Austrian Government Employees and Conduct of Life (1918 – 1940)

A number of scholarly and fictional works about government employees of the Habsburg Monarchy have been written. This comes as no surprise, as they have shaped not only the administration but also culture and politics of this state. However, there is curiously little research on their fate after 1918, if at all, mostly regarding highest officials. This project deals with the role of government employees as a manifold socio-professional group in the social, economic and political developments from the end of the Habsburg Monarchy to the incorporation of the former Austrian administration into the one of the German Reich. Due to their specific employment relationship they represented the state, who was at the same time their employer. They were obliged to fulfil their official duties and conduct oneself in a way appropriate to their position in the office as well as in private life. The state provided them with a suitable income for themselves and their dependants, a life-long employment with an inbuilt career structure and entitlement to an old-age pension. This relationship became imbalanced in a time of high inflation and the reduction of the number of government employees for the purpose of the restoration of the national finances. The central research question is how in the period under research the conduct of life of government employees has changed in a way that was detrimental to the consciousness of status of this social group, and thus also for general trust in government and democracy. This will be investigated by adopting the central concept of conduct of life. What it implies is how government employees put their consciousness of status into practice. This conduct of life will be integrated with various concepts from administrative studies history, representativeness, politicization, public opinion and reform. To this end, a collective biographical portrait will be composed. Conduct of life will be investigated by looking at normal and discontinuous biographies and careers as well as at transgressions of norms, as they figure in disciplinary files. Public opinion about government employees as expressed in contemporary controversial writings and in politicians statements will be investigated. This public picture will be complemented by self-perceptions of government employees, found in their newspapers as well as in self-written documents. Furthermore, political activities of government employees in support groups of the 1920s and 1930s until they were banned in 1934 will be explored. A research gap will be filled by making a total survey of the measures of the National Socialist purging of the Austrian state apparatus 1938 1940, to show how many government employees were dismissed, transferred or forcibly retired for political or racist reasons.

Public Employees employed and salaried by the state, and representing it, were particularly affected by political and economic upheavals of the 20th century. The interwar period and the first years of the National Socialist regime in Austria posed a multitude of challenges for this multifaceted group who, including their family members, accounted for a seventh of the Austrian population. Hyperinflation, economic crises, downsizing, and political interference with their professional and private lives burdened public employees and changed their public and self-image for the worse. The project highlights these phenomena drawing on a variety of sources, including fictional works and political caricatures. In this project, however, government employes are not shown merely as passively submitting to these developments. Rather, the study emphasizes their agency, e.g. as activists of the government employees' movement, in autobiographical accounts or in statements that are part of disciplinary files. The analytical concept of "conduct of life" has been developed in this project, partly drawing on sociological theories of Max Weber, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu, partly referring to contemporary uses of the term. It implies incorporated and internalized traditions and moral values related to belonging to the group of government employees. Specific implications of proper conduct of life varied according to someone's position in the bureaucratic hierarchy, but sources from the interwar period also make general references to the term, often implying that until 1914, higher moral standards had been in place. Analyses of disciplinary files allow for deriving correct behaviour of government employees by contrasting it with transgressions of norms. Some of the disciplinary offences were typical of the time in which they were perpetrated, e.g. theft of foodstuffs in the early 1920s or professions of sympathy for the National Socialist German Workers' Party in the mid-1930s. The degree of disciplinary punishment could vary for similar offences, and higher-ranking bureaucrats faced disciplinary procedures less often than their junior colleagues. An evaluation of over 14 500 notes related to a decree issued in 1938 in order to purge the state apparatus on racial and political grounds shows that less than ten percent of government employees were subject to measures (such as forced retirement or dismissal). Interestingly, policemen, gendarmes and teachers were disproportionally affected by measures of the decree. Ironically, one of the results of this project whose period of research starts with 1918 is that 1918 is unsuitable as a historical caesura, at least when it comes to state administration and its personnel because many parameters stayed the same, despite the regime change. Again, some important changes happened gradually or at other points in time. This opens new research perspectives in the field of post-imperial transition to which this project makes a valuable contribution.