ÖStA (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv [Wien]), AVA (Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv), MdI (Ministerium des Inneren), Praes., 19, Kt. 1862, 19093/1914 Bekämpfung der Kriegsschäden für die Angehörigen der Wehrmacht und ihre Familien. /: Militärversorgungsgesetze und Anregung einer präventiven Hilfsaktion:/ pp. 5–8, at p.1.
These were Prime Minister Karl Stürgkh’s opening words to outline the Cisleithanian administration’s new duties concerning the welfare for disabled soldiers and surviving dependents in December 1914. According to him, welfare for disabled veterans of the Austro-Hungarian army had to be transformed fundamentally compared to the support disabled soldiers had received up to this point, which was mainly limited to a military pension and placement in a disabled soldiers’ home. Stürgkh therefore tasked the Minister of the Interior Karl Heinold von Udyński with launching a governmentally coordinated welfare campaign for Cisleithania. ÖStA, AVA, MdI, Praes., 19, Kt. 1862, 19093/1914 Bekämpfung der Kriegsschäden für die Angehörigen der Wehrmacht und ihre Familien. /: Militärversorgungsgesetze und Anregung einer präventiven Hilfsaktion:/ p. 1–8, here: p. 1. ÖStA, AVA, MdI, Praes., 19, Kt. 1862, 19093/1914 Bekämpfung der Kriegsschäden für die Angehörigen der Wehrmacht und ihre Familien. /: Militärversorgungsgesetze und Anregung einer präventiven Hilfsaktion :/, 2. Bogen.
By early 1915, interior ministry officials had prepared a programme for re-integration, composed of medical therapy, occupational counselling, professional training and employment services to »direct [disabled soldiers] back to gainful activity as useful members of society«. ÖStA, AVA, MdI, Praes., 19, Kt. 1862, 3501/1915, Maßnahmen zur Wiederherstellung der Arbeitsfähigkeit der Kriegs-Invaliden, Bildung von Landeskommissionen. Ke-chin Hsia: »Who Provided Care for Wounded and Disabled Soldiers? Conceptualizing State-Civil Society Relationship in First World War Austria«, in: Joachim Bürgschwentner / Matthias Egger / Gunda Barth-Scalmani (eds.): Other Fronts, Other Wars? First World War Studies on the Eve of the Centennial, Leiden 2014, pp. 303–328. Patrick Joyce: The State of Freedom. A Social History of the British State since 1800, Cambridge 2013, p. 19. Stefan Nellen / Thomas Stockinger: »Staat, Verwaltung und Raum im langen 19. Jahrhundert. Einleitung«, in: Administory 2 (2017), pp. 3–34, at p.9.
This introduces a different perspective on the Habsburg Monarchy during wartime as well, Ke-chin Hsia argued. Hsia: Care, pp. 303–306. Mark Cornwall: »Disintegration and Defeat. The Austro–Hungarian Revolution«, in: Mark Cornwall (ed.): The Last Years of Austria-Hungary. A Multi-National Experiment in Early Twentieth-Century Europe, Exeter 2002, pp. 167–196, at p. 171. Maureen Healy: Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire. Total War and Everyday Life in World War I, Cambridge 2004, p. 1–86; Alfred Pfoser / Andreas Weigl: »Die Pflicht zu sterben und das Recht zu leben. Der Erste Weltkrieg als bleibendes Trauma in der Geschichte Wiens«, in: Alfred Pfoser / Andreas Weigl (eds.): Im Epizentrum des Zusammenbruchs. Wien im Ersten Weltkrieg, Wien 2013, pp. 14–31, here p. 23–29; Christian Mertens: »Die Wiener Stadtverwaltung im Ersten Weltkrieg«, in: Pfoser / Weigl: Epizentrum, pp. 284–291; Manuela Hauptmann: Unterhaltsbeiträge für Soldatenfamilien der Habsburgermonarchie im Ersten Weltkrieg, Diss. Universität Wien 2015, pp. 151–154, pp. 168–189; Sabine Schmitner: »Local politics during the First World War. Political players in the armaments center Wiener Neustadt«, in: European Review of History 24 (2017), pp. 229–249. Anton Holzer: Die andere Front. Fotografie und Propaganda im Ersten Weltkrieg mit unveröffentlichten Originalaufnahmen aus dem Bildarchiv der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Darmstadt 2007; Peter Becker: »Recht, Staat und Krieg. ›Verwirklichte Unwahrscheinlichkeiten‹ in der Habsburgermonarchie«, in: Administory 1 (2016), pp. 28–53; Julie Thorpe: »Displacing Empire: Refugee Welfare, National Activism and State Legitimacy in Austria-Hungary in the First World War«, in: Panikos Panayi / Pippa Virdee (eds.): Refugees and the End of Empire. Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration in the Twentieth Century, Basingstoke 2001, pp. 102–126; Rebekah Klein-Pejšová: »Beyond the ›Infamous Concentration Camps of the Old Monarchy‹. Jewish Refugee Policy from Wartime Austria-Hungary to Interwar Czechoslovakia«, in: Austrian History Yearbook 45 (2014), pp. 150–166. Didier Fassin: »Introduction. Governing Precarity«, in: Didier Fassin et al.: At the Heart of the State. The Moral World of Institutions. Anthropology, Culture and Society, London 2015, pp. 1–11; Didier Fassin: »Conclusion. Raisons d’État«, in: Didier Fassin et al.: At the Heart of the State. The Moral World of Institutions. Anthropology, Culture and Society, London 2015, pp. 255–261.
