Wöginger • Rendi-Wagner • Kickl • Maurer • Meinl-Reisinger •
93-419: [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Austria is a federal republic consisting of nine federal states . The European Commission calls them provinces . Austrian federal states can pass laws that stay within
186-1003: A Prince of the Holy Roman Empire or the Emperor himself, mainly in the territories of the Habsburg monarchy (as for the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ), later also in the Kingdom of Prussia . In the Austrian Empire , according to the 1861 February Patent , the title referred to the president of the Landtag assembly of a Habsburg crown land (called Landmarschall [ de ] in Lower Austria , Bohemia , and Galicia ), who also served as head of
279-514: A province called Noricum which lasted until the year of 476. The regions of today's Austria which were not located within the province of Noricum were divided between the Roman provinces of Pannonia , which encompassed parts of eastern Austria, and Raetia , which encompassed the areas of present-day Vorarlberg and Tyrol . Present-day Petronell- Carnuntum in eastern Austria was an important army camp turned capital city in what became known as
372-406: A city council, the deputies can only deal with city affairs; when meeting as a federal state parliament, they can only deal with affairs of the state. Austrian federalism is largely theoretical, as the federal states are granted few legislative powers. Austria's constitution initially granted all legislative powers to the federal states, but many powers have been subsequently taken away, and only
465-585: A community defined to be a city by Austrian law, and a town is a community not defined to be a city. Many of Austria's cities have population figures on the order of 10,000 inhabitants; some are even smaller. Austria – in Europe (green & dark grey) – in the European Union (green) – [ Legend ] Austria , formally the Republic of Austria ,
558-743: A democratic republic and part of the new German republic. The constitution, renaming the Staatsrat as Bundesregierung (federal government) and Nationalversammlung as Nationalrat (national council) was passed on 10 November 1920. The Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1919 (for Hungary the Treaty of Trianon of 1920) confirmed and consolidated the new order of Central Europe which to a great extent had been established in November 1918, creating new states and altering others. The German-speaking parts of Austria which had been part of Austria-Hungary were reduced to
651-452: A few remain, such as planning and zoning codes, nature protection, hunting, fishing, farming, youth protection, certain issues of public health and welfare and the right to levy certain taxes. All other matters, including but not limited to criminal law, civil law, corporate law, most aspects of economic law, defense, most educational matters and academia, telecommunications, and much of the healthcare system are regulated by national law. There
744-560: A government, called Staatsrat . This new government was invited by the Emperor to take part in the decision on the planned armistice with Italy but refrained from this business. This left the responsibility for the end of the war, on 3 November 1918, solely to the emperor and his government. On 11 November, the emperor, advised by ministers of the old and the new governments, declared he would not take part in state business any more; on 12 November, German-Austria, by law, declared itself to be
837-720: A referendum which confirmed the union with Germany in April 1938. Parliamentary elections were held in Germany (including recently annexed Austria) on 10 April 1938. They were the final elections to the Reichstag during Nazi rule, and they took the form of a single-question referendum asking whether voters approved of a single Nazi-party list for the 813-member Reichstag, as well as the recent annexation of Austria (the Anschluss ). Jews, Roma and Sinti were not allowed to vote. Turnout in
930-473: A rump state named the Republic of German-Austria (German: Republik Deutschösterreich ), though excluding the predominantly German-speaking South Tyrol . The desire for the annexation of Austria to Germany was a popular opinion shared by all social circles in both Austria and Germany. On 12 November, German-Austria was declared a republic, and named Social Democrat Karl Renner as provisional chancellor. On
1023-640: A united Germany were: a Greater Germany , or a Greater Austria or just the German Confederation without Austria at all. As Austria was not willing to relinquish its German-speaking territories to what would become the German Empire of 1848 , the crown of the newly formed empire was offered to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV . In 1864, Austria and Prussia fought together against Denmark and secured
SECTION 10
#17327870118131116-676: A vehement opponent of the Nazis, the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, an honorary citizen of hundreds of places in Austria and partly envisaged by Schuschnigg as a monarchical option, was in Belgium at the time. He spoke out against the Anschluss and was then wanted by the Nazi regime and his property would have been expropriated and he would have been shot immediately if he were caught. In 1938,
