Bruno Kreisky

Political Biography: Bruno Kreisky

(b. Vienna, 22 Jan. 1911; d. 29 July 1980) Austrian; Chancellor of Austria 1970 – 83 Kreisky was the talented son of a well-to-do Jewish family. A student of law and economics at Vienna University he joined the Socialist Party and was imprisoned for his political activities in 1935. As the Nazis took over Austria in 1938 he managed to escape to Sweden, spent the war years in Britain, and returned to Austria in 1945. He served in the Foreign Ministry (1946 – 51) and then in the Prime Minister's office (1951 – 3). Increasingly recognized in the Socialist Party he became Foreign Minister (1959 – 66) and then Chancellor in 1970, heading Austria's first all-Socialist post-war administration. At home he modernized his party and further extended the welfare state and social partnership with the unions and management. Austria became highly successful economically under his administration, its prestige rose, and Vienna became an international centre of diplomacy. He suffered a setback in 1978, when his government's nuclear energy policy was rejected in a referendum. An election was called shortly afterwards and his party increased its lead, and established a record of winning an absolute majority at three consecutive elections. In 1979 Kreisky broke new ground by inviting the PLO leader Yasser Arafat to Vienna. He resigned in 1983 not wishing to head a coalition government after his party had lost ground in the elections, although it remained in office.

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Biography: Bruno Kreisky

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Bruno Kreisky (1911-1990) was chancellor of Austria from 1970 to 1983, presiding over a period of domestic prosperity combined with the a growing importance in international affairs.

Bruno Kreisky was born in Vienna, Austria, on January 22, 1911, into a wealthy Jewish family whose industrial fortune and political involvement could be traced to the early 19th century. Critical of his bourgeois background and angered by the poverty around him, Kreisky joined socialist working youth at dances when he was 16 without becoming a doctrinaire Marxist or entirely alienating his family. This fortunate set of circumstances later enabled him to appreciate much of the old Austria even as he adopted a progressive and socialist attitude toward the contemporary world.

In religious matters Kreisky was agnostic but found it difficult to escape the Jewish stereotype. Relations with his Catholic countrymen remained correct rather than cordial despite a personal friendship with Cardinal Koenig. He never considered himself Jewish, which ultimately limited his usefulness as a mediator between Arabs and Israelis when Zionists accused him of betraying the Jewish cause.

The Austrian government also considered the young lawyer a traitor. After the socialist uprising of 1934 he spent two years in prison and repeated the experience in a Gestapo jail for a short time after the 1938 Anschluss with Nazi Germany. He then took advantage of a period of grace toward Jews to flee the country. In Sweden for the duration of World War II, he worked in a consumer cooperative, got married, and formed a lifelong friendship with Willy Brandt, the future chancellor of West Germany.

Upon returning to Austria after the war, he found employment in the diplomatic service and was active in negotiating the state treaty that restored Austrian independence in 1955. He became a senior state secretary in the Chancellery in 1953 and foreign minister in 1959, leading the negotiations for entry into the European Free Trade Association in the same year. Other important activities during his seven-year term included efforts to associate Austria with the Common Market within the framework of Austrian neutrality and an attempt to solve the problem of the German-speaking South Tyrol where Italy had been governing since 1918.

"Kaiser Bruno"

Kreisky left the foreign ministry in 1966 when the opposition People's Party abandoned the coalition to form a cabinet by itself, and he used the next four years to consolidate his position within the Socialist Party. He defeated Bruno Pittermann for the chairmanship in 1967, won over the party newspaper, and redirected the Socialists away from the ideology of class struggle toward social reform on the Scandinavian model.

Kreisky's efforts to broaden the base of the party paid off in 1970 with an electoral victory that gave the Socialists a relative majority in the Parliament. Unable to form a coalition government, he assembled a weak minority cabinet that ruled precariously for 18 months until the voters gave the party an absolute majority. The Socialists then ruled alone for 13 years with the fatherly Kreisky as chancellor. He thus became the longest-running chief executive since the Hapsburgs, leading nostalgic Austrians to dub him "Kaiser Bruno."

Kreisky's achievements were notable both at home and abroad. Austria experienced solid domestic prosperity under him while it assumed an important role in international affairs. The first was partially attributable to a general economic upswing in the 1970s, but Kreisky made a contribution by cultivating a "social partnership" between labor and capital based on openness and compromise. Furthermore, his international contacts brought economic returns in the form of trade agreements and contracts for Austrian industry.

