Price riot

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The price rises , also known as price rises or September riots, were riots after a workers' demonstration and its violent suppression in Vienna on September 17, 1911 . For the first time after the October Uprising of 1848 , fire was opened again on demonstrators in Vienna.

Price riot in 1911: Police take a stand in front of a grocery store

prehistory

Drought-related crop failures in Austria-Hungary and high world market prices for food led to price increases for bread and other foodstuffs in 1909/10. The price of flour had almost doubled and meat had become almost unaffordable for workers. The desolate housing situation was also exacerbated by rising rents.

Demonstration and riots

Title page of the Neue Zeitung from September 19, 1911

On Sunday, September 17, 1911, there was a demonstration against the rise in prices on Vienna's Rathausplatz . The Social Democratic Labor Party had called for this because of the price rises that threatened the existence of workers.

In addition to the police, a division of dragoons , lancers and hussars and several battalions of Hungarian and Bosniak infantry had been concentrated in the city center.

According to the police report, 36,000 and, according to the organizers, 100,000 participants followed the speeches by politicians Franz Schuhmeier and Albert Sever as well as delegates from Italy and Bohemia . When the peaceful demonstration broke up, a shot was allegedly fired at Palais Epstein , at that time the seat of the Administrative Court. Who the shooter was could never be determined. Even a shot fired from a crowd is now considered a possible trigger. When stones were thrown from the crowd at the palace and town hall, innumerable windows were broken. The police and the military, including the Deutschmeister , then advanced against the demonstrators and pushed them towards Neubau and Mariahilf . The hard core of the demonstrators withdrew to the Ottakring working-class district . There the protesters erected barricades and demolished official buildings. There was looting.

Albert Sever described the further events on September 13, 1931 in the Arbeiter-Zeitung :

“Comrades are being chased down Gablenzgasse, the area around the workers' home is full of the military. A company of the Polish military regiment No. 24 was called in from the Radetzky barracks for reinforcement . ... Just as the company of Infantry Regiment No. 24 was approaching the workers 'home, comrade Otto Prötzenberger was crossing the unobstructed square opposite the workers' home. He was reached by the soldiers, a bayonet stab made him stagger. He sank to his knees, but then got up and ran into the coffeehouse of the workers' home. Here he collapsed at the cashier's desk. In a few minutes he was dead.… The next martyr was Comrade Franz Joachimsthaler, who was shot in the stomach and also taken to the Sophienspital . He died three days later. … Franz Wögerbauer hit the sword quite uninvolved. He was coming from the Lederer tavern on Herbststrasse when a cavalry patrol burst across the street and one of the riders, who was lashing blindly, split his head with one blow. After terrible agony, he died eight days later. "

Otto Bauer commented on the events shortly afterwards:

“For the first time since the October day 1848, on which the Windischgrätz troops recaptured the capital from the emperor, the people were shot at in Vienna. What did not happen even in the most violent storms of the electoral struggle, happened on September 17, 1911 in Vienna. No house, window, or lantern was left intact in entire neighborhoods. In the proletarian quarter Ottakring, school buildings and trams were set on fire. Barricades were built, the troops shot at the people, and behind the wildly excited crowd, the rag poletariat looted the shops. "

Processes

Besides the four dead workers Otto Brötzenberger, Franz Joachimsthaler, Leopold Lechner and Franz Wögerbauer, there were 149 injured, more than 488 people were arrested and 283 sentenced to heavy imprisonment. The negotiations began just two days after the revolt and were quickly concluded with the conviction of all the accused. Justice Minister Viktor von Hochenburger had switched off the jury courts, which were actually responsible for "political crimes", and instructed the public prosecutors to submit high criminal charges.

Aftermath

Memorial for the victims of the price riot at Ottakringer Friedhof

The hunger revolt in Ottakring was not just about a lack of food, but also articulated a “first broad revolt by marginalized suburban masses”.

On October 5, 1911, there was a parliamentary aftermath in the Vienna Reichsrat . Just as Victor Adler blamed Hochenburger for the escalation of the events under the agenda item "Inflation Revolt", shots rang out from the visitor gallery in the direction of the government bank, which Hochenburger and later Prime Minister Karl Stürgkh missed. The shooter, 20-year-old unemployed carpenter journeyman Nikola Njegos, was overwhelmed and sentenced to seven years in prison. He died while in custody. Prime Minister Paul Gautsch resigned because of the unrest and was replaced by Stürgkh.

At the Ottakringer Friedhof a memorial donated by the Social Democrats commemorates the victims of the price riot. In 1928 the square in front of the Wilhelminenspital was named after the locksmith's assistant Franz Joachimsthaler Joachimsthalerplatz .

Individual evidence

  1. Wolfgang Maderthaner , Lutz Musner: The anarchy of the suburb. The other Vienna around 1900. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36334-8 , pp. 19f. Digitized
  2. Christine Klusacek, Kurt tuner: Ottakring. From the Brunnenmarkt to the Liebhartstal. Verlag Mohl, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-900272-37-9 , p. 112.
  3. Wolfgang Maderthaner, Lutz Musner: The anarchy of the suburb. The other Vienna around 1900. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36334-8 , p. 23f.
  4. Christine Klusacek, Kurt tuner: Ottakring. From the Brunnenmarkt to the Liebhartstal. Verlag Mohl, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-900272-37-9 , p. 112.
    Wolfgang Maderthaner, Lutz Musner: Die Anarchy der Vorstadt. The other Vienna around 1900. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36334-8 , p. 26.
  5. Christine Klusacek, Kurt tuner: Ottakring. From the Brunnenmarkt to the Liebhartstal. Verlag Mohl, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-900272-37-9 , p. 113f.
    Inflation riots of September 17, 1911. In: dasrotewien.at - Web Lexicon of the Viennese Social Democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)
  6. ^ Otto Bauer: The inflationary revolt in Vienna. In: The New Time . (29) Volume 2, September 1911, pp. 913f.
  7. ^ Werner Bundschuh : The September riots in Vienna - the "bloody Sunday" of 1911 in the Vorarlberg press. In: Montfort. Quarterly magazine for the past and present of Vorarlberg. (44) 1992, No. 4, pp. 349-361, here p. 349 online . Wolfgang Maderthaner, Siegfried Mattl: "... put an end to street excesses". September riots and mass workers trial in 1911. In: Karl R. Stadler (Ed.): Socialist processes. Political Justice in Austria. 1870-1936. Europa-Verlag, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-203-50948-2 , pp. 117–150, here: pp. 117ff.
  8. Wolfgang Maderthaner, Siegfried Mattl: "... put an end to street excesses". September riots and mass workers trial in 1911. In: Karl R. Stadler (Ed.): Socialist processes. Political Justice in Austria. 1870-1936. Europa-Verlag, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-203-50948-2 , pp. 117–150, here: pp. 127ff.
  9. Wolfgang Maderthaner, Lutz Musner: The anarchy of the suburb. The other Vienna around 1900. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36334-8 , p. 14f.
  10. ^ Inflation riots of September 17, 1911. In: dasrotewien.at - Weblexikon der Wiener Sozialdemokratie. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)

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