National holiday (Austria)

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The first of May is marked by the celebrations of the SPÖ. There are no events declared dedicated to the national holiday in Austria.

The May 1 is a national holiday in Austria . In 1949 in occupied post-war Austria during the federal government Figl I , a grand coalition of the main political parties ÖVP and SPÖ , it was named by a law. This stipulation without an official dedication ties in with the First May as Labor Day , a public holiday in Austria from 1919 - and its rededication as the state holiday of the authoritarian corporate state in 1934. In addition, May 1 was the only one in the post-war period was a non-religious holiday in Austria.

Although school and work-free as an official holiday in the whole country and entered in the holiday calendars, the national holiday is in fact not celebrated as such. The cities are shaped by the celebrations of the Social Democrats in particular on May 1st as Labor Day; rural communities, on the other hand, primarily maintain the maypole tradition on that day .

The national holiday on October 26, which was introduced in 1965 and is far more important for Austria's national self-image , on which Austria commemorates its “ perpetual neutrality ” which came into force in 1955 and indirectly the withdrawal of the last Allied occupation soldiers, must be distinguished from the national holiday . The national holiday on May 1st as such plays a subordinate role in the consciousness of Austrians and is not even known to many people - including state representatives, contemporary historians and journalists. Mixing up the two public holidays and numerous other mistakes about the national holiday are common in practice.

history

Labor Day

Victor Adler , the founder of the Austrian Social Democrats, was also the driving force behind the introduction of the May marches in Austria

The main events leading to Labor Day on May 1st are the first mass demonstration by workers in Australia in 1856 and the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1886 when a strike resulted in bloodshed.

Supported primarily by Victor Adler , the founder of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) and the Arbeiter-Zeitung , the workers' associations organized a workers' march for the first time on May 1st in 1890 as a walk in the Vienna Prater . Due to the success of the event with around 100,000 participants, Austria took on an international leadership role. Friedrich Engels said:

"Enemy and friend agree that on the whole of mainland Austria, and in Austria Vienna celebrated the feast day of the proletariat in the most brilliant and worthy manner."

In 1893 the Christian labor movement held its first May rally to improve working conditions. In the further development, many workers were contractually granted a day off May 1st, in 1907 about two thirds of the workforce had already achieved this. However, developments in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy did not lead to an official holiday .

Austrian national holidays

First republic

With the defeat in the First World War , the territory of the Habsburg Monarchy disintegrated and its form of government was extinguished. On 12. November 1918, took place the proclamation of the state of German Austria , later known as the First Republic . Under the Renner II state government , led by Karl Renner (SDAP), November 12th and May 1st were designated as "general rest and festive days" by a law passed on April 25, 1919.

"1. To commemorate the proclamation of the Free State of German Austria, November 12th of each year is declared a general day of rest and festivity.
2. At the same time, May 1st of each year is also declared a general day of rest and feast.

November 12th thus became the first national holiday in Austria - although not in the law, but also officially designated as such. The reason given in the minutes is:

“Following the example of other Free States (France, North American Union), our republic should also have its national holiday on November 12th as the legitimate hour of its birth. A democratic state system in particular needs such a festive day in the form of a day of rest from work, especially since it is precisely in democracy that the togetherness of citizens and state is particularly expressed. "

- Stenographic minutes of the Constituent National Assembly, 11th session, November 25, 1919; 158 of the supplements

The designation national holiday was deliberately avoided, however, because the state of German Austria officially referred to itself as "part of the German Republic" (Article 2 of the Constitution) and a large number of Austrians considered themselves to belong to the German nation . The designation German Austria and the confession in Article 2 were changed by law of October 21, 1919 under pressure from the victorious powers. The national holiday on November 12th could not develop a broad identity-forming effect, as it remained associated with the regrettable loss of the old order and with foreign control by the victorious powers, which many Austrians regretted.

Corporate state

With the overthrow of the First Republic and the reorganization of the Austro-Fascist corporate state in 1934, the new leadership canceled November 12th as a day of rest and celebration, but rededicated May 1st to commemorate the proclamation of the ( imposed ) May constitution . Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss stated in his address on the proclamation in the Vienna stadium :

“The new national holiday on May 1st, which has been degraded to the day of struggle for proletarian class interests, should again become Labor Day, the day of all workers, to which the valuation of the work of all working people, their sense of belonging, the feeling of being dependent on each other, the feeling of Being committed to one another gives content and form ... This year, however, May 1st is also the first day of Austria's new constitution, the day on which the new Austria appears before the world. "

- Neue Freie Presse, May 2, 1934

Dollfuss added references to awakening nature, youth and above all "the beginning of the month consecrated to the Mother of God ". At the same time, the 1933 Concordat with the Catholic Church was put into effect and raised to constitutional status, which demonstrated the existing alliance of the Christian-Social with the Catholic Church.

