Richard Steidle (politician)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The federal leader of the Austrian Heimwehr Richard Steidle (center), the deputy Styrian leader Reinhart Bachofen von Echt (left) and the Styrian district leader Hans von Pranckh (right back), photo on the Heimwehr grandstand at the Heimwehr meeting on the Neuklosterwiese during the deployment of the Heimwehr and the Schutzbund in Wiener Neustadt on October 7, 1928

Richard Steidle (born September 20, 1881 in Untermais , Austria-Hungary ; † August 30, 1940 in Buchenwald concentration camp , Germany) was a lawyer and member of the Christian Social Party in the Tyrolean state parliament and in the Federal Council as well as security director for Tyrol and the founding father and long-time regional leader of Tyrolean Home Guard . As a Heimwehr leader and speaker at numerous political events, the ambitious Steidle, who was a staunch opponent of social democracy, was opposed to political parties and parliamentarism and advocated an authoritarian political system, quickly gained fame throughout Austria.

After the merger of all Austrian home defense associations in 1927 to form the Austrian Homeland Security , which was accompanied by the creation of an umbrella organization for the home defense associations, Steidle was its first federal leader until 1930. As such, he played an essential part in the fact that the Heimwehr committed themselves to a fascist program in the so-called Korneuburg Oath . However, this was rejected by broad circles of the political establishment and met with skepticism even within the Heimwehr movement. Steidle's position of power was weakened, which also resulted in the loss of his function as federal leader. But he remained the country leader of the Tyrolean Home Guard.

As such and in his role as Security Director for Tyrol, he continued to play a major role in undermining democracy in Austria. In mid-1934, however, he was largely deprived of political power and deported to the post of consul general in Trieste . After Austria was annexed to Hitler's Germany, he was arrested by the National Socialists , whom he had fought vehemently in his role as security director, and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he died in 1940.

Life

Richard Steidle was the son of immigrants from Württemberg and studied law at the University of Innsbruck . There he became a member of the Catholic student association AV Austria Innsbruck in the ÖCV . He was also a member of the K.ö.St.V. from 1901. Almgau Salzburg in the MKV .

With the beginning of the First World War he became a military court attorney because he was unfit for military service. After the war he opened a law firm and was elected as a member of the Christian Social Party in the Tyrolean state parliament in 1919 , to which he belonged until its self-dissolution on February 27, 1934. He was also a member of the Tyrolean provincial government from October 30, 1918 to June 6, 1921 and then again from March 23, 1933 to November 9, 1934, and a member of the Federal Council from January 27, 1922 to April 14, 1931 .

In addition, in August 1919 he was a founding member of the Tyrolean Anti-Semite Association together with Sepp Straffner and officially launched the Tyrolean Home Guard on May 12, 1920 , the forerunners of which were the numerous vigilante and local militia that arose in Tyrol in 1918/19. Until 1934 he remained the undisputed leader of the Homeland Army . In contrast to most of the other Heimwehr leaders, Steidle advocated a merger of the armed formations of the Austrian political right and called for a " fundamental change [of the Heimwehr] from a passive protection force to an active renewal movement. “To this end, he also established connections with right-wing organizations and politicians in Bavaria (since 1919), Hungary (since 1927) and Italy (since 1930). In the beginning, the cooperation with right-wing organizations in Bavaria , such as the organization Kanzler (Orka), was particularly successful . They not only supplied the Tyrolean Home Guard with rifles and machine guns, but also initially paid the salary of Waldemar Pabst , a German free corps leader who had fled the German Reich after the failed Kapp Putsch and had been granted the right to stay in Austria since November 1920 for the Heimwehr was active and in 1922 became regional staff leader of the Tyrolean Homeland Defense .

It was largely due to Steidle that in 1927 the various regional associations of the Austrian Home Guard merged to form an umbrella organization, the Federation of Austrian Self-Protection Associations. As its first federal leader, he was also instrumental in ensuring that the home guards made an open commitment to fascism with the so-called Korneuburg Oath , which he read at a general assembly of the Heimatschutzverband Niederösterreich on May 18, 1930 . The attempt to impose an ideology on the Austrian Home Guard movement, which was heterogeneous from the beginning, with its commitment to fascism , did not, however, strengthen it. The Korneuburg oath was largely rejected by the federal government , the political parties, the press and even parts of the Heimwehr movement . Steidle's position within the Heimwehr movement was weakened as a result and in September 1930 he had to give up his position as federal leader to Ernst Rüdiger Prince Starhemberg . In addition, he was expelled from the Christian Socialist parliamentary group on December 21, 1930 because of his work as a Heimwehr leader, which caused persistent displeasure among his party colleagues - a case that was unique up until then.

The Heimwehr founder Steidle also had a number of opponents of the political left in the Tyrolean capital. In the course of the Höttinger Saalschlacht 1932 he was thrown with stones by an angry crowd on the way home in the tram.

Steidle remained the undisputed leader of the Tyrolean Homeland Army even after his departure as the Heimwehr Federal Leader and, as such, continued to have the opportunity to influence political events in this federal state. In the meantime , the Heimatwehr had grown into a new political opponent under the National Socialists , who grew stronger from 1933 onwards, and who were now increasingly called to fight. As early as March 1933, the Home Guard was recognized by the Tyrolean provincial government as a permanent auxiliary police force and Steidle was appointed as security officer for the provincial government.

