| Born: | 04-10-1907 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Deprivation of academic degree |
Günther (Max Ferdinand Franz) BUXBAUM (born in Vienna on April 10th, 1907), the son of Salomon Buxbaum (1864–1917?, merchant) and Ludmilla Anna Buxbaum, née Tuček (1888–1949, gramophone shop), had studied Romance languages and literature at the University of Vienna and earned his doctorate from the Philosophical School on May 6th, 1931 (dissertation: "The Literary Problem of Dadaism") and had been awarded the academic degree of "Dr. phil." (PhD).
On July 7th, 1936, he married the Viennese commercial correspondent Herta Klein (1913–1966), who had converted from Judaism to Catholicism shortly before, in the Votivkirche. He lived with his mother in Vienna's 9th district, Garnisongasse 24 and worked as a high school teacher in Innsbruck and Vienna.
In 1936 he was entrusted by the Austrofascist Vienna city administration with the management of the communalized workers' libraries of the city of Vienna. He acted in a particularly system-conformist manner there, organizing the operation according to authoritarian criteria, pursuing a rigid purge of literature that went far beyond the guidelines of Austrofascism, and attempting to include "Jews" as a special category of readers (which he was ultimately unable to enforce). He rejected applications from Jewish librarians, however, despite a lack of personnel.
After the Anschluss he himself was persecuted, both as a representative of the Austrofascist system and as a Jewish "Mischling 1. Grades", although since birth Roman Catholic. Konfession (his father was considered a Jew by the National Socialists, his wife a Jewess) and thus a victim of the exclusion criteria of the National Socialists and had to flee Austria.
He and his wife managed to escape into exile in France and were subsequently expatriated from the German Reich and expropriated.
On September 11th, 1943, he was then also deprived of his academic degree on racist grounds, as he was considered "as a Jew unworthy of an academic degree from a German university" under National Socialism.
He returned to Vienna with his wife in 1945 after the liberation of Austria and became a high school professor at the Vienna Akademische Gymnasium and also worked as a writer ("Das Haus der Illusionen" and "Das Lied der Stummen" premiered at the Burgtheater in 1955 and at the Volkstheater in 1956). In 1955 he received the Austrian Prize for Literature, and his literary estate is kept in the Vienna Library in the City Hall.
It was not until 12 years after the revocation and long after the end of National Socialism that his doctoral degree was restored to him on May 15th, 1955, or rather the revocation was declared "null and void from the beginning," though without notifying him of this.
He died on September 1st, 1969 in Vienna and is buried at the cemetery Neustift im Walde in Vienna's 18th district.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/graduation register ("Promotionsprotokoll") PHIL 1922–1931 No 2452, rectorate GZ 151 ex 1942/43, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 No 15; Alfred PFOSER, Literatur und Austromarxismus, Vienna 1980; Gisela KOLAR, Ein "Vorspiel": Die Wiener Arbeiterbüchereien im Austrofaschismus, ungedr. phil. Dipl. Univ. Wien, Vienna 2008, bes. 80–125; POSCH 2009, 401; Heimo GRUBER, Die Entfernung der juedischen Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare aus den Arbeiterbuechereien der Stadt Wien, in: Wiener Geschichtsblaetter, 78 (2023), 91–104; www.genteam.at; www.myheritage.at; www.ancestry.de; information courtesy by Heimo Gruber, Vienna 09/2023.
Herbert Posch