1209-575: A war with Revolutionary France , which was highly unsuccessful in the beginning, with successive defeats at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte , meaning the end of the old Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Two years earlier, the Empire of Austria was founded. From 1792 to 1801, the Austrians had suffered 754,700 casualties. In 1814, Austria was part of the Allied forces that invaded France and brought to an end
1302-483: Is Austria's only metropolitan area . Lower Austria ranks only fourth in population density even though it contains Vienna's suburbs; this is due to large areas of land being predominantly agricultural. The alpine federal state Tyrol, the less alpine but geographically more remote federal state Carinthia, and the non-alpine but near-exclusively agricultural federal state Burgenland are Austria's least densely populated federal states. The wealthy alpine federal state Vorarlberg
1395-633: Is a federal parliamentary republic and representative democracy with a popularly elected president as head of state and a chancellor as head of government and chief executive. Austria has the 13th highest nominal GDP per capita with high standards of living. The country has been a member of the United Nations since 1955 and of the European Union since 1995. It hosts the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and
1488-592: Is a landlocked country in Central Europe , lying in the Eastern Alps . It is a federation of nine states , one of which is the capital, Vienna , the most populous city and state. Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to
1581-455: Is also no judiciary of the federal states, since Austria's constitution defines the judiciary as an exclusively national matter. This centralisation follows a historic model where central power during the time of the empire was largely concentrated in Vienna. However, the federal state governor ( Landeshauptmann ) is in charge of the administration of much of federal administrative law within
1674-537: Is equivalent to that of a minister-president or premier . Until 1933 the term was also used in Prussia for the head of government of a province , in the modern-day states of Germany (with the exceptions of the city-states) the counterpart to Landeshauptmann is the Ministerpräsident (minister-president). Since the early modern period , a Landeshauptmann originally served as governor under either
1767-544: Is not unheard of for Austrians to consider themselves, for instance, Tyrolean first, Austrian second. In terms of boundaries, the present-day federal states arose from the crown lands of Austria-Hungary , an extensive multiethnic realm whose German-speaking nucleus emerged as the Republic of Austria after the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy in the end of World War I . The federal states of Upper Austria and Lower Austria are essentially equivalent to what were
1860-567: Is now Austria was settled in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, having been the core of the Hallstatt culture by the 6th century BC . The city of Hallstatt , in fact, has the oldest archaeological evidence of the Celts in Europe. The Celtic Kingdom of Noricum that included most of modern Austria and parts of modern Slovenia was conquered by the Roman Empire in 16 BC and made
1953-553: Is now Austria's National Day , a public holiday. The status of Tyrol was a lingering problem between Austria and Italy . To this day, there are 20 different squares in Austrian cities called "Südtiroler Platz" (South Tyrolean Square) in memory of the supposed loss of the Austrian territories. Terrorist acts by the South Tyrolean independence movement have been documented in the 1950s and 1960s. A great degree of autonomy
SECTION 20
#17327870118132046-508: Is something of an anomaly due to its small size, isolated location and distinct Alemannic culture. Each Austrian federal state has an elected legislature , the federal state parliament , and a federal state government ( Landesregierung ) headed by a governor ( Landeshauptmann or Landeshauptfrau ). Elections are held every five years (six years in Upper Austria ). The federal state constitution, among other things, determines how
2139-601: The Ausgleich , provided for a dual sovereignty, the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary , under Franz Joseph I . The Austrian-Hungarian rule of this diverse empire included various groups, including Germans , Hungarians , Croats, Czechs, Poles , Rusyns , Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenes, and Ukrainians, as well as large Italian and Romanian communities. As a result, ruling Austria-Hungary became increasingly difficult in an age of emerging nationalist movements, requiring considerable reliance on an expanded secret police. Yet,
