Adolf Schärf
Adolf Schärf | |
---|---|
President of Austria | |
In office 22 May 1957 – 28 February 1965 | |
Chancellor | Julius Raab Alfons Gorbach Josef Klaus |
Preceded by | Theodor Körner |
Succeeded by | Franz Jonas |
Vice-Chancellor of Austria | |
In office 27 April 1945 – 22 May 1957 Serving with Leopold Figl (1945), Johann Koplenig (1945) | |
Chancellor | Karl Renner Leopold Figl Julius Raab |
Preceded by | Edmund Glaise-Horstenau (1938) |
Succeeded by | Bruno Pittermann |
Chair of the Social Democratic Party | |
In office 14 April 1945 – 8 May 1957 | |
Preceded by | Karl Seitz (SDAP) |
Succeeded by | Bruno Pittermann |
Personal details | |
Born | Nikolsburg, Moravia, Austria-Hungary | 20 April 1890
Died | 28 February 1965 Vienna, Austria | (aged 74)
Political party | Social Democratic Party |
Spouse | Hilda Schärf (1886–1956) |
Adolf Schärf (German: [ˈaːdɔlf ˈʃɛʁf] ⓘ; 20 April 1890 – 28 February 1965) was an Austrian politician of the Socialist Party of Austria (SPÖ). He served as Vice-Chancellor from 1945 to 1957 and as President of Austria from 1957 until his death.
Life
Schärf was born in Nikolsburg, Moravia (present-day Mikulov, Czech Republic), into a poor working-class family. Living in the Austro-Hungarian capital Vienna from 1899, he attended the gymnasium in Hernals and went on to study at the University of Vienna. The talented young man put himself through law school working part-time and with a scholarship granted for academic excellence. He received a doctorate in summer 1914 and, upon the outbreak of World War I four weeks later, volunteered for service in the Austro-Hungarian Army.
Political career
At the end of the Great War, Schärf was discharged as a Second Lieutenant. Having witnessed the defeat and dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, he entered politics and, through the mediation of the deputy Otto Glöckel, found employment as the secretary of the Social Democratic president of the National Council parliament Karl Seitz. He held the post as a secretary throughout the years of the First Austrian Republic until the resignation of Parliament President Karl Renner in March 1933. Schärf, as well as Karl Seitz and the Austromarxist party official Otto Bauer, had urged Renner to step down from office, which proved to be fatal as it gave the government of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss the opportunity to overthrow the parliamentary system.
Schärf became a deputy of the
Upon the Austrian
Immediately after the Soviet
Schärf had reservations about the restitution of Jewish property and also about the return of emigrants like Bruno Kreisky in Austrian politics. He opposed any collaboration of Social Democrats with the Communist Party and instead approached to the right-wing Federation of Independents, which, however, did not prevent the decline in votes for the Social Democratic Party in the 1949 legislative election. The SPÖ again became the strongest party upon the 1953 elections, which, however, was not sufficient for the appointment of a Social Democratic chancellor. In 1955, Schärf together with Chancellor Raab and Foreign minister Leopold Figl took part in the Moscow negotiations for the Austrian State Treaty, whereby he expressed strong reservations against the Declaration of Neutrality.
Presidency
When President
A firm supporter of the Austrian Proporz system and collaborating with three Conservative chancellors (Raab, Gorbach and Klaus), Schärf gained recognition by exercising his office according to the principle of non-partisanship. He did, however, interfere in internal SPÖ affairs, which led to the resignation of Interior Minister Franz Olah in 1964. After a six-years term, Schärf was the first post-war president to be re-elected in 1963, defeating his Conservative rival Julius Raab.
Schärf died in office in 1965.
Suggestive abuse of biographical similarities
- The neo-Nazi song "Adolf's Ehrentag" by Frank Rennicke attempts to bypass German anti-Nazi glorification laws by pretending to be about Adolf Schärf instead of Adolf Hitler; at the end of the song similarities are listed: both are born on 20 April, both have been imprisoned and both were leaders of Austria.
- The same approach is visible in a poem by Wolf Martin,[4] a columnist from the Kronen Zeitung,[5] published in 1994 on the occasion of Adolf "Schärf"'s birthday which caused an uproar at the time.
Sources
- ^ "Tina Walzer/Stephan Templ: Unser Wien - "Arisierung" auf Österreichisch". Deutschlandfunk (in German). Retrieved 1 February 2022.
Schärf hatte 1939 z.B. einen Klienten erfolgreich vertreten, der als sog. "Ariseur" eines "jüdischen" Hauses anerkannt werden wollte.
- ^ Fritz Molden: Die Feuer in der Nacht. Opfer und Sinn des österreichischen Widerstandes 1938–1945. Amalthea, Vienna 1988, p 122; Christoph Thurner "The CASSIA Spy Ring in World War II Austria: A History of the OSS's Maier-Messner Group" (2017), pp 14.
- ^ Heinrich Siegler (1964). Austria: Problems and Achievements, 1945-1963. Siegler. p. 108.
- ^ Dienstag, der 22. April 2008, 17:03 Uhr von Pontifex Maximus. pontisblog.eu. 22 April 2008
- ^ Borgers, Nathalie (2005) Kronen Zeitung – Tag für Tag ein Boulevardstück. ARTE