However, »[t]he particular appreciation of socially and emotionally distant relationships« Peter Becker / Rüdiger von Krosigk: »Introduction. New Perspectives on the History of Bureaucratic and Scientific Subjects«, in: Peter Becker / Rüdiger von Krosigk (eds.): Figures of Authority. Contributions towards a Cultural History of Governance from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, Brüssel 2008, pp. 11–26, at p. 21. Becker / Krosigk: »Introduction«, pp. 19–21; Peter Becker: »Formulare als ›Fließband‹ der Verwaltung? Zur Rationalisierung und Standardisierung von Kommunikationsbeziehungen«, in: Peter Collin / Klaus-Gert Lutterbeck (eds.): Eine intelligente Maschine? Handlungsorientierungen moderner Verwaltung (19./20. Jh.), Baden-Baden 2009, pp. 291–308. Gary B. Cohen: »Neither Absolutism nor Anarchy. New Narratives on Society and Government in Late Imperial Austria«, in: Austrian History Yearbook 29 (1998), pp. 37–61; Gary B. Cohen: »Nationalist Politics and the Dynamics of State and Civil Society in the Habsburg Monarchy 1867–1914«, in: Central European History 40 (2007), p. 242–278; Pieter M. Judson: The Habsburg Empire. A new History, Cambridge, MA 2016, pp. 333–384. See for an in-depth discussion of this narrative: John Deak: »The Great War and the Forgotten Realm: The Habsburg Monarchy and the First World War«, in: The Journal of Modern History 86 (2014), pp. 336–380. Laurence Cole: Military Culture and Popular Patriotism in Late Imperial Austria, Oxford 2014; Daniel Unowsky: The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism. Imperial Celebrations in Habsburg Austria, 1848–1916, Purdue University Press 2005. Healy: Vienna, pp. 258–299.
This tension between fostering personal loyalty towards the emperor and an increasing relevance of administrative procedure opens a space to ask about the role of trust. While Ute Frevert highlighted the proliferation of semantics and discourses of trust in the German states and the German Empire intertwined with their gradual democratization and bureaucratization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, much less is known about trust in the Habsburg Monarchy. Ute Frevert: Vertrauensfragen. Eine Obsession der Moderne, München 2013, pp. 28–37, 147–179. Jakob Tanner: »›Die Währung der Finanzmärkte ist Vertrauen‹. Nachhaltigkeit und Hinterhältigkeit eines mentalen Phänomens in historischer Perspektive«, in: Jörg Barberowski (ed.): Was ist Vertrauen? Ein interdisziplinäres Gespräch, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2014, pp. 73–100, esp. p. 99. Tanner draws on: Ernesto Laclau / Chantal Mouffe: Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Demoncratic Politics, London / New York 2014 (1985). Ute Frevert: »Vertrauen. Historische Annäherungen an eine Gefühlshaltung«, in: Claudia Benthien / Anne Fleig / Ingrid Kasten (eds.): Emotionalität. Zur Geschichte der Gefühle, Köln 2000, pp. 178–197, at p. 193.
Between 1900 and 1914, trust gained currency in the political, bureaucratic and academic circles of state reformers around Ernest von Koerber and Josef Redlich. For Koerber‘s studies and the work of the committee, see John Deak: Forging a Multinational State. State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War, Stanford, California 2015, pp. 237–258; Peter Becker: »›… dem Bürger die Verfolgung seiner Anliegen erleichtern‹. Zur Geschichte der Verwaltungsreform im Österreich des 20. Jahrhunderts«, in: Heinrich Berger et.al. (ed.): Politische Gewalt und Machtausübung im 20. Jahrhundert. Zeitgeschichte, Zeitgeschehen und Kontroversen, Festschrift für Gerhard Botz, Wien 2011, pp. 113–138, at pp. 113–121. Deak: State, p. 235. Ernest von Koerber: Studien über die Reform der inneren Verwaltung, Wien 1904, p. 8. Koerber: Studien, p. 4. Koerber: Studien, pp. 8, 24–28; Deak: State, p. 256.
As the first section shows, the socially ambivalent position of disabled veterans in the novel project of social re-integration and the mobilization of new groups of actors resulted in officials, medical practitioners and civil society actors reflecting upon bureaucratic practices and behaviors anew. For them the concept of trust played a vital role; they thought they needed disabled soldiers’ trust to establish their position as experts. Trust is not defined as an emotion per se, but since medical practitioners and voluntary and administrative agents considered a skillful management of emotions essential, trust will be analyzed as a relational »emotional demeanor« in this context. Barbara H. Rosenwein: »Problems and Methods in the History of Emotions«, in: Passions in Context 1.1 (2010), pp. 1–32; Martin Endreß argues against conceiving of trust only as an emotion: Martin Endreß: Vertrauen, Bielefeld 2002, p. 70; Eric M. Uslaner defines trust as a moral value: Eric M. Uslaner: The Moral Foundations of Trust, Cambridge 2002, pp. 14–50.
