Leopold Figl


Leopold Figl was an Austrian politician of the Austrian People's Party and the first Chancellor after World War II. As foreign minister, he subsequently took part in the negotiations on the Austrian State Treaty, which he signed in 1955.

Life

Born a farmer's son in the Lower Austrian village of Rust im Tullnerfeld, Figl after graduation as Dipl.-Ing. of Agriculture at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna became vice chair of the Lower Austrian Bauernbund in 1931 and chairman in 1933. In 1930, Figl married Hilde Hemala and had two children.
After the authoritarian revolution of Engelbert Dollfuss, which led to the Ständestaat dictatorship, Figl became a member of the council of economic policy and leader of the paramilitary organisation of Ostmärkische Sturmscharen in Lower Austria.
After the Anschluss, the Nazis deported Figl to Dachau concentration camp in 1938 due to his prominent position in the Ständestaat. He was released in May 1943 and subsequently worked as an oil engineer. In October 1944, he was rearrested and taken to Mauthausen concentration camp. On 21 January 1945, he was brought back to Vienna together with the later executed resistance fighter Heinrich Maier. The folder of his dossier was marked with the abbreviation 'VG' indicating that a Volksgerichtshof trial, often ending with a death penalty, was planned or in preparation. Figl was released on 6 April 1945, when the Soviet Army took Vienna.
During Allied-occupied Austria, the Soviet military commander, Fyodor Tolbukhin, asked Figl to manage the provision of food for the population of Vienna.
On 14 April 1945 he refounded the Bauernbund and integrated it into the Austrian People's Party, which was founded three days later. On 27 April he became interim Governor of Lower Austria as well as co-vice chancellor of the country.
At the first free elections since 1930, 1945 [Austria legislative election|held in December 1945], the ÖVP won with 49.8 percent of the vote and an absolute majority of seats in the legislature. Figl was proposed as Chancellor; the Soviets agreed, because of his opposition to the Nazis and his managerial abilities. Although he could have formed an exclusively ÖVP government, the memories of the factionalism that had plagued the First Republic led him to continue the grand coalition between the People's Party, Socialists and Communists. The coalition, remained in office until 1966 and did much to solve the serious economic and social problems left over from World War II.
After internal criticism, Figl resigned as Chancellor on 26 November 1953. His successor, Julius Raab, was less flexible towards the SPÖ, but was Chancellor when the Austrian State Treaty, which restored sovereignty to the country, was signed on 15 May 1955. However, Figl was strongly involved in its achievement, as he remained in the government as foreign minister. His appearance on the balcony of Belvedere Palace waving the signed paper and speaking the words Österreich ist frei!, as rendered by the Wochenschau newsreel, has become an icon in the Austrian national remembrance.
At the national elections of 1959, the SPÖ gained ground on the ÖVP, and the ratio of seats between the two parties in parliament was now almost 1:1. This gave the SPÖ the bargaining power to demand that Bruno Kreisky succeed him as foreign minister. Figl served as president of the National Council from 1959-1962, but soon returned to Lower Austria, to become governor of his home state.
Figl was patron of the Pfadfinder Österreichs between 1960 and 1964 and president of the Scout association from 1964 until his death.
He died from kidney cancer in 1965 in Vienna, and is buried in an Ehrengrab at the Zentralfriedhof. His son Johannes was International Commissioner of the Pfadfinder Österreichs and president of the Pfadfinder und Pfadfinderinnen Österreichs from 1994 to 2000.

Honours and awards

Various locations have been named for Figl: