Karl Renner in Europe

Karl Renner (1870-1950), Austrian politician and first President of the country, was born on Dec. 14 1870, the son of a peasant, at Unter-Tannowitz, Moravia. He studied law at the university of Vienna, occupying himself especially with questions of administration, and early attached himself to the Social Democratic party. He became an official in the library of the Reichsrat, and under the pseudonyms of “Synopticus” and “Rudolf Springer” showed a fertile literary activity, especially in connexion with the problems of the Austrian State, whose existence he justified on geographical, economic and political grounds. On the nationality question he upheld the so-called “personal autonomy,” on the basis of which the super-national state should develop, and thereby influenced the programme and tactics of the Social Democratic party in dealing with it. As a theorist he was reckoned as one of the leaders of Neo-Marxism. He had been a deputy since 1907 and after the revolution of Oct. 1918 he became state chancellor of the republic of Austria, headed the Austrian peace delegation at St. Germain, and took over, after Otto Bauer’s retirement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which he conducted from the time of the retirement of the Coalition Cabinet in the summer of 1920 until the new elections in Oct. 1920.

In April 1945, just before the end of the II World War, Renner set up a Provisional Government in Vienna with other politicians from three revived parties. On a declaration of April 27 this Provisional Government separated Austria from Germany and campaigned for the country to be acknowledged as an independent republic. In late 1945, he was elected the first President of the Second Republic.

His principal works are: — Grundlagen und Entwicklungsziele der oesterreichischen-ungarischen Monarchie (1906); Der Kampf der oesterreichischen Nationen um den Staat; Marxismus, Krieg und Internationale.