Leader In International Diplomacy

It was in the international arena that Kreisky received the most notice. He maneuvered with ease among the superpowers, arguing for coexistence, making forthright statements, and taking initiatives that could not be made by more powerful leaders. In 1974 Kreisky was the first head of government to meet with Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), thereby giving legitimacy to a movement thought to be only a cover for terrorism. He followed it by inviting Arafat to visit Vienna in an official capacity and arranged meetings with other Western European leaders. He broke the diplomatic isolation of East Germany as well, becoming in 1975 the first Westerner to sign a consular treaty with that country and conducting a state visit there. He used his position as vice president of the Socialist International to visit Libya in 1975 and in 1982 invited Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to Vienna. He also led a mission of the Socialist International to Iran in 1980, stressing always the importance of keeping communications open between opponents.

The limitations of Kreisky's foreign policy became evident when he alienated Israeli leaders with critical remarks and when Austria proved too weak to be of much use to Arab leaders. Furthermore, Vienna became a target of terrorism, with an assassination, the bombing of a synagogue, and threats against Kreisky's life. He thereafter put distance between himself and the Palestinians.

Austrian domestic and environmental politics eventually turned against him. He made a referendum in 1978 on the startup of a nuclear power plant at Zwentendorf a test of his personal popularity but did not resign as he had threatened when the vote went against nuclear energy. The worldwide recession of the early 1980s hit Austria as Kreisky's health began to fail. He underwent dialysis twice a week and eventually received a kidney transplant, but insisted he was strong enough to run again in 1983. When the electorate gave the socialists only a relative majority, he resigned rather than lead a coalition government. Kreisky went on to serve as honorary chairman of the Social Democratic party until 1987. He died on July 29, 1990, in Vienna.

Kreisky's accomplishments could be seen symbolically in a Vienna transformed during his years in office. The modern subway system was a remarkable engineering achievement to serve the metropolis, and the towering UNO-City building complex had become home to several departments of the United Nations.

Bruno Kreisky
Bruno Kreisky
Chancellor of Austria
In office 21 April 1970 – 24 May 1983
Deputy	Rudolf Häuser (1970–1976) Hannes Androsch (1976–1981) Fred Sinowatz (1981–1983)
Preceded by	Josef Klaus
Succeeded by	Fred Sinowatz

Born	22 January 1911(1911-01-22)^[1] Vienna, Austria
Died	29 July 1990 (aged 79) Vienna, Austria
Political party	SPÖ
Religion	Agnosticism^[2]

Life and political career

Kreisky was born in Vienna, the son of a Jewish clothing manufacturer. At 15 he joined the youth wing of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, and remained politically active while studying law at the University of Vienna. In 1934, when the Socialist Party was banned by the Dollfuss dictatorship, he joined underground political work. He was arrested in January 1935 and convicted of high treason, but in June 1936 he was released. In March 1938 the Austrian state was incorporated in Germany, and in September Kreisky emigrated to Sweden, where he remained until 1945. In 1942 he married Vera Fürth.

He returned to Austria in May 1946, but he was soon back in Stockholm, assigned to the Austrian legation. In 1951 he returned to Vienna, where Federal President Theodor Körner appointed him Assistant Chief of Staff and political adviser. In 1953 he was appointed Undersecretary in the Foreign Affairs Department of the Austrian Chancellery. In this position he took part in negotiating the 1955 Austrian State Treaty, which ended the four-power occupation of Austria and restored Austria's independence and neutrality.

Kreisky was elected to the Austrian parliament, the Nationalrat as a Socialist at the 1956 election. He was elected to the Party Executive along with Bruno Pittermann, Felix Slavik, and Franz Olah, and thus became a member of the central leadership body of the party. After the 1959 election, he became Foreign Minister in the coalition cabinet of Chancellor Julius Raab (ÖVP). He played a leading role in setting up the European Free Trade Association, helped solve the Bolzano-Bozen (Alto Adige/South Tyrol) issue with Italy, and proposed a "Marshall Plan" for the countries of the Third World.

Kreisky left office in 1966, when the ÖVP under Josef Klaus won an absolute majority in the Nationalrat. In February 1967 he was elected chairman of the Socialist Party. At the March 1970 elections, the Socialists won a plurality (but not a majority) of seats, and Kreisky became Chancellor. He was the first Jewish Chancellor of Austria. In October 1971 he called fresh elections and won an absolute majority. He won comfortable victories at the 1975 and 1979 elections.

Kreisky turned 70 in 1981, and by this time the voters were reacting against what they saw as his complacency and preoccupation with international issues. At the April 1983 election, the Socialists lost their absolute majority in the Nationalrat. Kreisky declined to form a minority government and resigned, nominating Fred Sinowatz, his Minister of Education, as his successor. His health was declining, and in 1984 he had an emergency kidney transplant. During his final years he occasionally made bitter remarks at his party, who had made him their honorary chairman. He died in Vienna in July 1990.

