The Austrian Party Press and the First Republic: a Study in Political Journalism

Abstract

THE MOST LOGICAL dividing line in Austrian history since 1918 is the year of the merger with Germany. Closing a chapter in her history which was at once historically distinct and politically disastrous, Austria in 1938 entered into her seven lean years of Nazi occupation and war, which were followed by ten years of Allied control. Not until 1955, the year of the state treaty, was Austria free to turn a new leaf in her historical career by putting behind her the painful experiences of Nazi annexation, war, and wardship to four military powers. The story of Austrian history between the end of World War I and her union with Germany has been written and rewritten in numerous publications and need not be repeated here. We may also pass over the wellremembered episode of German occupation and war. Beginning with the Allied occupation, Austria was governed by a coalition of her two major parties. The life and death struggle between the Social Democrats and the far right in the First Republic had given way to co-operation between the two parties which are heirs to the Social Democrats and the Christian Socials respectively: the Socialist Party of Austria (S.P.Oe.) and the Austrian People's Party (Oe.V.P.). The historian is delighted to see an instance of man's having learned a lesson from the past. But before we rejoice too much in the reasonableness of man, let it be remembered that the presence of Communist power in Austria from 1945 on had more to do with the establishment of this collaboration than the sensible judgment of postwar politicos, and that if it had not been for this clear and present peril of communism, which both parties of the coalition detest, there might have been (it is fair to assume) almost as much party strife in postwar Austria as there had been between 1918 and 1934. Before an analysis of newspaper sampling is made, a profile of the coalition must briefly be drawn so that party press reflexes may be better understood. It should be remembered that one of the two parties, which together command today the confidence of roughly 85 per cent of the enfranchized citizenry, the Austrian People's party, is now more democratic than was its ancestor, the Christian Social party; that is to say, the present heir to the Christian Socials, still bourgeois-clerical-peasant in orientation and social philosophy, has come a long way from the fascist-dominated days of 1933 when the old party in effect opened the door to the Heimwehr before folding up itself. The lineal descendants of the Christian Socials have to a large extent purified themselves of nonand anti-democratic forces from