Population statistics in Austria from 1938 to 1955

The intended investigation follows the forerunner-study "Demography in Austria in the inter-war period" (Exner/Kytir/Pinwinkler 2002). The main target of the intended study is the complete registration and description of those persons, institutions and discourses which built the demographic scientific community. Two periods with different political and social characteristics are discussed: firstly, the period of National Socialism in Austria; secondly, the post-war period until 1955 when Austria became an independent state again. A central point of the intended study is the question, to what extent the official population statistics in the "Ostmark" contributed to the Holocaust. The German official statistics were recently accused of having provided data for the deportations because the population census of 1939 which took place both in Germany and in Austria contained a special enumeration of the Jews and the "Jews of Mixed Ancestry". The responsible Austrian population statisticians/demographers and their reactions on the political changes in 1938, continuities and breaks with the past, firstly in 1938, secondly in 1945, shall be investigated for persons, institutions and discourses. In the period of the Third Reich the competences of the Austrian statistical office were strongly restricted. However, the Austrian statistical office under the direction of Felix Klezl was responsible for the carrying-out of the population census in the "Ostmark". Furthermore, the connections between the Austrian statistical office and other institutions, especially National Socialist ones, shall be examined. Connections with the "Volksdeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaften" (Ethnic German research communities, VFG) are possible. The VFG played an important role for the scientific support of the occupation of the Eastern European regions by the Nazi. The international co-operation with the International Statistical Institute, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Populations and the United Nations characterize the time after 1945.

The project P 16291-G04 (project leader: Univ.-Doz. Dr. Peter Schimany, project coworker: Dr. Gudrun Exner) with the title "Population Statistics and Population Science in Austria 1938 to 1955" investigates for the NS-time (1938-1945) and for the post-war period (1945-1955) how these both narrowly related scienitifc disciplines developed. Following the requirements of a modern historiography of science, this study investigates leading decision-makers, the most important institutions, the discourse and special issues. One of the main targets of the project was to answer the question, whether the census of May 17, 1939 in Germany a part of which was at the time also Austria as "Ostmark" contributed to the Holocaust. Götz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth as well as Jutta Wietog have examined this question for Germany. Especially Aly/ Roth assumed that data of the census on which also the "racial" origin according to the Anti-semitic criteria of the Nuremberg Laws was registered, were used to set up the deportation lists into the concentration camps. Aly/Roth from the side of the opponents of official statistics and Jutta Wietog who tried to relieve the official statistics both came to the result that a direct contribution of the official statistics to the Holocaust is most unlikely. It is possible that there were single informations but for this no hints from the sources could be discovered until now. Furthermore, it can be assumed that the census data provided an overview over the dimension of the "Final Solution". Neither Aly/Rot nor Wietog investigated the topic for Austria. This project aimed at closing this research gap. It could be shown that the data for deportation lists in Vienna, where 1939 more than 90 per cent of the Austrian Jews lived, came from two special counts. They took place in September and October 1939 and were conducted be the Jewish Community in Vienna and the Gildemeester-Auswanderungshilfsaktion. Both counts were most probably ordered by Adolf Eichmann. Also for Austria it is most unlikely that the official statistics contributed directly to the Holocaust. The 1939 census was carried out by the Austrian Statistical Land Office. At the time its leader was Felix Klezl. The responsible census leader and head of the department of populations statistics was Oskar Gelinek who was killed at the Western front in autumn 1944.