The celebrations on the national holiday took the place of the now forbidden May marches. This is seen on the one hand as a deliberate humiliation of the Social Democrats who have now been eliminated, and on the other hand as a strength of the social democratic holiday, which the corporate state regime still did not dare to abolish without replacement. The national holiday was celebrated from 1934 to 1937, among other things with a costume parade of the stalls through Vienna's Ringstrasse. However, the government decided in 1936 that the workers and employees had to bring in the working hours lost due to the holiday within two weeks.

Interruption and continuation under National Socialism

In National Socialist Germany , May 1st in 1933 was reinterpreted as " National Labor Day " and was also made an official holiday in Germany for the first time. From 1934 it was called the “National Holiday of the German People” and was thus completely deprived of its original dedication. As such, it was introduced in March 1938 to the attached Austria, which has now been extinguished along with its national holiday. When it was first inspected, the Wehrmacht organized a “wake-up call” with mass rallies on Heldenplatz and an elaborate fireworks display in the Vienna Prater. The National Socialists intensively cultivated the maypole traditions as supposedly old Germanic customs. In the post-war period, the maypole celebrations gradually came to a standstill in many places in Austria because of the undesirable association with National Socialism , but were often revived in an apolitical form in the mid-1970s.

Second republic

After the victory in the Battle of Vienna on April 13, 1945, the Soviet Union supported the rapid formation of an Austrian government for strategic and political reasons, again under Karl Renner. On April 27, the provisional state government Renner 1945 , an all-party government including the KPÖ , was constituted and pronounced the Austrian declaration of independence - the second republic was born . On May 1st there were again improvised May celebrations with bipartisan participation. In August 1945, the government again set May 1st as a public holiday in the Public Holidays Restriction Act , Section 1 - as did the religious holidays with a fixed calendar date without any further name or dedication.

"Holidays in the sense of this law are the following days: January 1st, Easter Monday, May 1st, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, Corpus Christi, August 15th, November 1st, December 25th and 26th."

After the National Council election in Austria in 1945 , the Figl I federal government followed under the leadership of Leopold Figl (ÖVP), a former top functionary of the corporate state as a member of the Federal Economic Council (1934–1938) and Lower Austrian leader of the Ostmärkische Sturmscharen combat group loyal to the regime . Under the coalition government of the ÖVP and SPÖ (after the KPÖ left in 1947), the Federal Law Gazette BGBl. No. 173/1949 of August 20, 1949 stipulated May 1st as the so-called “national holiday” in the law itself. The decision was made at the request of the committee for social administration chaired by Johann Böhm (SPÖ), introduced by committee secretary Franz Grubhofer (ÖVP). Actual content of the application was the sixth of January as the Epiphany to raise again an official holiday. The reasoning stated, however, that the Public Holidays Act of 1945 contained - in addition to the nine religious holidays at the time - "May 1st as a national holiday". This has now been included in the application as the official designation of the previously unnamed holiday, together with the designation of all religious holidays:

"Holidays in the sense of this law are the following days: January 1st (New Year), January 6th (Epiphany), Easter Monday, May 1st (national holiday), Ascension Day, Whit Monday, Corpus Christi, August 15th (Assumption of Mary) , November 1st (All Saints' Day), December 25th (Christmas), December 26th (St. Stephen's Day). "

This wording was also adopted in parliament, making May 1st also the national holiday of the Second Republic, but without any direct reference to it.

In fact, the national holiday as such was not celebrated in the years to come, as there was no independent state of Austria to be celebrated in occupied post-war Austria. The SPÖ and ÖVP have held separate celebrations on May 1 since 1946 - the SPÖ as before the war and to this day as a parade with the center of Rathausplatz , the ÖVP initially in the Wiener Konzerthaus , later with a parade on the Ring in front of the party headquarters in Palais Todesco .

  • Karl Renner was head of government when May 1st was introduced as a public holiday - both in 1919 and when it was reintroduced in 1945

  • Engelbert Dollfuss dedicated May 1st as a national holiday in 1934 to "commemorate the proclamation of the 1934 constitution ."

  • In 1949, under Chancellor Leopold Figl , May 1st was designated as a national holiday , which is still valid today, and for the first time in law itself .