Political views and programs

Kreisky (left) with Abul Fateh in Vienna, 1962.

In office, Kreisky and his close ally, Justice Minister Christian Broda, pursued a policy of liberal reform, in a country which had a tradition of conservative Roman Catholicism. He reformed Austria's family law and its prisons, and he decriminalised abortion and homosexuality. Nevertheless he sought to bridge the gap between the Catholic Church and the Austrian Socialist movement and found a willing collaborator in the then Archbishop of Vienna, Franz Cardinal König. Kreisky promised to reduce the mandatory military service from nine to six months. After the election the military service was reduced to eight months (if it is done at once or six months plus eight weeks later on).

During Kreisky's premiership employee benefits were expanded, the workweek was cut to 40 hours, and legislation providing for equality for women was passed. Kreisky's government established language rights for the country's Slovene and Croatian minorities. Following the 1974 oil shock, Kreisky committed Austria to developing nuclear power to reduce dependence on oil, although this policy was eventually abandoned after a referendum held in 1978.

Kreisky played a prominent role in international affairs, promoting North-South dialogue and working with like-minded European leaders like Willy Brandt and Olof Palme to promote peace and development. Although the 1955 State Treaty prevented Austria joining the European Union, he supported European integration. Austria cast itself as a bridge between East and West, and Vienna was the site for some early rounds of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Kreisky opposed Zionism as a solution to the problems faced by the Jewish people. He cultivated friendly relations with Arab leaders such as Anwar Sadat and Muamar Gaddafi, and in 1980 Austria established relations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation. He tried to use his position as a European Jewish Socialist to act as a mediator between Israel and the Arabs. He had a stormy relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. He once said that he was "the only politician in Europe Golda Meir can't blackmail."

Kreisky was notable for his apologetic approach to former Nazi party members and contemporary far-right Austrian politicians. For example, Kreisky praised a far-right populist Jörg Haider calling him "a political talent worth watching".^[3]

When Simon Wiesenthal reported that four members of Kreisky's 1970 cabinet had Nazi backgrounds, Kreisky didn't remove them from the government, and responded to Wiesenthal. This incident marked the beginng of a bitter conflict, which hadn't ended until Kreisky died in 1990. In 1986, Wiesenthal sued Kreisky for libel. Three years later the court found Kreisky guilty of defamation and forced him to pay a substantial fine^[4].

In 1976, the Bruno Kreisky Foundation for Outstanding Achievements in the Area of Human Rights was founded to mark Kreisky's 65th birthday. Every two years, the Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Prize is awarded to an international figure who has advanced the cause of human rights.

Later in his life Kreisky tried to help some Soviet dissidents. In particular, in 1983 he sent a letter to the Soviet premier Yuri Andropov demanding the release of dissident Yuri Orlov, but Andropov left Kreisky's letter unanswered.^[5]

Kreisky's legacy

Today, Kreisky's premiership is the subject of controversy. Many of his former supporters see in Kreisky the last socialist of the old school and look back nostalgically at an era when the standard of living was noticeably rising, when the welfare state was in full swing and when, by means of a state-funded programme promoting equality of opportunity, working class children were encouraged to stay on at school and eventually receive higher education, all this resulting in a decade of prosperity and optimism about the future.

Conservatives criticise Kreisky's policy of deficit spending, expressed in his famous comment during the 1979 election campaign that he preferred that the state run up high debts rather than see people become unemployed. They hold Kreisky responsible for Austria's subsequent economic difficulties.

References

^ [1], Encyclopædia Britannica.
^ [2], New York Times: "Bruno Kreisky was born in Vienna on Jan. 22, 1911, to Irene Felix and Max Kreisky, a textile industrialist. The family was of Jewish descent, but the son later described himself as a religious agnostic."
^ "The Death of a Right-Wing Populist". Der Spiegel. 2008-10-13. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,583790,00.html. Retrieved 2008-11-29.
^ Austria's Attitude Toward Israel: Following the European Mainstream
^ Kreisky's letter along with Andropov's resolution on it

External links

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Political offices
Preceded by Leopold Figl	Foreign Minister of Austria 1959 – 1966	Succeeded by Lujo Tončić-Sorinj
Preceded by Josef Klaus	Chancellor of Austria 1970 – 1983	Succeeded by Fred Sinowatz
Party political offices
Preceded by Bruno Pittermann	SPÖ Party Chairman 1967 – 1983	Succeeded by Fred Sinowatz

Persondata
NAME	Kreisky, Bruno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Chancellor of Austria from 1970 to 1983
DATE OF BIRTH	22 January 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH	Vienna, Austria
DATE OF DEATH	29 July 1990
PLACE OF DEATH	Vienna, Austria

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