1920: Austria’s First Federal Government

The first years of the First Republic were contradictory: In Parliament (the “Constituent National Assembly”) the constitution was successfully being worked on and the parties were jointly developing viable structures for the long-term policies and administration of the state. The short-term issues, however, were explosive and so no government stayed in office very long.

The first governments of the new state of German Austrian (officially the Republic of Austria as of October 1919) were coalitions of the Social Democrats and the Christian Socials with the Social Democrat Karl Renner as Chancellor, which, however, soon failed. While the constitution for the new state was still being worked on, the Christian Social Michael Mayr became Chancellor on July 7, 1920 in a government that had been put together according to the principle of proportional representation, that is, representatives of all parliamentary parties. The ministries of finance, nutrition and transport were staffed by experts who did not belong to any party. This approach was familiar to the acting politicians – it had also been common practice during the late years of the Habsburg monarchy.

After the new constitution came into effect on November 10, 1920, the status of Mayr’s government also changed: The state government became the first official federal government, and Michael Mayr became the first Federal Chancellor of the Republic. At this time, the Social Democrat members of government had already stepped down out of protest and gone to the opposition. Following the first regular National Council elections, Mayr became Chancellor again, but the government, which had been elected by the conservative and German National members of parliament, also quickly failed in this new scenario – in total, this government did not even stay in office for a full year. Mayr was followed by the Vienna chief of police, Johann Schober, a non-party Chancellor whose government was still supported by Christian Socials and German Nationals.