Oliver Rathkolb: Der lange Schatten des Antisemitismus und des Nationalsozialismus und die Geschichte der Wiener Secession 1898-1955

in the Secession’s main hall
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna

Univ.-Prof. DDr. Oliver Rathkolb

The Long Shadow of Anti-Semitism and National Socialism 

and the History of the Vienna Secession, 1898–1955

A lecture on the unexplored political history of the Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession

in German

Words of welcome: Ramesch Daha, president, Secession

Introductory words: Veronica Kaup-Hasler, Executive City Councillor for Cultural Affairs and Science

Lecture: Univ.-Prof. DDr. Oliver Rathkolb with the collaboration of Mag. Stephan Turmalin & Konstantin Schischka (B.Ed. B.A. MEd MA)

The board of the Secession commissioned Oliver Rathkolb to conduct a comprehensive review of materials in the Secession’s historical archive.

Implementing an innovative shift of perspective, the lecture analyzes the political attitudes of central protagonists and artists of the Vienna Secession—from its early days under the Habsburg monarchy through the First Republic, the Dollfuß-Schuschnigg dictatorship, and the National Socialist reign of terror to its repercussions in the early Second Republic and during the reconstruction of the Secession. Women, who were barred from membership until 1949, mostly come into consideration in analyses of exhibitions. Network analysis, a tool of contemporary historiography, helps reconstruct the influence of anti-Semitism as a negative criterion in exhibition curating and the association’s politics and membership as well as the consequences of such racist attitudes during the various regime changes down to the Second Republic. The discussion of artists as political agents during National Socialism is enhanced by a pioneering longitudinal study of the previous and subsequent history of group-focused enmity and anti-Semitism, allowing for a much more probing and extensive analysis and interpretation that looks beyond the years 1938–1945 and traces the phenomena in question back to the final phase of the monarchy. The shift of perspective and expanded time horizon yield novel and in many ways unexpected insights.