Way to the national holiday

With the conclusion of the Austrian State Treaty on May 15, 1955, Austria regained its independence. After all signatory states had ratified the treaty , it was agreed that all Allied soldiers would withdraw by October 25th. October 26th was the first day of Austria without any foreign domination, and on that day the permanent neutrality was decided. These two consecutive days were therefore the focus of the development of a new national holiday.

Education Minister Heinrich Drimmel (ÖVP) ordered October 25th to be declared Flag Day by decree of October 1st with the task of hoisting the Austrian flag in schools and explaining the importance of this Independence Day to the students. On October 20th, the mayor of Vienna, Franz Jonas (SPÖ), called for a “Freedom Day” on October 22nd, on which Viennese citizens should flag their homes until the upcoming “final liberation” on October 25th. October 25th was celebrated together by the main political forces at the schools in Vienna. According to Chancellor Julius Raab (ÖVP), the day should now be celebrated every year, although it remains a working day. In the next year, however, the day of the flag was changed to the day of the flag on October 26th, because this day "the first documentation of an independent political will of Austria in full freedom" (Drimmel) seemed more important in the long term than the reference to the former foreign rule . The day the flag was still committed only in schools and was neither school- still factory free; That is one of the reasons why the change of the occasion hardly penetrated the consciousness of the Austrians.

On Flag Day 1961, Drimmel complained that Austria was the only country in Europe not to have a national holiday. In 1965 it was decided to introduce it, whereby besides the day of the flag several other dates - but not the national holiday on May 1st - were discussed for selection:

  • November 12th, the first national holiday for the founding of the First Republic in 1918
  • April 27, when Austria proclaimed its independence in 1945
  • May 15, 1955 day of the signing of the State Treaty.

October 26th ultimately received the most approval and became the official national holiday in 1965. But it was not until 1967 that it was put on an equal footing with the other public holidays as a day off from school and work.

However, none of this changed the status of the national holiday on May 1st. It was also included in the new Work Rest Act in 1983, together with the national holiday and religious holidays , and remains the law there unchanged.

Todays situation

The national holiday on May 1st, unchanged since 1949, is an official holiday in Austria under this name until today. However, there are no public holiday celebrations declared as such in Austria.

Events and political activities

Maypole in St. Magdalena , Linz

Marked the May 1 in Austria of the nationwide celebrations of the SPÖ. The main event is the parade in Vienna with the center of the Rathausplatz and sometimes well over 100,000 participants. The ritualized process includes speeches by the top officials and the singing of the song of work , followed by the May Festival in the Prater. In the most populous state of Burgenland alone , there were a total of 42 SPÖ events in 2019.

The other parties try to get a certain amount of attention on May 1st with their own activities. The ÖVP shows a wide range here regionally and historically. Their celebrations and marches achieved a broad impact in post-war Vienna with mass participation of their voters, but in the long term they had no chance against the effects of the SPÖ march. The currently recurring activities include visits to employees who are unable to participate in the marches because of their job (e.g. nursing homes , police , fire brigade ), family celebrations, hiking days and political activities such as press conferences or meetings of the Council of Ministers deliberately on that day. The most important event of the FPÖ is a morning pint with a speech by the federal chairman at the Urfahraner Markt in Linz . The Greens have been celebrating the day before April 30th since 1997 as the Day of the Unemployed and organize breakfasts with citizens' talks at the labor market service .

Rural communities, but also several outskirts of Vienna and other cities, mainly maintain the maypole traditions, in which the parties ruling in the community usually also participate. The tree is solemnly decorated on May 1st or on the previous Walpurgis Night and is particularly at risk of falling victim to maypole stealing on that night . The maypole party and May parades with brass bands usually take place on May 1st.

The websites staatsfeiertag.at , nationalfeiertag.at and others belong to Robert Marschall , the founder of the Austrian party leaving the EU . He uses the explanations there about the holidays to convey his political views.

Incomplete reception and errors

As an official holiday, the national holiday is entered under this name in official and private holiday calendars. Nevertheless, it is partly unknown to the population of Austria under this name, is confused with the national holiday and is accompanied by a number of different errors.

Social democratic and closely related sources on the history of the holiday always name it May 1st , often supplemented by the internationally most common name Labor Day . Instead of the post-war statutes, the improvised celebrations were mentioned as early as May 1, 1945. In particular, the corresponding explanations relate the status of May 1st as a national holiday to the introduction of the day as an official Austrian holiday in 1919. Other sources also follow this description, directly or implicitly, as May 1st only for “a national holiday” in the sense to keep a public holiday.