The second and third sections demonstrate how Karl Eger, official (Referent) for disabled veteran welfare at the military command Leitmeritz/Litoměřice, used the concept of trust to establish a grass-roots administrative organization and specific administrative practice in Bohemia’s disabled veteran welfare. Eger’s normative ideas are contrasted with their implementation through a case study, not to examine the success or failure of normative guidelines, but the adaptive efforts local actors used to successfully manage their tasks, and the room to manoeuvre they enjoyed within their institutions. Stefan Haas: »Verwaltungsgeschichte nach Cultural und Communicative Turn. Perspektiven einer historischen Implementationsforschung«, in: Stefan Brakensiek / Corinna von Bredow / Birgit Näther (eds.): Herrschaft und Verwaltung in der Frühen Neuzeit, Berlin 2014, pp. 181–194; André Holenstein: »Introduction. Empowering Interactions. Looking at Statebuilding from Below«, in: André Holenstein et al. (ed.): Empowering Interactions. Political Cultures and the Emergence of the State in Europe 1300–1900, Farnham 2009, pp. 1–31; Mary Douglas / Steven Ney: Missing Person. A Critique of Personhood in the Social Sciences, Berkeley / Los Angeles 1998; Lorraine Daston / H. Otto Sibum: »Introduction. Scientific Personae and Their Histories«, in: Science in Context 16 (2003), pp. 1–8; Becker / Krosigk: »Introduction«, pp. 11–26.
Re-integrative measures aimed at restoring the disabled soldiers’ capability to work utilizing medical therapy, job training at public schools and employment services, so that they would be integrated into society again. Verena Pawlowsky / Harald Wendelin: Die Wunden des Staates. Kriegsopfer und Sozialstaat in Österreich 1914–1938, Wien 2015, pp. 93–102. ÖStA, AVA, MdI, Praes. 19, Kt. 1862, 2663/1915, »Invalidenfond« [sic], Sammeltätigkeit; Hsia: Care. Pawlowsky / Wendelin: Wunden, pp. 102–107.
Initiatives for disabled veteran welfare did, however, not only originate from centralized government actors; instead, many local private associations had been founded since the start of the war to financially support disabled soldiers. VÚA (Vojenský ústřední archiv [Praha]), VHA (Vojenský historický archiv), KK9 (9. Korpskommando), Praes., 1451/1916, Kriegsfürsorgefond [sic] der Truppenkörper. ÖStA, AVA, MdI, Praes. 19, Kt. 1862, 1706/1915 Aktion zu Gunsten der aus dem Kriege als bleibend invalid zurückkehrenden Soldaten; ebd., 3815/1915 Kriegsblindenfürsorge. ÖStA, AVA, MdI, Praes. 19, Kt. 1862, 5425/1915, Fürsorgeaktion für heimkehrende Krieger. Hinausgabe grundsätzlicher Vorschriften und einer Geschäftsordnung für die Landeskommissionen; N.d.: Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Staatlichen Landeszentrale für das Königreich Böhmen zur Fürsorge für heimkehrende Krieger im Jahr 1915, n.p. n.y., pp. 4–5. N.d.: Bericht, pp. 12–13.
The Landeskommissionen not only needed these actors as experts for evaluating and restoring working capacities but also due to their institutional resources: Physicians Rudolf Jedlička and Josef Gottstein were medical directors of institutes for physically disabled children in Prague and Reichenberg/Liberec, respectively, which were converted into treatment institutions for injured soldiers. N.d.: První Zpráva o činnosti Spolku pro léčbu a výchovu mrzáků, Jedličkova ústavu pro zmrzačelé a školy pro vojíny-invalidy v Praze v letech 1913–1917 [First Activity Report of the Association for the Care and Education of Cripples, of the Jedlička-Institute for the Crippled and the School for War Invalids in Prague 1913–1917], Prag 1915, pp. 36–42; n.d., Die Deutschböhmische Fürsorgestelle für Kriegskrüppel und Kriegsverletzte mit dem Sitze in Reichenberg. Ein Rechenschaftsbericht, Reichenberg 1916, pp. 5–8. N.d.: Bericht, pp. 3–4. See for example: NAP (Národní archiv [Praha]), MVP-R (Ministerstvo veřejných prací – Rakousko), Kt. 1043, 37628/1916 Periodischer Bericht in Angelegenheit der Invalidenschulen.
From the start, the medical practitioners and professionals claiming authority to determine the occupational future of disabled soldiers were confronted with disabled veterans’ different opinions about the purpose of re-integration. While returning to the profession once held was the ideal of re-integrative actions, the deputy director of the ›Viennese bureau of employment services for war invalids‹ (Wiener Amtsstelle der Arbeitsvermittlung für Kriegsinvalide), Richard Sudek, reported at the end of 1915 that disabled soldiers opposed returning to their former job »vigorously«. Richard Sudek: »Arbeitsvermittlung an Kriegsinvalide«, in: Österreichische Rundschau 45 (Oktober–Dezember 1915), pp. 49–55, at p. 52. N.d.: Bericht, p. 29. Anthony Giddens: The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge 1991 [1990], p. 83–92.
