Even though Dr. Karl Lueger was mayor of Vienna over one hundred years ago, visitors to the city are unlikely to miss his legacy, if not the statue of him on Dr. Karl Lueger Platz. The monument stands in the center of the Austrian capital but it has not been there without controversy, not far from the apartment house on the Stubenring and the magnificent Stadtpark, the city’s first public park, where I spent part of my youth.
Dr. Lueger, who was born in 1844, was a lawyer and master. He established his law practice in 1874 and soon became known as an advocate for kleine Leute, or the little people, taking as a mentor and role model the popular Jewish physician and local politician Ignaz Mandl, known as the “God of the Little People” in Landstraße, the city’s Third District, where Lueger also lived. Their association ended with the start of Lueger’s antisemitic views.
Der schöne Karl (“handsome Karl”) served as Bürgermeister of the city from 1897 until his death in 1910 and is credited with the transformation of the city along the not-so-blue Danube at the turn of the prior century. He is also associated with populist and antisemitic policies and politics of turn-of-the-century Vienna and the Christlichsoziale Partei, which was part of a movement that took an ancient prejudice and forged it into a modern political weapon. Hitler, a fellow Austrian, saw Lueger’s views on Jews as a model.
An original print of a photograph of Dr. Karl Lueger. Courtesy of a private collection.
Ideologically, Lueger’s antisemitic views were not well established; rather, he was opportunistic in his use political, religious, and racist antisemitism at will, and he wasn’t averse to having associates or professional relations with Jews either.
Emperor Franz Joseph, who saw no guarantee of equal rights for all citizens under a Lueger mayoralty, refused to confirm Lueger’s election in 1895 because of his antisemitic views.
With the election of Karl Lueger as mayor of Vienna in 1897, which was approved by the Kaiser only after the intervention of Pope Leo XIII political anti-Semitism reached its peak in Central Europe.
The change made by Viennese officials in 2023 is, in many respects, more dramatic than the removal of Dr. Lueger’s name from a section of the Ringstraße – namely Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring – the street sign was given to the Jüdisches Museum Wien, the city’s Jewish Museum. Instead of removing the statue, the city fathers adopted a proposal by the Viennese artist Klemens Wihlidal, namely to tilt the statue 3.5° to the right.
In a news release issued by Kunst im Öffentlichen Raum Wien, Wihlidal said he did not want to change the monument, but merely alter the “view and perspective on it.”
A note in the hand of Dr. Karl Lueger and signed with his signature. “Gerne erinnert man sich fröhlicher Stunden in welchen kindliche Heilerkeit zufriedene Menschen schafft. Sie sind die Oasen des Lebens.” (“One likes to remember happy hours in which child-like cheerfulness creates contented people. They are the oases of life.”) Courtesy of a private collection.
Wihlidal said a “minimal intervention” would see it shifted 3.5° to the right, thereby altering the observer’s point of view.
“With this, I would like to cause an irritation, or even more, a moment of insecurity, which may only become perceptible upon a second look,” he added.
He noted that the effect would be to some perhaps reminiscent of a “sinking ship” and would evoke a “feeling of transience and impermanence, as if one had to watch the monument about to topple over or at least expect that it won’t stand for much longer.”
The timing for the tilt has not yet been announced although it is expected to happen at some point next year.
(Photos: Accura Media Group)
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