30 Facts About Bruno Kreisky

Bruno Kreisky was born in Margareten, a district of Vienna, to a non-observant Jewish family.

Bruno Kreisky's parents were Max Kreisky and Irene Kreisky nee Felix.

Bruno Kreisky was arrested in January 1935 and convicted of high treason, but was released in June 1936.

In March 1938 the Austrian state was incorporated into Germany through the Anschluss, and in September Bruno Kreisky escaped the Nazi persecution of Austrian Jews and the coming Holocaust by emigrating to Sweden, where he remained until 1945.

Bruno Kreisky returned to Austria in May 1946, but he was back in Stockholm, assigned to the Austrian legation.

Bruno Kreisky was elected to the Austrian parliament, the Nationalrat, as a Socialist during the 1956 election.

Bruno Kreisky 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.

Bruno Kreisky played a leading role in setting up the European Free Trade Association, helped solve the South Tyrol question with Italy, and proposed a "Marshall Plan" for the countries of the Third World.

Bruno Kreisky resigned from cabinet, and the OVP formed the first one-party government of the Second Republic.

In February 1967, Bruno Kreisky was elected chairman of the Socialist Party.

Bruno Kreisky became the first Socialist Chancellor since 1920, heading the first purely left-wing government in modern Austrian history.

Bruno Kreisky's government was tolerated by the then national-liberal Freedom Party in return for electoral reforms that expanded the Nationalrat and increased the proportionality of votes.

Bruno Kreisky was reelected in 1975 and 1979 elections, each time winning comfortable majorities in the Nationalrat.

Bruno Kreisky turned 70 in 1981, and by this time the voters had become increasingly uncomfortable with what they saw as his complacency and preoccupation with international issues.

Bruno Kreisky declined to form a minority government and resigned, nominating Fred Sinowatz, his Minister of Education, as his successor.

Bruno Kreisky's health was declining, and in 1984 he had an emergency kidney transplant.

Bruno Kreisky reformed Austria's family law and its prisons, and he decriminalized abortion and homosexuality.

Bruno Kreisky promised to reduce the mandatory military service from nine to six months.

Bruno Kreisky's government established language rights for the country's Slovene and Croatian minorities.

The educational sector was significantly expanded under Bruno Kreisky, greatly increasing the numbers of Austrians receiving a university education.

Bruno Kreisky questioned Zionism as a solution to the problems faced by the Jewish people, claiming that Jews were not an ethnic group or race, but rather a religious group.

Bruno Kreisky even equated claims of the existence of the Jewish people as a distinctive nationality to Nazi claims of a Jewish race, and suggested that such ideas raised questions about Jewish dual loyalty.

Bruno Kreisky referred to Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin as a terrorist, and had a stormy relationship with Israeli prime minister Golda Meir especially during the 1973 hostage taking.

Bruno Kreisky was notable for his allegedly apologetic approach to former Nazi party members and contemporary far-right Austrian politicians.

For example, Bruno Kreisky described far-right populist Jorg Haider as "a political talent worth watching".

Bruno Kreisky felt that he had never personally suffered as a Jew, but only as a socialist.

When Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal reported that these four members of Bruno Kreisky's cabinet were former Nazis, Bruno Kreisky did not remove them from the government, though one did resign.

Bruno Kreisky responded that everybody had the right to make political mistakes in their youth.

Later in his life Bruno Kreisky tried to help some Soviet dissidents.

Today, Bruno Kreisky's chancellorship is the subject of both controversy and nostalgia.