While these conflicts initially resulted in medical practitioners using attributes like ›aversion to work‹ or ›pension neurosis‹ to deny the disabled soldiers’ claims any legitimacy, Pawlowsky / Wendelin: Wunden, pp. 139–146. Emerich Ferenczi: Die Wiedereingliederung der Kriegsinvaliden ins bürgerliche Erwerbsleben in Deutschland, Österreich und Ungarn, Wien / Leipzig 1916, p. 7. Ferenczi: Wiedereingliederung, p. 8.
Medical practitioners, teachers, occupational counselors and job placement officers attributed a significant psychological dimension to the disabled veterans’ re-integration. Obstacles to overcome for a successful return to gainful employment were, in their eyes, not only the disabled soldiers’ physical impediments but also particularly their conviction to not be able to work again. Therefore, medical and vocational experts saw it as their duty to counter this notion in therapy and vocational training. For this reason, they identified gaining the disabled soldiers’ trust as one of their tasks and looked for ways of achieving it. Ferenczi: Wiedereingliederung, pp. 7–8; Otto Burkard: »Über die Schulung Kriegsinvalider«, in: Mitteilungen des k. k. Ministeriums des Innern über Fürsorge für Kriegsbeschädigte 9 (März 1916), pp. 99–105; Jan Dvořák: Několik pokynů těžce raněným vojínům/Einige Winke für schwerverwundete Soldaten, Praha n.y., unnumbered, appealing to the trust of the invalids.
Combining all three steps of re-integration (counseling, therapy and vocational training) in one institution, the Viennese Reserve Hospital No. 11 was considered one of the leading institutions of disabled soldier welfare in Cisleithania. Medical practitioners claimed occupational counseling for the medical sphere, relegating vocational experts to an advisory role. Pawlowsky / Wendelin: Wunden, pp. 117–123; Hans Spitzy: »Geleitwort«, in: Adolf Deutsch: Ärztliche Berufsberatung Kriegsbeschädigter im Rahmen der Arbeitsvermittlung, Wien 1917, p. 5. Gernot Böhme: »Trau, schau, wem!«, in: Die Zeit 52 (16.12.1998), p. 45, cited in: Ute Frevert: »Über Vertrauen reden. Historisch–kritische Betrachtungen«, in: Barberowski: Vertrauen, pp. 31–48, at p. 38. Giddens: Consequences, pp. 85–86. Josef Pokorny: »Über Berufsberatung von Kriegsbeschädigten«, in: Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift 66.18 (1916), pp. 687–692, at p. 688.
Adolf Deutsch brought forward a similar argument. Deutsch was working at the Reserve Hospital No. 11 as well and at the Viennese bureau of employment services for disabled veterans. After the war, he would become public health officer at the ›Viennese invalids’ department‹ (Wiener Invalidenamt). He advised against occupational counseling »with a categorical emphasis«, Deutsch: Berufsberatung, p. 32. Deutsch: Berufsberatung, p. 32. Deutsch: Berufsberatung, p. 29. Deutsch: Berufsberatung, pp. 27–28. Monique Scheer: »Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and Is That What Makes Them Have a History)? A Bourdieuan Approach to Understanding Emotion«, in: History and Theory 51 (2012), p. 193–220, here p. 209–217. Arlie Russell Hochschild: Das gekaufte Herz. Zur Kommerzialisierung der Gefühle, übersetzt von Ernst von Kardorf, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 53, pp. 120–125. Deutsch: Berufsberatung, p. 27.
Karl Eger also addressed the issue of conversations during occupational counseling in his »Handbook for occupational counselors«, published in 1916. Referent für Invalidenfürsorge beim k.u.k. Militärkommando Leitmeritz (ed.): Handbuch für die Berufsberater der Kriegsbeschädigten, Leitmeritz 1916.
Karl Eger had been appointed as an official for disabled veteran welfare by Eugen von Scheure, commander of the military command Leitmeritz/Litoměřice, early in 1916. Scheure himself acted as protector of the private charitable society ›Invalid welfare for Leitmeritz‹ (Invalidenfürsorge für Leitmeritz) and considered local welfare for disabled veterans essential. VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 220, MA 55–22/90–5 (10.3.1917) Arbeitsvermittlung an Kriegsinvalide. K. u. k. Militärkommando in Leitmeritz (Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge): An unsere verwundeten und kranken Krieger!, Leitmeritz 1916, in: SOA Liberec (Státní Okresní Archiv [Liberec]), AML-W, Kt. 113, 106; VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 221, 55-29/7 (2.9.1916), Flugschrift »Die Beratung der Kriegsbeschädigten«, Versendung; VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA 55-29/5. Referent: Handbuch, p. 37–44. N.d.: »Sitzungsbericht der Versammlung der Vertreter der Landeskommissionen zur Fürsorge für heimkehrende Krieger am 18.5.1917«, in: Mitteilungen des k. k. Ministeriums des Innern über Fürsorge für Kriegsbeschädigte 23/24 (Mai/Juni 1917), pp. 261–299, at pp. 278–282. For the plan of a social welfare administrative reform, see Ke-chin Hsia: War, Welfare and Social Citizenship. The Politics of War Victim Welfare in Austria, 1914–1925, Diss. University of Chicago 2013, pp. 129–193; Pawlowsky / Wendelin: Wunden, p. 176f, p. 185.