2232-601: The Austrofascists imposed a new constitution ("Maiverfassung") which cemented Dollfuss's power, but on 25 July he was assassinated in an Austrian Nazi coup attempt . His successor Kurt Schuschnigg acknowledged the fact that Austria was a "German state" and he also believed that Austrians were "better Germans" but he wished that Austria would remain independent. He announced a referendum on 9 March 1938, to be held on 13 March, concerning Austria's independence from Germany. On 12 March 1938, Austrian Nazis took over
2325-594: The Battle of Mohács , Bohemia and the part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans came under Austrian rule. Ottoman expansion into Hungary led to frequent conflicts between the two empires, particularly evident in the Long War of 1593 to 1606. The Turks made incursions into Styria nearly 20 times, of which some are cited as "burning, pillaging, and taking thousands of slaves". In late September 1529, Suleiman
2418-527: The Federal Constitutional Law of 1920, which had been terminated by dictator Dollfuss on 1 May 1934, was declared valid again. The total number of Austrian military deaths from 1939 to 1945 was 260,000. The total number of Jewish Austrian Holocaust victims was 65,000. About 140,000 Jewish Austrians had fled from the country in 1938–39. Thousands of Austrians had taken part in serious Nazi crimes (hundreds of thousands of people died in
2511-491: The Habsburg monarchy since the late 13th century, Austria was a major imperial power in Central Europe for centuries and from the 16th century, Vienna was also serving as the Holy Roman Empire's administrative capital. Before the dissolution of the empire two years later, in 1804, Austria established its own empire , which became a great power and one of the largest states in Europe. The empire's defeat in wars and
2604-655: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was settled with the Carinthian Plebiscite in October 1920 and allocated the major part of the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Crownland of Carinthia to Austria. This set the border on the Karavanke mountain range, with many Slovenes remaining in Austria. After the war, inflation began to devalue the Krone, which was still Austria's currency. In the autumn of 1922, Austria
2697-625: The Landeshauptmann of the state, elected by the municipal and state assembly ( Wiener Gemeinderat und Landtag ). When Waltraud Klasnic ( ÖVP ) became governor of Styria in 1996, she preferred to be addressed as Frau Landeshauptmann , whereas Gabi Burgstaller ( SPÖ ), governor of Salzburg from 2004 to 2013, preferred Frau Landeshauptfrau . Since 1 July 1988, the Constitution of Austria allows for, but does not prescribe, office designations to be gender -specific. According to
2790-832: The Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp alone), a fact which was officially acknowledged by Chancellor Franz Vranitzky in 1992. Allied-occupied Austria was after World War II divided into military occupation zones. Austria was governed by the Allied Commission for Austria . As stipulated in the Moscow Declaration of 1943 a subtle difference was seen in the treatment of Austria by the Allies. The Austrian government, consisting of Social Democrats, Conservatives, and Communists resided in Vienna , which
2883-701: The Napoleonic Wars . It emerged from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as one of the continent's four dominant powers and a recognised great power . The same year, the German Confederation ( Deutscher Bund ) was founded under the presidency of Austria. Because of unsolved social, political, and national conflicts, the German lands were shaken by the 1848 revolutions aiming to create a unified Germany. The various different possibilities for
Federal states of Austria - Misplaced Pages Continue
2976-565: The Nazi takeover in 1933, the office-holders were furloughed or retired and the offices remained vacant. The Klaipėda Region ( German : Memelland ), which was dissected from East Prussia after World War I and annexed by Lithuania in the Klaipėda Revolt of 1923, continued the usage of the terms Landesdirektor (i.e. government member) and Landesdirektorium ( Lithuanian : krašto direktorija ; i.e. government). The head of government
3069-714: The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and is a founding member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Interpol . It also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The native name for Austria, Österreich , derives from the Old High German Ostarrîchi , which meant "eastern realm" and which first appeared in
3162-533: The Ottoman Empire , Austria-Hungary took the opportunity to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip was used by leading Austrian politicians and generals to persuade the emperor to declare war on Serbia, thereby risking and prompting the outbreak of World War I, which eventually led to the dissolution of
3255-682: The Pannonia Superior . Carnuntum was home to 50,000 people for nearly 400 years. After the fall of the Roman Empire , the area was first invaded by the Germanic Rugii which made this region part of their " Rugiland ". In 487, most of modern Austria was conquered by Odoacer , a barbarian soldier and statesman from the Middle Danube , which incorporated most of today's Austria in his Kingdom of Italy . By 493, it
