Austria-Hungary: The Death of the Crown Prince and the Reaction

Deutsche Post, vol. 3, no. 10

(our own report) Vienna, March 2.

The tenth budget debate under the Taaffe ministry is just beginning. What will it bring us? Severe accusations against the government from the benches of the left, complaints from those of the right emphasizing that they support this government because nothing better is available from the majority. This ministry has no fundamental support anywhere. Then the budget will be approved by a large majority and Taaffe will continue to 'rule'. He is a telling example of how the inability of a person often has something in common with genius, namely that it is often irreplaceable. Indeed, Taaffe can do something that would be difficult for a truly talented man in Austria: he can stay in his post. But these last words are not to be interpreted as if we wanted to make any concessions to the inactivity into which the German opposition is increasingly falling. The political inactivity of the Germans in Austria is simply dismal, and the role they play must, if it continues, be a miserable one. How long will it take before the Germans here become truly politically mature? The number of those who understand that it is the German idea, first and foremost, that every German must serve, and that it is nothing short of sacrilegious to make completely insignificant, subordinate issues into the figureheads of parties, is dwindling. Such a course of action would lead us completely into political quagmire and is doubly dangerous now, when a harrowing event in our royal house has significantly changed the political situation. In the late Crown Prince, we had a prince who was truly friendly to education and a fighter for truth and light in the best sense of the word. We saw from his various public addresses how powerfully he felt about unadulterated truth free from authority, and how unfeigned this feeling was can be seen from the recently published letters to his former teacher of natural sciences, Dr. Jos. Krist. One had the conviction that the Crown Prince was a powerful bulwark against any reaction. When he exposed the spiritualist fraud Bastian some time ago, he did so, as he himself said, with the specific intention of doing something against superstition in the higher circles. The hope of education was with this prince. Now he is gone, and already the fateful influences of the reactionary powers are revealing themselves before our eyes. The confessors are at the top. We are exposed to the danger of a terrible regression. It is no longer considered taboo to openly state that there is a serious flaw in the liberal education of the crown prince, and high-ranking church leaders boast that they raised their warning voice in time and in a decisive manner against the irreligious influence of modern researchers on the mind of the Austrian heir to the throne.

It was distressing to go out on the streets of Vienna in the days when the sad news from Mayerling came. Everywhere one saw signs of the deepest sympathy for the unfortunate prince. People who had never known each other addressed each other in the streets to communicate their shock. But leaving aside all these outbursts of emotion, and the loyalty and attachment of the Austrian peoples to their imperial house, and looking at the matter objectively, the death of Crown Prince Rudolf is the most serious blow that could have hit progress in Austria. We looked to the future with joy when we saw the chivalrous prince among scholars and researchers in the pursuit of science. This prospect has now died with him.

Now we are once again completely dependent on ourselves. Crown Prince Rudolf was thoroughly pro-education, but he was also no supporter of Taaffe's system of government. We must now fight our fight against reaction without such a powerful protector. This event should, however, serve as further proof to the Germans that unity alone can lead them out of the doubt in which they find themselves.

Steiner