These local welfare boards were supposed to contact disabled soldiers even before they left hospital to initiate further actions for their training and employment. ÖStA, KA (Kriegsarchiv), KM (Kriegsminsterium), Abt. 9/IF, Kt. 1417, 434/1917, Organisation der Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge, unnumbered. ÖStA, KA, KM, Abt. 9/IF, Kt. 1417, 434/1917, Organisation der Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge, unnumbered. ÖStA, KA, KM, Abt. 9/IF, Kt. 1417, 434/1917, Organisation der Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge, unnumbered.
Raising the local population’s awareness about the objectives and purpose of disabled veteran welfare and the possibilities to restore their capacity for work was therefore supposed to guarantee successful re-integrative measures in more than one way: mobilizing the local population for disabled veteran welfare, creating a social environment supportive of re-integration and convincing future employers that disabled veterans were still able and willing to work. See for the intense educational work in the German Empire: Heather R. Perry: Recycling the Disabled. Army, Medicine, and Modernity in WWI Germany, Manchester 2014, pp. 118–129.
In Eger’s statements, many similarities to the prewar discussions on trust and administrative reform can be found. Like Ernest von Koerber, he considered court circuits the most fitting smallest administrative units, and for Eger it was not only about a different organizing logic either but also a different way of administrative action. In his presentation in Vienna, Eger staged himself as a man of practice, a man capable of looking at administrative structures without prejudice for exactly this reason. N.d.: Sitzungsbericht, p. 279. N.d.: Sitzungsbericht, p. 278.
Grass-roots disabled veteran welfare and occupational counseling were supposed to overcome all these obstacles. For »only an [occupational counseling] in confidence [»vertrau-lich« [sic]] could be« N.d.: Sitzungsbericht, p. 278. N.d.: Sitzungsbericht, p. 279. ÖStA, KA, KM, Abt. 9/IF, Kt. 1417434/1917, Organisation der Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge, unnumbered. ÖStA, KA, KM, Abt. 9/IF, Kt. 1417434/1917, Organisation der Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge, unnumbered.
Local boards in court circuits of the military command’s territory were supposed to be the smallest organizational unit of this grass-roots disabled veteran welfare, consisting of a chairman, a secretary/occupational counselor and a treasurer. VÚA, VHA, KK9, Praes. 1776/1917 KM IF 216 vom 22.02.1917. N.d.: Sitzungsbericht, p. 281. Otto Goltz: Die Pflegschaft für Kriegsbeschädigte, Reichenberg 1917.
In his preamble to Reichenberg textile manufacturer Otto Goltz’ brochure »Guardianship for disabled veterans« (Die Pflegschaft für Kriegsbeschädigte), Karl Eger stressed the importance of trust once again: »It is most essential for disabled soldiers to gain trust in their guardian.«. Karl Eger: untitled, in: Goltz: Pflegschaft, pp. 3–5, at p. 4. Goltz: Pflegschaft, p. 9. Goltz: Pflegschaft, p. 9. Hochschild: Das gekaufte Herz, p. 53.
Apart from organizing the interaction with disabled veterans differently, internal processes were supposed to change too. Written communication was to be replaced partly by verbal or personal communication and to be accelerated to some extent. Eger made a point of handling everything the local boards brought up to him »immediately and promptly«. ÖStA, AdR (Archiv der Republik), BMfsV (Bundesministerium für soziale Verwaltung), Sek. 2/KB Kt. 1358, 3848/1918 Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge; Vorschlag zur Ausgestaltung, pp. 1–44, at p. 7. ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV, Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1358, 3848/1918 Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge; Vorschlag zur Ausgestaltung, p. 8.
On 26 June 1916, the ›Ortsausschuss Haida der Staatlichen Landeszentrale für das Königreich Böhmen zur Fürsorge für heimkehrende Krieger‹ wrote a letter to Josef Kirschner. Before the war, 24-year-old Josef Kirschner had lived in Arnsdorf/Arnultovice near Haida/Nový Bor. On 2 June 1916, he had arrived in Brüx/Most as part of an exchange of war prisoners. Now a disabled veteran, he was staying at the local military hospital when he received the letter of the local board. The social embeddedness of the local board’s members was supposed to come into effect at this point of making contact to ensure a low-threshold communication with the disabled veteran. Eger deliberately refrained from instructing disabled soldiers to get in touch with local boards but tasked these boards to contact the veterans instead. The way the local board Haida/Nový Bor perceived and tried to meet the task of social reintegration concerning Josef Kirschner therefore provides insights into the ways, in which local actors implemented these normative ideas of social embeddedness.
The local board Haida/Nový Bor informed Josef Kirschner in circumlocutionary language that the military command’s official for disabled veterans welfare had provided the information that one of the invalids of the exchange in Brüx/Most was »your own person, Mr. Josef Kirschner«, and »the command requested to reach a direct understanding with the very same for the purpose of an occupational counseling.«82 [or alternatively, counseling«. VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 220, MA 55-9/18-2, Josef Kirschner, L[w]IR 10 – Nachbehandlung, Ortsausschuss Haida an Josef Kirschner. ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV, Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1358, 3848/1918 Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge; Vorschlag zur Ausgestaltung, pp. 1–44, here p. 6. ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV, Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1358, 3848/1918 Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge; Vorschlag zur Ausgestaltung, pp. 6, 8–9.