3348-688: The Princely County of Tyrol ; these three federal states had to cede territories to Czechoslovakia , Italy , and Yugoslavia when Austria emerged in its present form. The federal state of Vorarlberg is made up of territories acquired by the House of Habsburg in the 14th and 15th centuries, and was a semi-autonomous part of the County of Tyrol from 1861. The 1815 Congress of Vienna saw most of these areas lose their autonomy. Federal state charters were put in place in 1861, although power remained with
3441-469: The interwar period , anti-parliamentarian sentiments culminated in the formation of an Austrofascist dictatorship under Engelbert Dollfuss in 1934. A year before the outbreak of World War II , Austria was annexed into Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler , and it became a sub-national division . After its liberation in 1945 and a decade of Allied occupation , the country regained its sovereignty and declared its perpetual neutrality in 1955. Austria
3534-724: The regions with the Italian government . He is also entitled to attend the sessions of the Council of Ministers as far as South Tyrolean issues are discussed. Their two deputies have to represent the Italian and German language group. Despite the German terms Landeshauptmann and Landtag , South Tyrol and Trentino according to Italian conception are no federated states ( Länder ) but merely subnational administrative divisions ( enti territoriali ), though with considerable self-government responsibilities and legislative powers. From 1875
3627-534: The "Ostarrîchi document" of 996. This word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local (Bavarian) dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976. The word "Austria" is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. At the time, the Danube basin of Austria ( Upper and Lower Austria ) was the easternmost extent of Bavaria. The area that
3720-536: The 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of the Duchy of Austria. In 1438, Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen as the successor to his father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund . Although Albert himself only reigned for a year, henceforth every emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was a Habsburg, with only one exception. The Habsburgs began also to accumulate territory far from
3813-504: The 1946 Gruber–De Gasperi Agreement and the Second Autonomy Statute of 1972, the chief executives of the provincial governments ( Italian : Presidente della Provincia autonoma ) of South Tyrol and Trentino are called Landeshauptleute in German. The head of government of South Tyrol is elected by the provincial Landtag legislature. The Landeshauptmann represents the province to the outside and in meetings of
Federal states of Austria - Misplaced Pages Continue
3906-650: The Americans, planned for the supposed "Alpine Fortress Operation" of a national redoubt, that was largely to have taken place on Austrian soil in the mountains of the Eastern Alps . However, it never materialised because of the rapid collapse of the Reich. Karl Renner and Adolf Schärf (Socialist Party of Austria [Social Democrats and Revolutionary Socialists]), Leopold Kunschak (Austria's People's Party [former Christian Social People's Party]), and Johann Koplenig (Communist Party of Austria) declared Austria's secession from
3999-680: The Austro-Hungarian Empire. Over one million Austro-Hungarian soldiers died in World War I. On 21 October 1918, the elected German members of the Reichsrat (parliament of Imperial Austria) met in Vienna as the Provisional National Assembly for German Austria ( Provisorische Nationalversammlung für Deutschösterreich ). On 30 October the assembly founded the Republic of German-Austria by appointing
4092-578: The German Austrians and the other ethnic groups. Many Austrians, especially those involved with the pan-German movements, desired a reinforcement of an ethnic German identity and hoped that the empire would collapse, which would allow an annexation of Austria by Germany . A lot of Austrian pan-German nationalists protested passionately against minister-president Kasimir Count Badeni 's language decree of 1897, which made German and Czech co-official languages in Bohemia and required new government officials to be fluent in both languages. This meant in practice that
4185-468: The German national colours (black, red, and yellow), although they were both temporarily banned in Austrian schools, as a way to show discontent towards the multi-ethnic empire. Austria's exclusion from Germany caused many Austrians a problem with their national identity and prompted the Social Democratic Leader Otto Bauer to state that it was "the conflict between our Austrian and German character". The Austro-Hungarian Empire caused ethnic tension between
4278-455: The Magnificent launched the first siege of Vienna , which unsuccessfully ended, according to Ottoman historians, with the snowfalls of an early beginning winter. During the long reign of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor following the successful defence of Vienna against the Turks in 1683, under the command of the King of Poland John III Sobieski , the Great Turkish War resulted in most of Hungary being controlled by Austria. This arrangement
