page_title: Ernst Streeruwitz
section_title: Chancellor
hierarchical_section_title: Ernst Streeruwitz / Career / Chancellor
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Aufmarsch der oesterr. Heimwehren in Wiener Neustadt.
context_page_description: Ernst Streeruwitz was an Austrian military officer, businessman, political scientist, and politician. A member of the industrialist wing of the Christian Social Party, Streeruwitz served on the National Council from November 1923 to October 1930 and as the country's chancellor and minister of foreign affairs from May to September 1929.
context_section_description: Still an outsider with no credible personal power base, Streeruwitz abruptly became chancellor in May 1929.
  The Federal Constitutional Law of 1920 established Austria as an archetypal parliamentary republic. The positions of president and chancellor were separate. Both president and chancellor were chosen by the legislature, meaning that neither of them had the prestige and authority that results from direct popular election. The president had considerable reserve powers but was expected to confine himself to acting as a figurehead. The chancellor was politically answerable to the National Council.
  The Law also established Austria as a country that was a federation in name but more or less unitary in reality.
  The growing Austrofascist Heimwehr movement demanded a move to a presidential system with a strong leader, modeled on Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy and Miklós Horthy's Regency Hungary. Resentful of the political and cultural dominance of the capital, the Heimwehr also demanded real, effective federalism.
  Vienna was home to two million people, almost one out of three Austrians at the time. The sixth-largest city in the world and the capital of a global power for five centuries, Vienna was a bustling, cosmopolitan metropolis, even in times of economic hardship. Much of Vienna's hinterland, on the other hand, was an agrarian, poorly industrialized backwater. Dislike for the capital's intellectuals, the capital's Jews, and the capital as such was intense in some corners of the political right.
  By early 1929, actors all over the political spectrum feared that the Heimwehr movement had become a threat to democracy. The ranks of those worried included parts of the Christian Social Party, which the Heimwehr movement was (loosely, at the time) affiliated with. The Social Democratic Party was willing to negotiate a constitutional reform that would meet the Heimwehr halfway. Ignaz Seipel, chancellor and leader of the Christian Social Party, decided that he was the wrong person to preside over these negotiations. Seipel, nicknamed the "prelate without mercy" ("Prälat ohne Milde") by friends and foes alike, was a hardline clericalist whose very personality would be an obstacle; in addition, his health was failing. Seipel resigned the chancellorship on April 3, 1929.
  Finding a successor for Seipel proved difficult. Obvious candidates like Leopold Kunschak or Otto Ender declined to step up. Rintelen threw his hat into the ring but was too popular with the Heimwehr and too controversial everywhere else.
  Streeruwitz emerged as the new leader mainly by default; having drafted his list of ministers, he was formally appointed on May 4.
  In theory, Streeruwitz had been dealt a strong hand. The coalition government he led included the Christian Social Party, the German Nationalists, and the Landbund, an alliance so broad that Streeruwitz could govern without Heimwehr support or toleration. In practice, the cabinet Streeruwitz had managed to assemble was tantamount to a capitulation to Heimwehr demands. Even though Streeruwitz was in favor of retaining the existing model of strong central government and limited devolution, his ministers were not representatives of ideological factions so much as representatives of provincial governments.
  Streeruwitz' inaugural address on May 7 mainly dealt with economic and foreign policy but also included a firm commitment to representative democracy: ideological disputes should be settled, Streeruwitz declared, by the people's elected delegates and not by extra-parliamentary force. The statement was an unmistakable jab at the Heimwehr, a paramilitary force whose influence was based entirely on its ability to threaten violence. The implied espousal of a strong legislature also was a rejection of the idea of a dominant president. Although Streeruwitz also promised to assume "the role of an honest broker" (die Rolle des ehrlichen Maklers), the Heimwehr instantly decided that Streeruwitz was an enemy.
  The Streeruwitz government was seemingly successful at first. The ruling coalition and the Social Democra
caption: In spite of being loosely affiliated with his own party, the Austrofascist Heimwehr was Streeruwitz' main antagonist, indirectly causing both his appointment and his resignation a mere five months later.
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