Even outside social democratic circles, the mistake is widespread that May Day is officially dedicated in Austria as “Labor Day”. In 2014 , the non-party Family Minister Sophie Karmasin, nominated by the ÖVP, suggested that “Labor Day” be renamed “Labor and Family Day”. For media scientist Peter Diem (ÖVP), “Labor Day” and the national holiday are together the “national holidays” of Austria.

Even in official and scientific-historical articles on the national holiday and the earlier state holidays as its predecessors, the state holiday on May 1st, established in 1949, is often ignored, for example in books by the historian Ernst Bruckmüller and an exhibition description by the Vorarlberg State Archives . In his detailed article on the history of the Austrian national holiday, the historian Gustav Spann wrote explicitly: “Austria had no official national holiday between 1945 and 1955.” Other sources supplement similar statements with the reference to the 1949 “very formally” national holiday. Sources that name May 1st as a public holiday in 1949 often fail to mention that it was reintroduced as a public holiday in 1945, or vice versa, or mistakenly assume that May 1st was declared a national holiday in 1945.

Due to the low reception of the national holiday and the largely synonymous meaning of the terms “national holiday” and “ national holiday ”, there is often a confusion and confusion. A Google search for Austrian national holiday showed the national holiday on October 26th as a prominent result in the knowledge panel , but meanwhile this Wikipedia article. Articles on the national holiday often refer to it as a "national holiday", for example in a document from the Ministry of the Interior on the national holiday. Conversely, the national holiday of the First Republic is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a “national holiday”. Sometimes the current national holiday is identified directly with the one introduced by Dollfuss in 1934, which is therefore "celebrated with an interruption since May 1, 1934". Another erroneous interpretation is to see the national holiday as the day of commemoration of the “proclamation of the federal constitution ”.

Lists of national holidays around the world always show the national holiday for Austria, the national holiday is not mentioned in this context - in contrast to the national holiday of the same name in Liechtenstein (15 August).

