and in June 1940 graduated with a bachelor's degree.

The beginning of the war in early September 1939 marked a turning point for the German-speaking refugees in Great Britain, who were now viewed as enemy aliens . They were checked for reliability by so-called tribunals in autumn 1939 and divided into three different categories. Although Stadler was classified as "harmless" (category C) like most of the other victims, he nevertheless shared the fate of thousands of other "refugees" who were killed in the spring and summer of 1940 in view of an impending invasion of the German armed forces and one of the British tabloids violently stoked, vague fear of a "fifth column" were interned. After spending time in a camp in England, he was transferred to the Isle of Man in early August 1940 and interned in Peel on the west coast of the island in the local Peveril Camp from early August to mid-December 1940.

He later found a job in adult education in Derby .

After the war Stadler found work with the re-education of the Ministry of Information and in 1946 he got a teaching position at the University of Nottingham . In the meantime he had shifted his major to contemporary history , and he completed his studies externally at the University of London . In addition to teaching, he made trips to various archives. In 1962 he became a senior lecturer at Nottingham University.

From 1964 to 1966 he was given leave of absence to set up the Vienna Institute for Development Issues initiated by Bruno Kreisky . He also worked as a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies and at the Diplomatic Academy . In 1963, at the request of Broda (meanwhile Minister of Justice), he became an employee of a project commissioned by the Austrian federal government to scientifically present Austria's contribution to its liberation in accordance with the Moscow Declaration . At the suggestion of the project manager Ludwig Jedlicka , he dealt with the topic of emigration and carried out extensive research in US archives. After his return to Austria, Stavaritsch used the name Stadler.

In 1968 he was appointed to the newly founded University of Linz , where he was Professor of Contemporary History until 1983 and where he founded and directed the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History of the Labor Movement (today: social and cultural history ). Stadler became rector of the Renner Institute of the SPÖ in 1973 and was president of the Association of Austrian Adult Education Centers from 1970 to 1984 .

In 1982 Stadler was awarded the City of Vienna Prize for the Humanities .

The estate of Karl R. Stadler is in the Austrian Adult Education Center .

Fonts (selection)

  • together with Maria Szécsi : The Nazi Justice in Austria and its victims. Herold, Vienna / Munich 1962.
  • Austria 1938–1945 as reflected in the Nazi files. Herold, Vienna / Munich 1966.
  • Victims of Lost Times: History of the Schutzbund-Emigration 1934. Published by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History of the Labor Movement. Europaverlag, Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-203-50496-0 .
  • together with Inez Kykal: Richard Bernaschek. A rebel odyssey. Europaverlag, Vienna 1976, ISBN 3-203-50572-X .
  • The breakthrough of the Austrian national idea in persecution and emigration . In: Andreas Khol u. a. (Ed.): About parliament and party. Alfred Maleta on his 70th birthday , Graz a. a .: Styria 1976 (series of studies by the political academy of the Austrian People's Party; 1), pp. 115–130.
  • Adolf Schärf: Man, politician, statesman. Published by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History of the Labor Movement. Europaverlag, Vienna / Munich / Zurich 1982, ISBN 3-203-50816-8 .

literature

  • Ronny Wilson: Comments on Karl Stadler in the English emigration. In: Volker Otto, Erhard Schlutz (ed.): Adult education and emigration. Biographies and effects of emigrants (= Conference of the Working Group on Historical Sources in Adult Education Germany - Austria - Switzerland 19). Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-88513-765-8 , pp. 111–115.
  • Christoph Mentschl: The long way back. The late remigration of Karl R. Stadler. In: Katharina Prager, Wolfgang Straub (Ed.): Picture-book homecoming? Remigration in context (= Arco Wissenschaft 30), Arco Verlag, Wuppertal 2017, ISBN 978-3-938375-77-8 , pp. 243-253.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Helmut Konrad : Karl R. Stadler (1913–1987). (PDF) In: jku.at. Johannes Kepler University Linz, p. 4f , accessed on February 21, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Helmut Konrad: Explorations on contemporary history. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-20337-7 , p. 243f.
  3. ↑ Mentschl, The Long Way, p. 245.
  4. ^ Wolfgang Neugebauer : Ludwig Jedlicka, Herbert Steiner and resistance research. Aspects of the early history of the Institute for Contemporary History and the documentation archive of the Austrian resistance. In: Bertrand Perz , Ina Markova (Eds.): 50 Years Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna 1966–2016. new academic press, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-7003-1946-7 , p. 70.
personal data
SURNAME Stadler, Karl R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Karl Rudolf Stavaritsch (birth name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian contemporary history historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1987
Place of death Linz