Museum Plans During the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg Dictatorship

During the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship, the Vienna Hofburg became the central site where antidemocratic ideology could be symbolically tied to a nationalist idealisation of Austria’s history. In the First Republic, the institution known today as the Museum of Military History was already staking a claim to the Neue Burg. However, these attempts met with no success during the democratic phase. It was only under the dictatorship that things changed. To mark the inauguration of the Austrian Heroes’ Monument at the Castle Gate in 1934, the vice-mayor of Vienna, Fritz Lahr, spoke publicly of plans to move the then Army Museum from the Vienna Arsenal into the Hofburg. This idea was actively promoted through media campaigns over the following years of the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship. The Army Museum was in a less prominent location in the Arsenal and its visitor numbers were low. The representatives of the museum lobbied for a move to the Hofburg to create a “priceless institution for the patriotic historical instruction of the youth”. At the same time, they wanted to see a bringing-together of the Heldenplatz, Army Museum, Heroes’ Monument, Museum Quarter and Hofburg, along with the traditions of the Imperial Army to form a supposedly crucial unity.

For the dictatorship, drawing on history in this way was an attempt at a justification: the Habsburg past was presented as an obligation on the present, while democracy and the Republic were presented as mistakes. The former imperial residence took on a central role in the myth-making about “Old Austria”.

In 1936 the rooms on the first floor were revoked from the Art Historical Museum and, in line with the campaign, promised to the Army Museum. Preliminary work began on a museum of the First World War here, which stoked the rivalry between the two institutions. For strategic reasons, the Art Historical Museum had started moving its weapons collection from the main building on Maria-Theresien-Platz to the corps de logis of the Neue Burg in 1934, and the new exhibition was opened in 1936. The weapons were displayed in a way intended to symbolise chivalry and masculinity: the dashing, noble Austrian soldier was one of the core elements of Habsburg nostalgia. This figure provided a solid-seeming basis in history for the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship’s ideas of masculinity, illustrating its backward-looking concept of society that justified the destruction of democracy and the Republic. In the rivalry of the institutions, the Art Historical Museum occupied important parts of the building, using the exhibition to stake its claim. The Army Museum, by contrast, never got past the planning phase with its ideas for a World War Museum. When the Anschluss (“annexation”) took place in March 1938, the first floor of the Neue Burg was reassigned to the Art Historical Museum on Adolf Hitler’s instructions.

The black-and-white photograph shows the view into the marble hall. The ceiling is decorated with stucco, the walls with marble.

The black-and-white photograph shows an oblique view from the Neue Burg onto the Äußeres Burgtor. In the foreground, numerous members of the military (with horses) and visitors. On the roof of the Burgtor the guests of honour at the consecration.

The cartoon shows the relocation of the weapons collection in several images - it is only a few steps from the Kunsthistorisches Museum across the Ringstraße to the Neue Burg. One man is wearing armour on his back, in another scene everyone - including the armour - is wearing roller skates to cross the Ringstrasse quickly.

View into the hall of the Corps de logis, where numerous suits of armour are stored.

The photograph shows a page from the catalogue of the weapons collection with an illustration of a horseman's armour of Emperor Maximilian I on an equipped steed.

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