This research project examines the processes of fascization in Vienna following the Great Depression starting in 1929. It aims to present a social history of fascism in the city, using four biographies to illustrate the articulation and practices of communal fascism and the assertion of fascist hegemony.
The Great Depression of the 1930s led to a redefinition of social and political landscapes amidst mass unemployment and existential hardship. A fundamental cultural antisemitism merged with potent resentments against democracy, which was seen as incapable of solving economic and social problems. Totalitarian civil religions, culminating in fascism, replaced liberal social utopias. This research project focuses on the processes of fascization in the wake of the global economic crisis from 1929, aiming to present a social history of fascism in Vienna, employing the methods and principles of recent cultural studies. Vienna, a metropolis considered by Hitler as an "embodiment of racial defilement" and a "judaised racial conglomerate," serves as the case study. Four biographies (Hermann Neubacher, Josef Bürckel, Baldur von Schirach, Hanns Blaschke) are intended to exemplify the articulations and practices of a communal fascism, as well as the concrete processes of "urban fascization." The project is part of a larger VGA research focus on "Crises and Crisis Resolution Strategies in the Thirties."
