Monarchy. In 1906 he was appointed Minister of Railways in the Beck Cabinet, and in this capacity advocated the nationalization of the railways.
After resigning as Minister in 1908, he became president of the Austrian
Lloyd. He died on 3 February 1924 in Vienna.
Alfred Gürtler, the son of a manufacturer in Deutsch-Gabel, was born
on 30 October 1875. He studied law, habilitated in 1907 in Graz in statistics,
political economy, and Austrian financial law, and was named professor in
ordinary in 1917. He was nominated in 1919 as a candidate of the Christian Social Association for the constituent National Assembly and was elected from the electoral district of Graz. In September 1919 he accompanied
Karl Renner to the peace negotiations in St. Germain. Prof. Gürtler was
Finance Minister in the Schober Cabinet in 1921/22, Landeshauptmann
of
Styria in 1926/27, and President of the National Council from 1928 to 1930.
He died on 16 March 1933 in Graz.
Reinhold Machold was born on 11 November 1879 in Bielitz (Silesia); his
father was a professional musician. As a skilled typesetter, he soon came in
contact with the labour movement, to which he contributed bis organizational abilities. After a long „wanderyear" period, he finally settled in Graz.
Here he became chairman of the Social Democratic Party. In 1910, Macbold
was named deputy director of the Party enterprises, and in 1916 director of
the Styrian consumers' co-operatives. After the fall of the Third Reich, finally, Machold held the position of Landeshauptmann.
He died in Graz on
6 February 1961.
GERMANY AND ITS
„MITTELEUROPA"
Paul
POLICY
Kluke
T h e „Mitteleuropa" concept is, first of all, geographical in character, but
even its territorial delimitation raises difficultes. In the mid-19th Century,
Freiherr von Bruk and Paul Lagarde were the first to broach the idea of a
Central European order centered on Germany. However, this idea could not
manage to penetrate the German policy-making sphere — not even in the
second half of the 19th Century. Bismarck founded his policy on hard facts
that could be readily grasped, coupling this with the broad recognition of
the existing powers.
Only during the First World War did a political „Mitteleuropa" conception
emerge among the leadership of the German Empire, but although it became
the heart of the German program of war aims, it was never thought out in
detail. T h e English blockade led leading figures in the German economic
World to the idea of aiming at a Germany strengthened by „Mitteleuropa",
which would be capable of asserting itself alongside the Great Powers of
Great Britain and Russia. Rathenau wanted to achieve a settlement with
France, by which it could be included in the large-scale economic region
that was to be set up. This economic Community of Central Europe, whose
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members were technically to be equal, was designed to establish German eco­
nomic pre-eminence. Toward the end of the First World War, the economic
„Mitteleuropa" concept was included as far as the North Cape and Sicily, and
also embraced Poland.
I n 1915, the chief of the General Staff, General Falkenhayn, advocated >—
mainly as a tactical war measure — the creation of a Central European confederation, but was ünable to get it adopted. T h e Austro-Polish Solution
toward which the imperial leadership had inclined in 1915 was subsequently
abandoned for fear of a Slavic preponderance in the Austrian monarchy.
Friedrich Naumann's „Mitteleuropa" book, which appeared in the latě fall
of 1915, popularized the „Mitteleuropa" idea among large circles of the
population. Naumann's „Mitteleuropa" was to be a supreme economic and
military statě whose members would retain their sovereignty. Despite the
popularity of Naumann's book, the leadership of the German Empire held
on to its vague ,Mitteleuropa' ideas, to which the Supreme Command associated itself with the national-political ideas of Ludendorff.
On the other hand, Naumann's book provided the Western enemies of the
Central Powers with political ammunition. I t was then the Western ideologies
of Liberalism and the right of self-determination as well as the bolshevistic
revolution which determined the final phase of the World War.
After the collapse of the Central Powers, the German government was for
years impotent and incapable of pursuing any active policy of its own. T h e
unification of all Germans and the protection of the German minorities in
the new national states supplanted the „Mitteleuropa" idea in the forefront
of attention. Stresemann's foreign policy successes then enabled Hitler to
make his Volkstum and minorities policies appear credible abroad. T h e T h i r d
Reich propagated no „Mitteleuropa" idea pí its own in the strict sense of
the word.
AUSTRIA AND CENTRAL
Hugo
EUROPE
Hantsch
T h e events of the year 1848 raised the question of a reconstitution of Ger­
many. I n the Frankfurt Parliament, the conservative supranational Austrian
imperial idea clashed with the liberal idea of the national statě. Although no
reorganization could be achieved in Frankfurt, the Prussian kleindeutsch con­
cept was eventually realized, and Schwarzenberg's project, which made allowances for the national problems of the Austrian monarchy, was repudiated.
T h e differences in the interests of Austria and the German Confederation
were already apparent in the Crimean W a r and the war with PiedmontSardinia.
After the Battle of Königgrätz, Prussian Opposition thwarted Austrian participation in a Central European economic systém, by eliminating Austria
from the German Confederation, Austria's membership and pre-eminence in
the German Confederation had been an expression of continuity with the old
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