4371-458: The Nazis renamed Austria the " Ostmark ", a name which it had until 1942, when it was renamed the "Alpine and Danubian Gaue" (Alpen-und Donau-Reichsgaue). Though Austrians made up only 8% of the population of the Third Reich, some of the most prominent Nazis were native Austrians, including Adolf Hitler , Ernst Kaltenbrunner , Arthur Seyss-Inquart , Franz Stangl , Alois Brunner , Friedrich Rainer , and Odilo Globocnik , as were over 13% of
4464-429: The Prussian government. In the following decades, Landeshauptmann gradually replaced the earlier expression Landesdirektor in all but one of Prussia's provinces. When the kingdom turned into a free state in 1920, only the Landtag of Brandenburg had decided to keep the traditional expression. With the abolition of democratic self-rule on all government levels in the course of the Gleichschaltung process after
4557-420: The Social Democrats and the Conservatives, had paramilitary armies; the Social Democrats' Republikanischer Schutzbund was now declared illegal, but was still operative as the 12–15 February 1934 Austrian Civil War broke out. In February 1934, several members of the Schutzbund were executed, the Social Democratic party was outlawed, and many of its members were imprisoned or emigrated. On 1 May 1934,
4650-407: The Third Reich by the Declaration of Independence on 27 April 1945 and set up a provisional government in Vienna under state Chancellor Renner the same day, with the approval of the victorious Red Army and backed by Joseph Stalin . (The date is officially named the birthday of the second republic.) At the end of April, most of western and southern Austria were still under Nazi rule. On 1 May 1945,
4743-480: The capital of Austria, plays a double role as a city and a federal state. The mayor has the rank of a federal state governor, while the city council also functions as a federal state parliament. Under the municipal constitution, however, city and federal state business must be kept separate. Hence, while the city council and the federal state parliament have identical memberships, they hold separate meetings, and each body has separate presiding officers. When meeting as
SECTION 50
#17327870118134836-401: The case of the Semmering Base Tunnel , a railway tunnel being built under the Semmering . Austrian federal states are formally and practically endowed with a much smaller degree of autonomy than American states or German lands . Even so, Austrians tend to identify passionately with their respective federal state and often defend what little independent governance their federal state has. It
4929-413: The central government. Following the First World War , the federal state governments declared themselves part of the Republic of German-Austria . Negotiations at this time between the federal state governments and the national governments resulted in the agreement to form a federation, with a nationally elected lower house and an upper house representing the provinces . The city-federal state of Vienna
5022-429: The civil service would almost exclusively hire Czechs because most middle-class Czechs spoke German but not the other way around. The support of ultramontane Catholic politicians and clergy for this reform triggered the launch of the Away from Rome movement, which was initiated by supporters of Schönerer and called on "German" Christians to leave the Roman Catholic Church. As the Second Constitutional Era began in
5115-417: The death of Frederick II in 1246, the line of the Babenbergs was extinguished. As a result, Ottokar II of Bohemia effectively assumed control of the duchies of Austria, Styria, and Carinthia . His reign came to an end with his defeat at Dürnkrut at the hands of Rudolph I of Germany in 1278. Thereafter, until World War I, Austria's history was largely that of its ruling dynasty, the Habsburgs . In
5208-458: The election was officially 99.5%, with 98.9% voting "yes". In the case of Austria, Adolf Hitler's native soil, 99.71% of an electorate of 4,484,475 officially went to the ballots, with a positive tally of 99.73 percent. Although most Austrians favored the Anschluss , in certain parts of Austria, the German soldiers were not always welcomed with flowers and joy, especially in Vienna, which had Austria's largest Jewish population. Nevertheless, despite
5301-435: The first Austrian Republic . Over three million German-speaking Austrians found themselves living outside the new Austrian Republic as minorities in the newly formed or enlarged states of Czechoslovakia , Yugoslavia , Hungary , and Italy. These included the provinces of South Tyrol , and German Bohemia . The status of German Bohemia and Sudetenland later played a role in World War II. The border between Austria and
5394-449: The government of Austria tried its best to be accommodating in some respects: for example, the Reichsgesetzblatt , publishing the laws and ordinances of Cisleithania , was issued in eight languages; and all national groups were entitled to schools in their own language and to the use of their mother tongue at state offices. Many Austrians of all different social circles such as Georg Ritter von Schönerer promoted strong pan-Germanism in