Kirschner’s information from the questionnaire left some room for interpretation and manoeuvre for the board. As Kirschner stated in the questionnaire, he was a skilled gilder, but before the war he had worked as a senior construction worker and substitute guard at the railroad maintenance section in Böhmisch-Leipa/Česká Lípa. In the questionnaire, he did not consider himself able to carry out his former job anymore, without clarifying whether he referred to his trade as a gilder or to his job at the railroad maintenance section. Besides, Kirschner stated not to be able to decide the kind of new trade he should pick up. VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 220, MA 55-9/18-2, Josef Kirschner, L[w]IR 10 – Nachbehandlung, Ortsausschuss Haida an Josef Kirschner. VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 220, MA 55-9/18-2, Josef Kirschner, L[w]IR 10 – Nachbehandlung, Ortsausschuss Haida an Josef Kirschner.
The local board did not justify its further measures with referencing Kirschner’s requests, but with invoking the military command Leitmeritz/Litoměřice. From the given options when determining Kirschner’s former trade, the local board opted for his most recent employment and contacted the management of the railroad maintenance section Böhmisch-Leipa/Česká Lípa, part of the public Bohemian Northern Railway. Early in 1915, the railway ministry had guaranteed employment for disabled veteran railroad staff. N.d.: Denkschrift über die von der k. k. Regierung aus Anlass des Krieges getroffenen Massnahmen. Bis Ende Juni 1915, Wien 1915, p. 131. VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 220, MA 55-9/18-2, Josef Kirschner, L[w]IR 10 – Nachbehandlung, Ortsausschuss Haida an Josef Kirschner.
The written communication of the local board Haida/Nový Bor did not emphasize its social embeddedness but stressed its bureaucratic authority instead. When Josef Kirschner was informed about the questionnaire, the language used was in no way closer to his everyday life, as required by Eger:
VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 220, MA 55-9/18-2, Josef Kirschner, L[w]IR 10 – Nachbehandlung, Ortsausschuss Haida an Josef Kirschner.
The use of prevalent administrative phrases was seemingly supposed to convey the local board’s official standing by creating a linguistic distinction from everyday speech. Haas: Verwaltungsgeschichte. Pawlowsky / Wendelin: Wunden, 189. Ernst Mayrhofer: Handbuch für den politischen Verwaltungsdienst in den im Reichsrathe vertretenen Königreichen und Ländern, Bd. 1, Wien 41880, p. 731–733; Peter Becker: »›Das größte Problem ist die Hauptwortsucht‹. Zur Geschichte der Verwaltungssprache und ihrer Reformen, 1750–2000«, in: Peter Becker (ed.): Sprachvollzug im Amt. Kommunikation und Verwaltung im Europa des 19. und 20. °Jahrhundert, Bielefeld 2011, pp. 219–244.
While local actors in Haida/Nový Bor referenced both military command and Landeszentrale to strengthen their authority, the relationship between the two institutions was strained. What Scheure and Eger had in mind with their localized welfare via local boards was not merely an alternate organizational structure but the implementation of a different ordering principle for disabled veteran welfare, the principle of nationality.
Right from its inception, the Landeszentrale united a scientific and organizational landscape, which was already largely divided along national lines into German and Czech institutions. These ranged from public schools and universities in Prague to welfare institutions for physically disabled children. But they also relied on administrative bodies not yet subjected to such segregation, like the Prague accident insurance institution or the provincial central employment office.
The relationship between Landeszentrale and charitable societies for disabled soldiers in the Northern Bohemian territories was tension filled from the outset. In Leitmeritz/Litoměřice, Maria Zanantoni, wife of high-ranking officer Eduard Zanantoni, founded the ›Invalidenfürsorge für Leitmeritz‹ in October 1914 to financially support disabled soldiers. N.d.: Jahrbuch der Invalidenfürsorge für den Bereich des Militärkommandos Leitmeritz, Gablonz an der Neiße 1917, pp. 11–14. N.d.: Fürsorgestelle, p. 12.
ÖStA, AVA, MdI Praes. 19, Kt. 1862, 5425/1915, Fürsorgeaktion für heimkehrende Krieger. Hinausgabe grundsätzlicher Vorschriften und einer Geschäftsordnung für die Landeskommissionen, Statthalter in Böhmen an den Innenminister.
Such a cooperation happened eventually, but remained fragile. Conveying information about treatments and trainings proved to be a particular root for conflict between Landeszentrale and military command Leitmeritz/Litoměřice. N.d.: Bericht, pp. 11, 17. VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 232, MA 55-6/5-92II Vorlage der Ausweise über Schulung von Kriegsbeschädigten in Reichenberg. Ausweisleistung über Kriegsbeschädigte an die Landeszentrale überhaupt.
Karl Eger was therefore neither the only actor pursuing a disabled veteran welfare not depending on the Landeszentrale nor was he the only one striving for nationality as a principle for arranging veteran welfare. However, Eger proved to be an influential actor due to his institutional position as an official at the military command and his organizational skills when establishing local boards. After long negotiations between Scheure and Marschner, an agreement was reached: the Landeszentrale acknowledged the local boards on the condition that they designated themselves as local boards of the Landeszentrale. However, until the end of 1917, the military command Leitmeritz/Litoměřice remained the local boards’ center of reference. ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV, Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1358, 5934/1918, Nationale Zweiteilung der Staatlichen Landeszentrale; ÖStA, KA, KM Kt. 1417, pp. 1–15, at pp. 7–9. ÖStA, KA, KM Kt. 1417, 434/1917, Organisation der Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge, unnumbered.
