Karl Lueger (German: [ˈlu̯eːɡɐ]; 24 October 1844 – 10 March 1910) was an Austrian lawyer and politician who served as Mayor of Vienna from 1897 until his death in 1910. He is credited with the transformation of Vienna into a modern city at the turn of the 20th century, although the populist and antisemitic politics of the Austrian Christian Social Party (CS), which he founded and led until his death, remain controversial, as they are sometimes viewed as a model for Adolf Hitler's Nazism.
Karl Lueger came from a modest background, born at Wieden (since 1850 the 4th district of Vienna) to Leopold Lueger of Neustadtl an der Donau and his wife Juliane.
His birthplace is now the western part of the main building of the Vienna University of Technology at Karlsplatz where Lueger's father worked as an usher at the Vienna Polytechnic.
He nevertheless was able to attend the Theresianum boarding school (Theresianische Ritterakademie) as a day student. He studied law at the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1870. While at the university he was a member of the Catholic Student Association (Katholische akademische Verbindung Norica Wien, K.A.V. Norica Wien), part of the Österreichische Cartellverband (ÖCV) fraternities.
He established his own lawyer's office in Vienna in 1874 and soon became known as a "little people's" („kleine Leute“) advocate. In this position, his role model and mentor was the popular Jewish physician and local politician Ignaz Mandl, known as "God of the Little People" in Lueger's district of Landstraße (Third District), whom he followed into political life. The association ended when Lueger became identified with antisemitism. He died in 1910.
Lueger played a part in many political spheres, including Vienna City Council where he eventually became mayor, the federal Austrian parliament, and the state parliament of Lower Austria.
In 1875, he was elected to Vienna's City Council (Gemeinderat), initially as a liberal. He would serve on the council until his death, save for a two-year break from 1876 to 1878. He campaigned against the government of liberal mayor Cajetan Felder and achieved popularity as a campaigner against corruption.
In 1888 he brought together the German National (Deutschnationale) and Christian Social factions at City Hall to form a group that later became known as the United Christians (Vereinigte Christen).
After the 1895 elections for the Vienna Gemeinderat, the Christian Socials won two thirds of the seats, ending the long Liberal rule. The Christian Social supermajority subsequently elected Lueger as mayor. However, during imperial times, mayors had to be confirmed in office by Emperor Franz Joseph. The emperor allegedly loathed Lueger as a person and considered him a dangerous revolutionary. He was also concerned about Lueger's antisemitism. With the support of Prime Minister Kasimir Felix Badeni, Franz Joseph refused to confirm Lueger as mayor. The Christian Socials retained a large majority in the council, and reelected Lueger as mayor three more times, only to have Franz Joseph refuse to confirm him each time. He was elected mayor for a fifth time in 1897, and after a personal intercession by Pope Leo XIII, his election was finally sanctioned later that year.
He was a zealous Catholic and wished to “capture the university” for the Church. He would have neither Social Democrats nor Pan-Germans nor Jews in the municipal administration. He secured good treatment for Czech immigrants.
He planned to make Vienna one of the most beautiful of garden cities.
In his incumbency, Lueger is credited with the extension of the public water supply by its second main aquifer (Hochquellwasserleitung), which provides tap water of mineral-water quality to large parts of the city. He also pursued the municipalization of gas and electricity works as well as the establishment of a public transport system, introducing streetcars (trams), and of numerous institutions of social welfare, most of which strongly relied on debt financing. He incorporated the suburbs, and built parks, gardens, hospitals, and schools.
Der schöne Karl ("handsome Karl") achieved tremendous popularity among the citizens. During his tenure, Vienna ultimately changed its appearance as the capital of a great power of the pre-World War I era—a heritage that remained even in Red Vienna after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918. A significant part of the infrastructure and organisations that are responsible for the high standard of living in the contemporary city were created during his terms of office.
Lueger served as mayor of Vienna until his early death from diabetes mellitus in 1910. He was buried in the crypt of the newly erected St. Charles Borromeo Church at the Zentralfriedhof (also called Dr. Karl Lueger Memorial Church), whose groundbreaking ceremony he had performed.
Lueger's early political life was associated with Georg von Schönerer and the German National Party, which was antisemitic. From the late 1880s onwards Lueger was a regular attendee at the influential circles of clerical social conservative politicians around Karl von Vogelsang, Prince Aloys Franz de Paula Maria of Liechtenstein, and the theologian Franz Martin Schindler. In view of the rising labour movement, the participants on the basis of Catholic social teaching developed ideas to overcome social polarisation by several measures of social security legislation and the common Catholic faith. Moreover, after an 1882 electoral reform had expanded the electorate suffrage, Lueger focused on petty bourgeois tradespersons, who assumed the Jewish competition to be the underlying cause of their precarious situation, and discovered that raising the "Jewish Question" earned him enormous popularity.
In 1885 he was elected to the lower house (Abgeordnetenhaus) of the Austrian Imperial Parliament (Reichsrat), representing the Fifth District of Vienna, and was returned in the 1891 election. From 1890 he was also a member of the Lower Austria parliament (Landtag).
Lueger, Prince Liechtenstein, Vogelsang and Schindler met regularly at the Hotel Zur goldenen Ente (Golden Duck, Riemergasse 4) in Vienna's First District, and would refer to their meetings as Enten-Abende (Duck Evenings). This working group became the focus for social reform, and they organised the Second Austrian Katholikentag in 1889. From this Schindler developed the platform of the fledgling Christian Social Party (Christlichsoziale Partei, CS). Lueger was to found and lead the party in 1893, which quickly rivaled the Social Democrats (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, SPÖ). He remained one of its most effective leaders till his death and developed his party's federation policy as a means of dealing with the monarchy's issues of multiple nationalities.
Much of Lueger's popularity stemmed from his appeal to women; his female followers were variously known as "Lueger's Amazons", "the Lueger Garde" or "Lueger Gretls" and were organised in the Christian Social Women's League. Although women could not vote, he calculated that they could significantly influence how their menfolk voted, and they also inculcated the party ideology in their children. To maintain his female following, Lueger remained a bachelor and publicly disavowed any private life, claiming that he was too busy because he belonged totally to "my Viennese". After his death there was a scandal when his long-time mistress, Marianne Beskiba, published a tell-all memoir including facsimiles of love letters from him; the book provides useful information about his political tactics and how the party was run.