5487-442: The government, while German troops occupied the country, which prevented Schuschnigg's referendum from taking place. On 13 March 1938, the Anschluss ( lit. ' joining ' or ' connection ' ) of Austria was officially declared. Two days later, Austrian-born Adolf Hitler announced what he called the "reunification" of his home country with the "rest of the German Reich " on Vienna's Heldenplatz . He established
5580-415: The hereditary lands. In 1477, Archduke Maximilian , only son of Emperor Frederick III , married the heiress Maria of Burgundy , thus acquiring most of the Netherlands for the family. In 1496, his son Philip the Fair married Joanna the Mad , the heiress of Castile and Aragon , thus acquiring Spain and its Italian, African, Asian , and New World appendages for the Habsburgs. In 1526, following
5673-473: The hope of reinforcing an ethnic German identity and the annexation of Austria to Germany. Some Austrians such as Karl Lueger also used pan-Germanism as a form of populism to further their own political goals. Although Bismarck's policies excluded Austria and the German Austrians from Germany, many Austrian pan-Germans idolised him and wore blue cornflowers, known to be the favourite flower of German Emperor William I , in their buttonholes, along with cockades in
SECTION 60
#17327870118135766-413: The house of Babenberg . The area was known as the marchia Orientalis and was given to Leopold of Babenberg in 976. The first record showing the name Austria is from 996, where it is written as Ostarrîchi , referring to the territory of the Babenberg March. In 1156, the Privilegium Minus elevated Austria to the status of a duchy. In 1192, the Babenbergs also acquired the Duchy of Styria . With
5859-441: The independence from Denmark of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein . As they could not agree on how the two duchies should be administered, though, they fought the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. Defeated by Prussia in the Battle of Königgrätz , Austria had to leave the German Confederation and no longer took part in German politics. After the defeated Hungarian Revolution of 1848 , the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 ,
5952-400: The late Roman period , followed by the arrival of numerous Germanic tribes during the Migration Period . Austria, as a unified state, emerged from the remnants of the Eastern and Hungarian March at the end of the first millennium , first as a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire , it then developed into a duchy in 1156, and was made an Archduchy in 1453. Being the heartland of
6045-405: The limits of the constitution, and each federal state has representatives in the main Austrian parliament. The majority of the land area in the federal states of Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Vienna, and Burgenland is situated in the Danube valley and thus consists almost completely of accessible and easily arable terrain. Austria's most densely populated federal state is Vienna, the heart of what
6138-428: The loss of territories in the 1860s paved the way for the establishment of Austria-Hungary in 1867. After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, Emperor Franz Joseph declared war on Serbia , which ultimately escalated into World War I . The empire's defeat and subsequent collapse led to the proclamation of the Republic of German-Austria in 1918 and the First Austrian Republic in 1919. During
6231-453: The members of the SS and 40% of the staff at the Nazi extermination camps . In the Reichsgau , besides the main camp KZ-Mauthausen , there were numerous sub-camps in all provinces where Jews and other prisoners were killed, tortured and exploited. At this time, because the territory was outside the operational radius of Allied aircraft, the armaments industry was greatly expanded through the forced labor of concentration camp prisoners, this
6324-432: The office of a Federal Government representative and head of the state government. The title is today used in modern Austria as well as in South Tyrol and Trentino, autonomous provinces in Italy with strong linguistic and cultural ties to the neighbouring Austrian state of Tyrol . In the Czech Republic , a hejtman (German: Hauptmann ) represents each of the 13 self-governing regions (Czech kraj , pl. kraje ). The title
6417-444: The propaganda and the manipulation and rigging which surrounded the ballot box result, there was massive genuine support for Hitler for fulfilling the Anschluss , since many Germans from both Austria and Germany saw it as completing the long overdue unification of all Germans into one state. On 13 March 1938, Austria was annexed by the Third Reich and ceased to exist as an independent country (the Anschluss ). The Aryanisation of
