This is as remarkable an introduction to highly personal perspectives on recent Austrian diplomacy as you can get. The two diplomats Franz Cede and Christian Prosl have interviewed nineteen of their colleagues, plus one another, about their education and career path, and each interview concludes with general thoughts on the state of Austrian diplomacy and foreign policy. Cede and Prosl previously have written a small volume on Austrian foreign policy after World War II: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit (Innsbruck, 2015). Of the twenty-one top diplomats in the Austrian foreign service interviewed in this volume, seventeen are men and four are women. They were the generation joining the foreign service from the late 1960s to the 1980s (the generation of distinguished diplomats before them, such as Thomas Klestil and Hans Winkler, are mentioned in the book often as mentors but do not fit this cohort). Often, their desire “to go out into the world” led them to choose their careers as diplomats (Gabriele Matzner-Holzner, 135); or, for those from modest, provincial backgrounds, “Fernweh” (an ache to travel abroad; Peter Moser, 167). Only a few of them knew before their high school graduation that they wanted to be diplomats (Martin Eichtinger, 24).
The usual career path for most was to study law, to acquire a background in international law. Some studied history (Emil Brix, Wolfgang Petritsch, Eva Nowotny). Brix insists plausibly that the understanding of “historical processes” helps diplomats understand political decision-making in our day and age (3). Most of them did some postgraduate work at the famed old Austrian Diplomatic Academy (4), at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Bologna and Washington (4), the College d'Europe in Bruges, Belgium (4), at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (1), at the Institut des Hautes Etudes in Geneva (1), the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris (1), at Lomonosov State University in Moscow (1), or as a Fulbrighter at the University of Southern California (1) or the Law School of Southern Methodist University (1). Two attended high schools in the United States, one with the American Field Service. So, clearly, deepening one's knowledge of international law and politics and immersion in foreign languages at an elite international school helped them pass the difficult Examen Préalable to be admitted to the foreign service.
Once admitted, they were posted abroad all over the world to learn the business of diplomatic reporting to the Foreign Ministry in Vienna or serve in the Foreign Ministry (often in the elite Division of International Law or Völkerrecht). Other postings abroad followed, usually not longer than three to four years. It is an ancient tradition in diplomacy that those posted longer develop “localitis” (they take on the perspective of their host country rather than staying independent in their judgments). After a number of such transfers between abroad and at home in the Foreign Ministry, they eventually were rewarded with an ambassadorship to represent their country among the powers abroad (most of them in the top posts in Washington, Moscow, London, and Paris during the Cold War, or Brussels and Beijing after the end of the Cold War). Prosl, who served in Washington during the 1980s, in Los Angeles as consul (1991–95), and then again as ambassador to the United States (2009–11), is remarkably critical of American “exceptionalism” and “hubris” (234).
Few complain about the hardships such frequent changes mean for the family: children had to change schools and friends often; in the old days, wives/spouses were expected not to pursue a separate career but rather to help their husbands with social events and representations (Markus Lutterotti, 120). Today, women successfully pursue their own careers in diplomacy (Eva Nowonty, Teresa Indjein, Matzner-Holzer, Irene Giner-Reichl). But quite a few of these twenty-one top diplomats served in other functions as well. Some work as foreign policy advisers in the federal president's (Lutterotti, Alfons Kloss) or chancellor's offices (Petrisch, Nowotny); some served in the EU foreign service and became EU ambassadors (Thomas Mayr-Harting, Hans Dietmar Schweisgut); one became a member of parliament (Wendelin Ettmayr); and one became the director of the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna (Christoph Thun-Hohenstein). Some served the international community ably as special representatives in the post-Yugoslav Balkans (Petritsch, Valentin Inzko, Johann Sattler), and others worked for a while in private industry (Martin Sajdik, Sattler).
Austria's long historical relationships with the Balkans gives it special expertise in this area. As Petritsch, of Carinthian Slovene background, explains, three generations of Petritschs served in the Balkans (his grandfather in World War I, his father in World War II, and he as a distinguished diplomat; 202). In the concluding general observations, there is much talk about the “gutting” of the sacred cow of Austrian neutrality as a result of the country joining the European Union in 1995 and the “Common European Foreign and Security Policy” (GASP). Austrian neutrality has been “reduced to its core mission” (Mayr-Harting, 155). In his concluding remarks, Cede notes how Austria's Cold War role as “neutral mediator” (Vermittler) was abandoned in the post–Cold War era. Austria no longer takes pride in being a “bridge between East and West” as it did during the Cold War. Neutrality no longer serves the country in this role as a mediator (317f). Cede projects that “public diplomacy” will gain in importance in the future (318). Austrian diplomacy will continue to play a role in its defense of human rights around the world and in the prohibition of nuclear and other modern weaponry (316).
One question I have for the editors pertains to the criteria in choosing these nineteen diplomats to be interviewed: Why not others like Wolfgang Waldner, who was head of the cultural section like Indjein and ambassador to the United States, or Michael Linhart, who served as foreign minister for a few months in 2022?
