46 Facts About Ernst Streeruwitz

Ernst Streeruwitz's childhood was colored by the dissonance between the family's ancient loyalty to the House of Habsburg and its newfound pan-Germanism.

The youngest son was perpetually sickly, but Ernst Streeruwitz was groomed for a career in diplomacy by his father.

Ernst Streeruwitz completed elementary school with distinction and so attended the local gymnasium on a scholarship.

Two years before Ernst Streeruwitz graduated from the gymnasium in 1892 his father died.

Ernst Streeruwitz's mother saw no hope of getting the son admitted into the diplomatic service without the late patriarch's political connections and so persuaded Streeruwitz to join the army instead.

Ernst Streeruwitz received excellent evaluations from his superior officers and was encouraged to sit the entrance exam for the War College, graduating from which would have all but guaranteed a stellar career.

Ernst Streeruwitz took the exam in 1899 and passed with flying colors.

Ernst Streeruwitz lost his faith in his ability to withstand the rigors of military life and applied to be granted reservist status.

Friedrich Franz Joseph von Leitenberger, a fellow Bohemian officer whom Ernst Streeruwitz has befriended during his time as a lieutenant of the dragoons, hired Ernst Streeruwitz as a technical consultant as soon as the latter's transfer to the reserve was final.

Ernst Streeruwitz reorganized Leitenberger's obsolete textile printing plant in Josefsthal with some success and was made the manager of the factory in 1902.

Ernst Streeruwitz clashed with the company's new owners as well as with their bankers.

Still in poor health and unfit for service at the front, Ernst Streeruwitz spent the war as an administrator.

Ernst Streeruwitz helped reorganize the military mail service, worked to ensure the humane treatment of Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war, organized the use of enemy prisoners as agricultural laborers, co-edited a newspaper for captive Russians, and wrote a five-volume book on legal issues surrounding prisoners of war.

Ernst Streeruwitz was considered highly competent and was decorated several times.

Ernst Streeruwitz experienced the collapse of the empire as a personal catastrophe.

Ernst Streeruwitz returned to his native Bohemia; in his autobiography, he would later claim that "Bolshevik emissaries" in Vienna had threatened to murder both him and his family.

Ernst Streeruwitz nevertheless moved to Vienna a third time when it became clear that the Republic of Austria would not be able to press home its claim to the majority-German parts of Bohemia.

Ernst Streeruwitz resumed his management position in Neunkirchen and went on to prove himself a capable organizer yet again.

Ernst Streeruwitz soon became the chairman of the employers' association of the Lower Austrian textile industry and the association's representative in the Federation of Austrian Industries.

In terms of policy, Ernst Streeruwitz believed that the answer to Austria's economic troubles was increased productivity; that belief led him to oppose social measures such as working time reductions and to advocate for a hard line against strikers.

The Social Democrats quickly became convinced that Ernst Streeruwitz was an enemy of the working class.

In 1924, Ernst Streeruwitz was appointed the chief curator of the Lower Austrian regional mortgage bank, a struggling lender of vital importance to the region's agricultural sector.

Ernst Streeruwitz agreed to be added to the Christian Social candidates, pursuant to the agreement, and was elected to the National Council.

Except for his strong dislike for Marxism and his opposition to Social Democratic labour policy, Ernst Streeruwitz was ideologically at odds with his party.

Whereas Austrian independence had gradually become one of the Christian Social Party's defining platform planks, Ernst Streeruwitz continued to support the integration of Austria into the German Reich.

Ernst Streeruwitz looked down on the, which was the Christian Socials' core constituency and the faction's main source of recruits.

Ernst Streeruwitz criticised his caucus for what he thought of as its lack of unity and discipline; he ridiculed its members for their poverty.

Ernst Streeruwitz helped draft a number of significant statutes and published numerous opinion pieces arguing his policy positions.

Ernst Streeruwitz won, and in 1925, significant customs barriers were put in place.

The lasting enmity of Rintelen that Ernst Streeruwitz thus earned for himself would later contribute to his downfall.

Still an outsider with no credible personal power base, Ernst Streeruwitz abruptly became chancellor in May 1929.

The coalition government that he led included the Christian Social Party, the German Nationalists and the Landbund, an alliance so broad that Ernst Streeruwitz could govern without Heimwehr support or toleration.

In practice, the cabinet that Ernst Streeruwitz had managed to assemble was tantamount to a capitulation to Heimwehr demands.

Ideological disputes should be settled, Ernst Streeruwitz declared, by the people's elected delegates, not by extraparliamentary force.

Ernst Streeruwitz petitioned his old industrialist allies to cut off the funding they had been providing to the Heimwehr, but the industrialists declined.

When Ernst Streeruwitz left Austria to represent the country at the Tenth General Assembly of the League of Nations, his opponents used his absence to co-ordinate his overthrow and to agree on a successor.

Ernst Streeruwitz did not stand for election to the National Council again; his tenure as a legislator thus ended with the 1930 legislative elections.

Ernst Streeruwitz traveled, lectured, and campaigned for the integration of Austria into the German Reich.

In 1927, Ernst Streeruwitz had been elected deputy chairman of the Chamber of Commerce.

Ernst Streeruwitz supported the Austrofascist corporate state model of governance but only if he did not have to worry about the existence and influence of his chamber.

The Christian Social party and later the Fatherland Front occasionally hinted that Ernst Streeruwitz was being considered for a political comeback but ultimately removed him even from his position as the chairman of the chamber.

Consistent in his pan-Germanism, Ernst Streeruwitz supported both the 1936 July Accords, an agreement between Austria and the Reich that turned the former into a vassal state of the latter, and the 1938 Anschluss, the military invasion that finally ended Austria's existence as a sovereign state altogether.

Ernst Streeruwitz approached the Nazi German government and offered his assistance, but the Nazis declined.

Ernst Streeruwitz resumed his studies at the University of Vienna, graduating with a doctorate in political science in 1939.

In 1950, Ernst Streeruwitz suffered a stroke that left him permanently impaired.

Ernst Streeruwitz was just one of several heads of government who fell short of even that.