6510-448: The provincial administration. The Imperial-Royal government in Vienna was represented by a Statthalter or Landespräsident (governor). With the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the proclamation of the Republic of German-Austria in 1918, provisional state assemblies and state governments were established, headed by a Landeshauptmann . The 1920 constitution of the First Austrian Republic ( Bundes-Verfassungsgesetz ) unified
6603-401: The respective province, which makes this post an important political position. Furthermore, federal state competences include zoning laws, planning issues and public procurement on the regional level, which adds considerable weight to federal state politics. As a practical matter, there have been cases where federal states have been able to delay projects endorsed by the national government, as in
6696-419: The same day it drafted a provisional constitution that stated that "German-Austria is a democratic republic" (Article 1) and "German-Austria is an integral part of the German reich" (Article 2). The Treaty of Saint Germain and the Treaty of Versailles explicitly forbade union between Austria and Germany. The treaties also forced German-Austria to rename itself as "Republic of Austria" which consequently led to
6789-414: The seats in the federal state government are assigned to political parties, with most federal states having a system of proportional representation based on the number of delegates in the federal state parliament in place. The governor is elected by the federal state parliament , though in practice the governor is the leader of the majority party or coalition in the federal state parliament. Vienna ,
6882-403: The senior partner in the governing coalition. As representative of the federal government on state level, the landeshauptmann is also responsible for the enforcement of federal laws. Unlike in the federal government, there is no distinction between the head of state and head of government and the landeshauptmann serves both roles. As Vienna is both a city and a state, its mayor is also
6975-551: The territorial authority of the estates in the twelve administrative provinces of Prussia were re-organised as Provinzialverbände . Each of these self-governing bodies were represented in a Provinziallandtag assembly, whose members were delegated by the rural and urban districts within the province. The districts organised through their elected deputies their utilities, such as construction and maintenance of provincial roads, hospitals, schools, public savings banks, waste disposal etc., in self-rule. The provincial administration
7068-516: The title is usually translated as " governor ," though as mentioned above the function corresponds more to that of minister-president or premier. The Landeshauptmann is elected by the Landtag (state parliament) of the respective state and sworn in by the President of Austria . In practice, the landeshauptmann is almost always the leader of the majority party in the Landtag, or the leader of
7161-512: The two halves of the Archduchy of Austria , a principality which formed the empire's historic heartland. Salzburg is coterminous with the former Austro-Hungarian Duchy of Salzburg (the former Archbishopric ). Similarly, the federal state of Carinthia descends from the Duchy of Carinthia , the federal state of Styria descends from the Duchy of Styria , and the federal state of Tyrol descends from
7254-736: The wealth of Jewish Austrians started immediately in mid-March, with a so-called "wild" (i.e. extra-legal) phase, but it was soon structured legally and bureaucratically so the assets which Jewish citizens possessed could be stripped from them. At that time, Adolf Eichmann , who grew up in Austria, was transferred to Vienna and ordered to persecute the Jews. During the November pogrom in 1938 ("Reichskristallnacht"), Jews and Jewish institutions such as synagogues were subjected to violent attacks in Vienna, Klagenfurt, Linz, Graz, Salzburg, Innsbruck and several cities in Lower Austria. Otto von Habsburg ,
7347-576: The west. The landlocked country occupies an area of 83,879 km (32,386 sq mi) and has a population of around 9 million. The area of today's Austria has been inhabited since at least the Paleolithic period . Around 400 BC, it was inhabited by the Celts and then annexed by the Romans in the late 1st century BC. Christianization in the region began in the 4th and 5th centuries, during
7440-531: Was a part of Lower Austria up until 1921. The federal state of Burgenland is made up of the predominantly German-speaking area that the Kingdom of Hungary ceded to the First Austrian Republic after World War I as a result of the Treaties of Trianon and Saint-Germain-en-Laye . The nine federal states ( Bundesländer ) of Austria are: For the purpose of the above list, a city is
7533-420: Was able to send the Allies information about armaments factories where V-1 flying bombs , V-2 rockets , Tiger tanks , and aircraft ( Messerschmitt Bf 109 , Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet , etc.) were manufactured, information which was important to the success of Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra , both of which were preliminary missions before the launch of Operation Overlord . This resistance group, which