Web links

Individual evidence

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  2. ↑ a b c National holiday May 1st: - Labor Day. Schoolbooks InterActive, accessed April 19, 2020 .
  3. ^ A b c Marianne Moser: National holiday. In: festage-oesterreich.at. Retrieved April 19, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Gustav Spann: On the history of the Austrian national holiday. (PDF) In: Demokratiezentrum.org. Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Sport. Political Education Department, accessed April 12, 2020 .
  5. ^ Law of November 12, 1918 on the form of state and government in German Austria. StGBl. No. 5/1918. In:  State Law Gazette for the State of German Austria , year 1918, p. 4 f. (Online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / sgb
  6. ^ Law on the form of government. StGBl. No. 484/1919. In:  State Law Gazette for the State of German Austria , year 1919, p. 1153 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / sgb.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h Margot Schindler: The other May 1st: The Social Democratic Labor Day and the formation of other May Festival traditions. (PDF) In: volkskundemuseum.at. Austrian Museum of Folklore , 2010, p. 283f. , accessed on April 18, 2020 .
  8. ↑ a b forerunner to the Austrian national holiday. In: Demokratiezentrum.org. Retrieved April 7, 2020 .
  9. ↑ a b c Norbert Schnurrer: Rebel Sunday. In: renner-institut.at. Retrieved April 19, 2020 .
  10. ↑ May 1st: From “Rebel Sunday” to “General Day of Rest and Feast”. In: renner-institut.at. Retrieved April 26, 2020 .
  11. ↑ May 1st National Holiday. In: musikland-tirol.at. Accessed April 30, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Julius Skamen: Are the maypoles dying out in Tyrol? In: mein district.at. May 2, 2019, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  13. ^ Roman Sandgruber : Maibaum in the Forum OoeGeschichte.at
  14. ↑ a b Chronicle of May 1st. Chamber of Labor , accessed April 25, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Art. I, § 1, Law of August 7, 1945, StGBl. No. 116/1945 (Holiday Rest Act )
  16. ↑ Dipl.-Ing. DDDr. hc Leopold Figl. In: parlament.gv.at. Retrieved April 15, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Martin Prieschl: The small military associations in the First Republic. Federal Army , 2010, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Federal Law No. 173 of July 14, 1949, Federal Law Gazette No. 173/1949 , PDF: p. 9
  19. ^ Franz Grubhofer : Report and motion of the committee for social administration. In: parlament.gv.at. July 8, 1949, accessed April 19, 2020 .
  20. ↑ Jürgen Klatzer: May 1st begins with a massacre. In: kurier.at. May 1, 2017, accessed April 19, 2020 .
  21. ↑ § 7, Federal Act of February 7, 1983, Federal Law Gazette No. 144/1983
  22. ↑ Rest of Work Act § 7. In: ris.bka.gv.at. Federal Chancellery , accessed on April 13, 2020 .
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  25. ↑ a b 120,000 people at the May march in Vienna. Kronen Zeitung , May 10, 2006, accessed on April 18, 2020 .
  26. ↑ a b May 1st: Labor Day in Burgenland. In: orf.at. May 1, 2019, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  27. ^ Klaus Knittelfelder: The ÖVP and their struggle with May 1st. Courier , May 1, 2018, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  28. ↑ Susanne Veronik: Work and employment remains topic number 1. In: mein district.at. May 3, 2019, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  29. ↑ Parties march on May 1st. ORF , April 30, 2013, accessed on April 16, 2020 .
  30. ↑ Peter Filzmaier : What are we celebrating? May 1: Tax reform against Labor Day. Kronen Zeitung , April 28, 2019, accessed on April 15, 2020 .
  31. ↑ a b Busy on May 1st. Wiener Zeitung , April 30, 2019, accessed on April 16, 2020 .
  32. ↑ Greens and Caritas celebrate the day of the unemployed. In: derstandard.at. APA , April 30, 2019, accessed April 17, 2020 .
  33. ↑ Keyword: maypole. ÖVP Freistadt , accessed on April 18, 2020 .
  34. ^ Celebrations on May 1st in Carinthia. SPÖ Carinthia, accessed on April 18, 2020 .
  35. ↑ Information according to the law and contact. In: staatsfeiertag.at. Robert Marschall, accessed April 18, 2020 .
  36. ↑ Information according to the law and contact. In: nationalfeiertag.at. Robert Marschall, accessed April 18, 2020 .
  37. ↑ Public holidays in Austria. In: wien.gv.at. Retrieved April 25, 2020 .
  38. ↑ Holidays Austria 2020. In: festage-oesterreich.at. Retrieved April 25, 2020 .
  39. ↑ Public holidays in Austria 2020. Accessed on April 25, 2020 .
  40. ↑ May 1st. In: dasrotewien.at. Accessed April 30, 2020 .
  41. ↑ * Wolfgang Maderthaner : But we want to be human for eight hours: May 1st; History and stories. Edition Rot, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-901485-98-5 , p. 56. Snippet preview in Google Books
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  43. ^ SPÖ has no interest in renaming May 1st. Der Standard , May 14, 2014, accessed April 24, 2020 .
  44. ↑ a b Peter Diem : National Holidays: May 1st and October 26th. Austria Forum , September 16, 2009, accessed on April 25, 2020 .
  45. ↑ a b 50 years of the national holiday. (PDF) In: bmi.gv.at. Retrieved April 7, 2020 .
  46. ^ * Ernst Bruckmüller : Nation Austria: cultural awareness and socio-political processes. Bölau Verlag, Vienna 1996, ISBN 978-3-205-98000-1 , p. 104 ( preview in Google book search)
  47. ↑ A compromise with consequences? On the history of the Austrian national holiday. Vorarlberger Landesarchiv , 2005, accessed on April 24, 2020 .
  48. ↑ Ulrike Kammerhofer-Aggermann: May 1st national holiday. (PDF) In: heimatvereine.at. Retrieved April 19, 2020 .
  49. ↑ May 1st - Labor Day. In: http://politikberatung.or.at . Retrieved April 25, 2020 .
  50. ↑ Screenshot in the Wayback Machine
  51. ↑ Google search for Austrian National Day , as of April 7, 2020
  52. ↑ Page of the Collegium Bosniacum on collegium-bosniacum.org ( Memento from December 24th, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) - refers to the national holiday as "national holiday"
  53. ↑ October 26th - Austrian National Day . Order of Malta Austria , October 26, 2019, accessed April 24, 2020 .
  54. ↑ October 26th - National Day . In: vobs.at. Retrieved April 24, 2020 .
  55. ^ National holiday May 1st. In: alle-feiertage.at. Retrieved April 25, 2020 .
  56. ^ National Holiday of Member States. United Nations , archived from the original ; accessed on April 15, 2020 .
  57. ^ National Holidays Around the World. In: infoplease.com. Retrieved April 13, 2020 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ This was not entirely true, as the UK still does not have a national holiday and Grundlovsdag is not an official holiday in Denmark : Public Holidays in the UK. In: internations.org. January 28, 2020, accessed April 19, 2020 .