This interdependence of language, national affiliation and territory arose in the second half of the 19th century. In Bohemia, cartographic representations gained particular significance as a means of national–political agitation during the preparation of a German–Czech compromise in Bohemia from the 1890s onwards, when politicians and nationalist societies started to utilize the results of official censuses and other statistical information for graphically displaying the distribution of German and Czech nationalities in Bohemia. For this, nationalist actors adopted the official categories of the census – colloquial or preferred language – interpreted them as national affiliation and transferred them to the so-called language or nationality maps. Wolfgang Göderle: Zensus und Ethnizität. Zur Herstellung von Wissen über soziale Wirklichkeiten im Habsburgerreich zwischen 1848 und 1910, Göttingen 2016, pp. 63–73, 219–228; Pieter M. Judson: »Marking National Space on the Habsburg Austrian Borderlands: 1880–1918«, in: Omer Bartov / Eric D. Weitz (eds.): Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the East, Central, and Southeast European Borderlands, Bloomington 2013, pp. 122–135; Gerald Stourzh: »Ethnic Attribution in Late Imperial Austria: Good Intentions, Evil Consequences«, in: Gerald Stourzh: From Vienna to Chicago and Back. Essays on Intellectual History and Political Thought in Europe and America, Chicago 2007, pp. 157–176, particularly: pp. 162–163. Robert Luft: »›Alte Grenzen‹ und Kulturgeographie. Zur historischen Konstanz der Grenzen Böhmens und der böhmischen Länder«, in: Hans Lemberg (ed.): Grenzen in Ostmitteleuropa im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Aktuelle Forschungsprobleme, Marburg 2000, pp. 95–135, at p. 127. Luft: »Grenzen«, p. 127. Tara Zahra: »›Each nation only cares for its own‹. Empire, Nation, and Child Welfare Activism in the Bohemian Lands, 1900–1918«, in: The American Historical Review 111 (2006), pp. 1378–1402; Peter Haslinger: »Einleitung. Wen und wovor schützen Schutzvereine? Problemaufriss und Versuch einer Einordnung«, in: Haslinger: Schutzvereine, pp. 7–19. Ostmitteleuropa. Vereinswesen, Sprachenkonflikte und Dynamiken nationaler Mobilisierung 1860–1939, Marburg 2009, pp. 7–19.
However, Eger did not restrict himself to making those administrative units, which he considered homogenous, the foundation of disabled veteran welfare; he proactively tried to establish such a homogeneity. Until 1917, the Landeszentrale’s occupational counseling commissions called on disabled soldiers in military hospitals. Starting 1 May 1917, a collection point was established in Kolin/Kolín, where a commission of ›trusted experts‹ (Vertrauensmänner) from the Landeszentrale regularly examined the disabled soldiers of the military command Leitmeritz/Litoměřice territory to allocate them to vocational training courses. As a reaction to this, in August 1917, the chamber of commerce in Reichenberg/Liberec requested that the military command should establish another collection point there. Although Ferdinand Breinl, the chamber’s chairman, was a trusted expert of the Ministry of Public Works for German-speaking trade schools offering disabled veteran training, Eger and another military command official interpreted Breinl’s request as an attempt to introduce national segregation to disabled veteran welfare by presenting Czech-speaking veterans to the committee in Kolin/Kolín and German-speaking veterans in Reichenberg/Liberec. In his written response, the official stated that this »could not be approved of by the military command, […] because politics of all manners had to be kept of the treatment of disabled veterans«. VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 232, MA 55-6/5-114 (29.11.1917) Aufstellung einer Berufsberatungskommission in Reichenberg.
VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 232, MA 55-18/14-21 I (19.8.1917) Nachbehandlung Kriegsbeschädigter in Reichenberg.
Actually, at the meeting between representatives of the provincial commissions (Landeskommissionen) and ministries in Vienna in May 1917, Eger had already demanded to establish a disabled veteran department (Invalidenamt) in Bohemia, modelled after the Transleithanian part of the Empire, but divided into a German and a Czech section. He would do so again when called to the Ministry of Social Welfare in January 1918. N.d.: Sitzungsbericht, p. 281; ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV, Sek. 2/KB Kt. 1358, 3848/1918 Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge; Vorschlag zur Ausgestaltung, pp. 1–44, at pp. 36–37; Pawlowsky / Wendelin: Wunden, p. 185.
This undertaking was not devoid of national stereotypes. Eugen von Scheure, talking about fellow citizens who enticed disabled soldiers to live on veteran pension instead of an employment, put the following words in their mouth: »›What do you [the veteran] need to work for? Franta did this to you, Franta should care for you!‹« Utilizing the Czech diminutive for František, which was, as Scheure explicitly mentioned himself, a »designation for Francis Joseph I« widely used, he implied that a disinclination to work, connected in the contemporary manner with an insistence on pension, was a Czech quality. VÚA, VHA, KK9, Praes., 1776/1917 KM IF 216 vom 22.2.1917. VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 235, MA 55-41/1 (11.1.1917) Errichtung einer Ostböhmischen Fürsorgestelle für Kriegsbeschädigte in Königgrätz. ÖStA, KA, KM Kt. 1417, 183/1917, pp. 1–15, at pp. 10–11. VÚA, VHA, KK9, MA Kt. 245, MA 55-18/6-18 (07.9.1918) Berufsberatung Kriegsbeschädigter durch die Vertrauensmännerkommission der Staatlichen Landeszentrale Prag, Abänderung der getroffenen Bestimmungen.