7626-466: Was also used by the German Empire for governors during the early stages of its colonial rule over German South-West Africa (1893–1898), Togoland (1893–1898) and German New Guinea (1886–1889, 1892–1899). In modern Austria, the title is used for the head of the executive of the nine Austrian states, equivalent to the position of a Ministerpräsident in German states . In English speaking countries,
7719-725: Was conquered by the Germanic Ostrogoths which created their own kingdom, the Ostrogothic Kingdom . Following the Kingdom's fall the area was invaded by the Alemanni , Baiuvarii , Slavs , and Avars . Charlemagne , King of the Franks , conquered the area in 788, encouraged colonisation, and introduced Christianity. As part of Eastern Francia , the core areas that now encompass Austria were bequeathed to
7812-580: Was especially the case with regard to the manufacture of fighter planes, tanks and missiles. Most of the resistance groups were soon crushed by the Gestapo . While the plans of the group around Karl Burian to blow up the Gestapo's headquarters in Vienna were uncovered, the important group around the later executed priest Heinrich Maier managed to contact the Allies . This so-called Maier-Messner group
7905-471: Was formalized in the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor relinquished many of the gains the empire made in the previous years. He enjoyed the imminent extinction of the House of Habsburg . Charles VI was willing to offer concrete advantages in territory and authority in exchange for recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 . Therefore, his daughter Maria Theresa
7998-572: Was granted an international loan supervised by the League of Nations . The purpose of the loan was to avert bankruptcy, stabilise the currency, and improve Austria's general economic condition. The loan meant that Austria passed from an independent state to the control exercised by the League of Nations. In 1925, the Austrian schilling was introduced, replacing the Krone at a rate of 10,000:1. Later, it
8091-482: Was granted to Tyrol by the Italian national government. Landeshauptmann The Landeshauptmann (if male) or Landeshauptfrau (if female) ( German: [ˈlandəsˌhaʊptman] , "state captain", plural Landeshauptleute, German: [ˈlandəsˌhaʊ̯ptlɔɪ̯tə] ) is the chairman of a state government and the supreme official of an Austrian state and the Italian autonomous provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino . His or her function
8184-619: Was in contact with the American secret service ( OSS ), soon provided information about mass executions and concentration camps such as Auschwitz . The group's aim was to cause Nazi Germany to lose the war as quickly as possible and re-establish an independent Austria. Vienna fell on 13 April 1945, during the Soviet Vienna offensive , just before the total collapse of the Third Reich. The invading Allied powers, in particular
8277-592: Was initially headed by a Landesdirektor , who was elected by the assembly for six-year terms (in Pomerania : five years) and maximally two terms. The holder of the office presided over the Provinzialausschuss , i.e. provincial government of self-rule, whereas the Oberpräsident was the king -appointed representative for the province, busy with implementing and supervising central prerogatives of
8370-401: Was nicknamed the "Alpine dollar" due to its stability. From 1925 to 1929 the economy enjoyed a short high before nearly crashing after Black Tuesday . The First Austrian Republic lasted until 1933, when Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss , using what he called "self-switch-off of Parliament" , established an autocratic regime tending towards Italian fascism . The two big parties at this time,
8463-551: Was recognized as his heir. With the rise of Prussia , the Austria–Prussia rivalry began in Germany. Austria participated, together with Prussia and Russia, in the first and the third of the three Partitions of Poland in 1772 and 1795 respectively. From that time, Austria became the birthplace of classical music and played host to different composers including Joseph Haydn , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Ludwig van Beethoven , and Franz Schubert . Austria later became engaged in
8556-596: Was responsible for directing the nationalized industries under the directorship of Minister Peter Krauland (party ÖVP). On 15 May 1955, after talks which lasted for years and were influenced by the Cold War Austria regained full independence by concluding the Austrian State Treaty with the allies of World War II. On 26 October 1955, all occupation troops had left and Austria declared its permanent neutrality by an act of parliament. This day
8649-599: Was surrounded by the Soviet zone. This Austrian government was recognised by the allies of World War II in October 1945 despite concerns that Karl Renner could be Stalin's puppet. On 26 July 1946 the Austrian Parliament passed its first nationalization law and approximately 70 mining and manufacturing companies were seized by the Austrian state. The Ministry of Property Protection and Economic Planning ( Ministerium für Vermögenssicherung und Wirtschaftsplanung )
#812187