Martin Fuchs
| Born: |
09-26-1903 |
| Faculty: |
Law School |
| Category: |
Deprivation of academic degree |
Martin FUCHS, born on September 26
th, 1903 in Vienna, died on October 1
st, 1969 in Vienna, had obtained the degree of "Dr. iur." on July 20
th, 1926 at the School of Law of the University of Vienna.
Martin Fuchs, son of writer and public servant ("Ministerialrat") in the foreign state office Dr. Bernhard Fuchs (1873-1932) and Emilie Fuchs, née Gruenmann, started to stuy law after graduating from high school in the summer of 1921, at the School of Law and Political Science of the University of Vienna and, after receiving his doctorate in 1926, continued his legal studies at the universities of Paris and Grenoble in the academic year 1926/27.
From 1927 to 1936, he was employed by the
Official News Service ("
Amtlichen Nachrichtenstelle") in Paris, then spent a year in the
Federal Press Office before becoming Head of the
Press, Information and Cultural Department of the Austrian Embassy in Paris/France as Press Attaché in July 1937.
After the "
Anschluss" of Austria to Hitler's Germany in March 1938, the convinced legitimist, who belonged to the émigré circle around Otto Habsburg, resigned from the diplomatic service and civil service for political reasons at the end of March, renounced German citizenship and emigrated to France, where he organized a conservative resistance group together with the former ministers of the Schuschnigg government Hans Rott, Ruediger von Starhemberg and Guido Zernatto. An essential propagandistic element of this group was the radio station he founded, the "
Oesterreichische Freiheitssender" in Fécamp in Normandy (in which
Robert Albert Bauer (1910-2003) also participated). Two hours of programming, mostly political cabaret and slogans, are broadcast daily.
Negotiations with Julius Deutsch and the
Organisationskomitee der oesterreichischen Sozialdemokraten under Karl Hartl and others, which had split off from the
Revolutionären Sozialisten, to form an official Austrian general representation in Paris with representatives of all political tendencies except Communists fail.
Together with Klaus Dohrn, Dr. Martin Fuchs published the organ of the Legitimists in France, the "
Oesterreichische Post", which was published in Paris from December 1938 until the beginning of the war. Thanks to a large number of well-known journalists and writers (Alfred Polgar, Joseph Roth, Friedrich Torberg, Franz Werfel, Roda Roda, Carl Zuckmayer, Stefan Zweig, and others), the Österreichische Post was of considerable literary quality. He also initiated the Austria broadcasts on "
Radio Paris" in 1939 and wrote the book published in New York "
Showdown in Vienna. The death of Austria" (1939).
In September 1940 Martin Fuchs emigrated from occupied France to the United States, where he became chairman of the "
Young Conservative Party" and in 1942 served as a board member of the "
Austrian National Committee" (ANC) and worked in the "
Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs" at the State Department.
In times of Nazism he was deprived of his academic degree on May 8
th, 1941 by the University of Vienna on racist grounds.
Rehabilitated in 1945, Martin Fuchs remained head of the Austrian
section
of "International Broadcasting Division" of the
State Departement until 1947, and in the first postwar years designed the program of the "
Voice of America" for Austria. At the end of 1947 he returned to Austria and re-entered the diplomatic service, first at the Austrian Consulate General in New York/USA (February 1948 to March 1952) after a few months at the Federal Chancellery in Vienna then as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, later as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Brussels/Belgium (1953-1958), was Secretary General for Foreign Affairs in the Foreign Ministry in Vienna from 1958-1962, and the last years (1962-1969) then as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Paris/France
.
It took 62 years since the deprivation - and a very long time since the end of Nazism - until the regranting of the doctorate took finally place on April 10
th, 2003 posthumously in a solemn ceremony.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna, enrollment forms ("Nationale") IUR 1921-1926, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") IUR 1924-1939, Nr. 442; DOeW E 19.1512; legacy Martin Fuchs at the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna; ROEDER 1980, 206f.; LANGENBUCHER/HAUSJELL 1995; BLUMESBERGER 2002, 395; POSCH/STADLER 2005; POSCH 2009, 274, 414f.; Rudolf AGSTNER, Gertrude ENDERLE-BURCEL u. Michaela FOLLNER, DOeW, Hg., Oesterreichs Spitzendiplomaten zwischen Kaiser und Kreisky. Biographisches Handbuch der Diplomaten des Hoeheren Auswaertigen Dienstes 1918 bis 1959, Wien 2009, 201-202, 599; Christian H. STIFTER, Zwischen geistiger Erneuerung und Restauration. US-amerikanische Planungen zur Entnazifizierung und demokratischen Neuorientierung oesterreichischer Wissenschaft 1941–1955, Wien 2014, 113; Obituary in Wiener Zeitung from October 4th, 1969, 2 .
Herbert Posch