On the evening of June 11, 1933, Steidle was the victim of a National Socialist assassination attempt, in which he was seriously injured in his right forearm. One of the two perpetrators, Werner von Alvensleben, was sentenced to three years in prison in November , pardoned and released on December 31, 1933.

On October 17, 1933, Steidle was appointed security director for Tyrol. In this position, which he held until December 31, 1933, he had Social Democrats and National Socialists alike fought and was thus jointly responsible for the Austrian domestic policy, which was increasingly heading towards an escalation.

The prelude to this came from Tyrol, where on January 30, 1934, there were large armed parades of the Heimatwehr in numerous places and the demand for the establishment of an authoritarian state government. The “Tyrolean example” was followed shortly thereafter by the Heimwehr associations of the other federal states, so that there was a “ rolling [Heimwehr] putsch ” throughout the entire federal territory . The result was a domestic political "high tension" that had hardly ever existed before, which finally erupted in the February battles against the Social Democrats.

The next domestic political escalation, the July coup of the National Socialists, was experienced by Steidle, who had also taken over the office of Federal Commissioner for Propaganda on November 4, 1933 , but no longer as directly involved. As early as July 15, 1934, he had been appointed consul general in Trieste , which in fact amounted to a political cold-start. He fulfilled this function until 1938. After Austria was "annexed" to the German Reich, he was immediately arrested by the National Socialists, whom he had fought hard as security director, and finally sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he died in August 1940.

rating

Richard Steidle was a “ very effective ”, downright “ brilliant speaker ” who for a long time had “a great influence on the mass of home guardians ”. He was also the only one of the higher Heimwehr leaders who published longer analytical articles and dealt with publications by political opponents in a factual manner. From the beginning he took the view that the Heimwehr, as a movement limited only to Austria, could hardly gain political weight and therefore tried to bring together “ the defensive forces of the right ” in Austria and to get support from abroad. As a possible end point of these unification efforts at national and international level, he named in 1930 the establishment of a “ national international. “In this context, his attempt to finally give the fissured and divided Heimwehr movement a clear political program with the Korneuburg Oath should be seen.

However, Steidle's efforts to unite were ultimately unsuccessful, the country-specific differences in the Home Guard movement - a result of the almost simultaneous formation of Home Guard groups in the various Austrian federal states - could never really be balanced out. In addition, Steidle got on well neither with Walter Pfrimer and Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, the two other important home guard leaders, nor with Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss . His own failure and that of the Heimwehr movement as a political “renewal movement” in Austria were virtually inevitable. In the end there was the triumph of the National Socialists, for whom the Heimwehr movement had paved the way, and Steidle's death in the concentration camp.

literature

  • Isabella Ackerl and Friedrich Weissensteiner: Austrian Personal Lexicon of the First and Second Republic. Verlag Carl Ueberreuter, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-8000-3464-6 .
  • Eduard Sieber: Richard Steidle. Seminar paper at the University of Vienna, Vienna 1964.
  • Walter Wiltschegg: The Home Guard. An irresistible popular movement? (= Studies and Sources on Austrian Contemporary History, Vol. 7), Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 1985, ISBN 3-7028-0221-5 .
  • Ch. Mentschl:  Steidle Richard. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 13, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2007–2010, ISBN 978-3-7001-6963-5 , p. 143.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, all of the following data on Steidle's life and his political activities are based on Wiltschegg (1985), pp. 187–193 and Ackerl / Weissensteiner (1992), p. 464.
  2. ↑ Niko Hofinger: "Our slogan is: Tyrol for the Tyroleans!" Anti-Semitism in Tyrol 1918-1938 . ( academia.edu [accessed December 4, 2018]).
  3. ↑ Wiltschegg (1985), p. 192.
  4. ↑ Wiltschegg (1985), p. 152f.
  5. ^ The events of the Höttinger Saalschlacht. In: Innsbruck City News from July 17, 1985; No. 7, pp. 10-12.
  6. ^ Three years of heavy dungeon for Alvensleben . In: New Free Press . No. 24856 . Vienna November 22, 1933, p. 7th f . ( Online at ANNO - AustriaN Newspapers Online ).
  7. ^ Pardon Werner von Alvensleben . In: Wiener Zeitung . tape 231 , no. 1 . Vienna January 2, 1934, p. 6 ( Online at ANNO - AustriaN Newspapers Online ).
  8. ↑ Earl C. Edmondson: Home Guard and Other Military Associations. In: Dachs Herbert, Hanisch Ernst, Staudinger Anton and Tálos Emmerich (eds.): Handbook of the political system of Austria. First Republic 1918–1933 , Manz Verlag, Vienna 1995, p. 274, ISBN 3-214-05963-7 .
  9. ↑ Wiltschegg (1985), p. 193.
  10. ↑ Ackerl / Weissensteiner (1992), p. 464.
  11. ↑ Wiltschegg (1985), p. 191.
  12. ↑ Quoted from Wiltschegg (1985), p. 191, which refers to the Klagenfurt edition of the Heimatschutz-Zeitung of January 25, 1930.
personal data
SURNAME Steidle, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Heimwehr leader and politician (CS), member of the state parliament, member of the Federal Council
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Lower maize , Merano
DATE OF DEATH August 30, 1940
Place of death Buchenwald concentration camp