ON THE 150TH BIRTHDAY OF KARL SEITZ - MASTER BUILDER OF RED VIENNA

ON THE 150TH BIRTHDAY OF KARL SEITZ - MASTER BUILDER OF RED VIENNA

Lecture
Michael Ludwig, Mayor and Governor of Vienna

Follow-up conversation with

Robert Misik, Author and journalist

One name is inextricably linked with the history of the 1st Republic: Karl Seitz, the first President of the Republic and Mayor of Vienna for many years.

Karl Seitz was born on 4 September 1869 as the seventh child in his family and grew up as a „child of the community“ in Vienna, attending the teacher training college in St. Pölten and becoming a primary school teacher. Even at a young age, he attracted attention with his rhetoric and sharp speeches, which made him more than just friends.

In 1901, the teacher was elected to the Reichsrat; a year later, he was also elected to the Lower Austrian state parliament. In 1907 Seitz became leader of the Social Democratic parliamentary group in the Reichsrat and Victor Adler's closest parliamentary colleague.

When the three major parties - Social Democrats, Christian Socials and Greater Germans - set about establishing the republic after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918, Karl Seitz was elected one of the three presidents of the Provisional National Assembly.

The Constituent National Assembly elected him as its First President on 3 March 1919, making him the first head of state of the new republic (until December 1920). Karl Seitz, who had taken over the party presidency following the death of Victor Adler on 11 November 1918, was a member of the National Council until 1934.

After Jakob Reumann's retirement, Seitz became Mayor of Vienna in 1923 and for more than 10 years was at the head of the major municipal development programme (housing, schools, social reforms) that made "Red Vienna" famous worldwide.

The social, cultural and educational reform project, which attracted a great deal of international attention and was fiercely opposed by its opponents, aimed for a far-reaching improvement in the living conditions of workers and a democratisation of all areas of life, which it successfully implemented.

The social and architectural traces of this period are present and unmistakable in today's Vienna. It is all the more astonishing how little these achievements of the First Republic are anchored in the consciousness of today's generation.

In co-operation with Vienna Academy of Education