With this work Christian Mertens, political spokesman of the Austrian Peoples Party (ÖVP) from 1991 to 1999 and presently on the managerial staff of the Vienna municipal library, provides a detailed and impressively documented biography of Richard Weiskirchner, the last Christian Social mayor of Vienna. Overshadowed by his predecessor, Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna from 1897–1910, Weiskirchner has remained largely unknown. This is somewhat surprising because his rule extended from 1912 to 1919, eventful years for Vienna and much of the rest of the world. To many he was “the war mayor” struggling to solve the extraordinary problems of the Habsburg capital during World War I. To others Weiskirchner presided over the final years of Viennese Christian Socialism. From the 1890s Weiskirchner was an early and active innovator in municipal government. Mertens has filled in the gaps in the historiography of Weiskirchner's career and provided a context for this important figure. As the talented and detail-oriented protégé of Karl Lueger, Weiskirchner implemented administrative reforms for which Lueger provided the broad outlines. Weiskirchner proved a diligent pupil and was rapidly promoted, sometimes over his senior colleagues.

This biography details Weiskirchner's role as municipal administration director (Magistratsdirektor), parliamentary and Lower Austrian diet representative, chairman of the Vienna Christian Social Party, and minister of trade. In what was arguably his most important role as mayor of Vienna—during the years of World War I, from 1914–18—Weiskirchner energetically fulfilled his tasks. Though blamed by many for shortages and hardships during this time, Weiskirchner attempted to alleviate the suffering of his fellow Viennese and prevent conditions from worsening. The city bought food and fuel and sold them at cost. To prevent smallpox, vaccinations were carried out from house to house and contagious diseases were effectively controlled.

There is a minor quibble. In two places Mertens refers to Lueger's friend Marianne Beskiba as “an actress.” (82, 106). Beskiba was, in fact, a portrait artist. More significantly, Mertens defends Weiskirchner's use of anti-Semitic polemics as a “pure means to an end,” and “reserved … or measured compared to other politicians of the time” (250). One wonders how “measured” Weiskirchner's anti-Semitism was during the war in proposing “to transfer Jewish refugees [from the Habsburg capital] to camps in Moravia.” (Arthur J. May, The Passing of the Habsburg Monarchy 1914–1918, 2 vol., [Philadelphia, 1996], 2:311). Evidently the emperor was of another mind. On learning of Weiskirchner's proposal, Francis Joseph remarked, “If Vienna has no more room for refugees, I shall make Schönbrunn available for my Jewish subjects” (quoted in May, 311). Mertens observes elsewhere that “the anti-Semitism of the Christian Socialists grew more measured about 1905, and the ‘ideological’ hostility towards Jews was replaced by more pragmatic positions” (74). In December 1905—after pogroms broke out in Russia and Austrian Socialists demonstrated for the universal franchise—the Deutsches Volksblatt reported that at a demonstration Lueger warned “Jewish Social Democrats … not to go as far as their co-religionists in Russia … for if the Jews should threaten our fatherland, then we will show no mercy” (6 December 1905, 6).

As I have noted in Karl Lueger: Mayor of Fin de Siècle Vienna, Lueger's remarks prompted an interpellation in a municipal council session against “‘legally prohibited incitement against a religious community’” (Detroit, 1990, 200). Two years later, after it became apparent that the power of the Social Democrats was increasing at the expense of the Christian Socialists, Social Democrat Franz Schuhmeier remarked, as cited by Steven Beller in “Lueger's Old Pastime” that “up to now Lueger has been able to claim that ‘I am master of Vienna.’ Now he can no longer do this. So he has to turn to his old pastime—the Jews” (Times Literary Supplement, 28 June 1996, 30). Weiskirchner was a “statesman,” Mertens concludes, and attempts to balance Weiskirchner's attacks on the “impudent Jewish press” with accusations of too “much ‘friendliness toward Jews’ from his own ranks” (246). In the final analysis, Weiskirchner's true impact has to be measured against the continuing legacy of anti-Semitic hatred, which he scarcely dampened.