But this did not satisfy local actors. In February 1918, Robert Marschner requested support from the Ministry of Social Welfare. In August 1917, he and Karl Eger had agreed upon the Landeszentrale taking over the local boards. Those boards’ representatives – »all of them citizens of German districts only«, ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV, Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1358, 5934/1918, 21.2.1918, Nationale Zweiteilung der Staatlichen Landeszentrale. ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV, Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1358, 5934/1918, 21.2.1918, Nationale Zweiteilung der Staatlichen Landeszentralea.
Grass-roots disabled veteran welfare based on socially embedded volunteers and trusted guardians was no project put forward exclusively by Karl Eger. Simultaneously and initially unbeknownst to each other, Rudolf Peerz publicized a similar administrative organization. Peerz worked as a war correspondent and propagator for the Ministry of War and, in 1916, was transferred to the Ministry of the Interior as an official propagator for local disabled veteran welfare boards in Upper Austria, Salzburg and Styria. Peerz, who seemed to have combined his roles as a war correspondent and welfare propagator in his numerous talks, proved to be much less successful at organizing than Eger. Pawlowsky / Wendelin, Wunden, pp. 173–175. Eger: ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1356, 1808/1918 Besprechung mit dem Bureauleiter der Staatlichen Landeszentrale zur Fürsorge für heimkehrende Krieger für das Königreich Böhmen, Reg. Rat Marschner. Martin Moll: Kein Burgfrieden. Der deutsch-slowenische Nationalitätenkonflikt in der Steiermark 1900–1918, Innsbruck 2007; Andreas Moritsch: »Modernisierung und nationale Differenzierung bis 1918«, in: Andreas Moritsch (ed.): Austria-Slovenica. Die Kärntner Slovenen und die Nation Österreich / Koroški Slovenci in avstrijska nacija, Klagenfurt 1996, pp. 45–57.
The concept of trust, however, also points beyond the war. The issue of trust in administrative settings shows how bureaucratic norms of social distance and detachment had to be negotiated in response to historically specific challenges and expectations about the behavior of administrative officials which made inducing emotional connections between citizenry and administration seem imperative. Pre-war debates about administrative reform already intertwined the issue of trust with the monarchy’s administrative reach and a change in attitudes and practices of officials. This trust discourse also influenced the social welfare reform of 1917/1918 and the social welfare structures of the monarchy’s successor states. For this impact on post-war social welfare, see Hsia: War, pp. 129–258, 329–413; Natali Stegmann: Die Habsburgermonarchie als Fundament. Sozialpolitik in der Tschechoslowakei, 1918–1948, in: Kathrin Boeck et al. (eds.): Staatsbürgerschaft und Teilhabe. Bürgerliche, politische und soziale Rechte im östlichen Europa, Oldenbourg 2014, pp. 51–65. Healy: Vienna, pp. 31–86, 122–161, 258–299. ÖStA AdR BMfsV, Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1358, 4471/1918, Bericht über die am 07.2.1918 im Min.f.s.Fürsorge stattgefundene Besprechung der Büroleiter der k.k. Arbeitsvermittlungen zur Sicherstellung eines engeren Zusammenschlusses zwischen Landeskommissionen und Landesstellen der k.k. Arbeitsvermittlung an KI, pp. 1–10, at p. 3 (Upper Austria), p. 4 (Gasteiger). ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV, Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1363, 25655/1918 Erlaß des MfsF vom 05.3.1918, 6544 Ausgestaltung der Organisation der Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge, pp. 1–5, at pp. 1–3.
Ministry officials considered the social embeddedness of the welfare administration an important factor for the success of re-integrative action as well, but they shifted the vectors of this social embeddedness at one crucial point. While disabled soldiers had been acknowledged as actors of re-integrative measures thus far only when demonstrating prostheses, supervising or assisting in disabled veteran training, they were now supposed to be employed as officials of the welfare administration’s first-line authorities. ÖStA, AdR, BMfsV, Sek. 2/Kb Kt. 1363, 25655/1918 Erlaß des MfsF vom 05.3.1918, 6544 Ausgestaltung der Organisation der Kriegsbeschädigtenfürsorge, p. 3; For a discussion of »model disabled veterans« see Sabine Kienitz: Beschädigte Helden. Kriegsinvalidität und Körperbilder 1914–1923, Paderborn 2008, pp. 192–209. Peter Becker: »›Die kameradschaftlichste Unterstützung‹. Das Invalidenamt als Ort eines neuen Verwaltungsverständnisses«, in: Sandra Maß / Xenia von Tippelskirch (eds.): Faltenwürfe der Geschichte. Entdecken, entziffern, erzählen, Frankfurt am Main 2014, pp. 179–196.
Translated by Simone Heller