Holy Roman Emperor who co-signed the Declaration of Pillnitz
On 27 August 1791 he and the King of Prussia signed the Declaration of Pillnitz, saying they would act together for the French king if the other powers joined them.
A son of Maria Theresa and brother of Marie Antoinette, he ruled Tuscany as a reforming grand duke from 1765 and abolished the death penalty and torture there in 1786. He succeeded his brother Joseph II as emperor in 1790. In August 1791 at Pillnitz he and Frederick William II declared that they would intervene in France only if the other powers joined them. Historians have called it a formality, since Leopold knew Russia and Britain would not act, but it contributed to the radicalisation of the revolutionary movement in France. He died of pneumonia in Vienna on 1 March 1792, shortly before France declared war.
Career timeline
- 1765–1790As Grand Duke of Tuscany (Leopold I) he carried out administrative and fiscal reforms.
- 1786Abolished the death penalty and torture in Tuscany.
- 1790On the death of his brother Joseph II he became Archduke of Austria and was crowned emperor at Frankfurt in October.
- 1791Met the King of Prussia at Pillnitz in August and co-signed a declaration of readiness to intervene in France.
- 1792Died of pneumonia in Vienna on 1 March; his son Francis II succeeded him.
Founder and leader of Austrian Social Democracy who could not stop the war in 1914 and backed it
In January 1918 he urged strikers in Lower Austria and Vienna to return to work. Elected foreign minister by German Austria’s provisional assembly on 30 October, he oversaw the end of hostilities with the Entente and died on 11 November.
Born to a Jewish family in Prague, a physician turned socialist by the misery of Vienna’s workers, he united the Austrian Social Democratic Workers’ Party at the Hainfeld congress of 1889 and led it as a “little International” inside a multinational empire. At the Brussels Bureau meeting of July 1914 he confessed that “the war is already with us” and that his party was powerless, and despite private misgivings backed the government’s war. He became foreign minister of the provisional government in October 1918 but died on 11 November, a day before the republic was proclaimed.
Career timeline
- 1880sLed efforts to unite the divided factions of Austrian Social Democracy.
- 1889Founded the socialist newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung.
- 1914At the Second International’s emergency meeting, he said the war could no longer be stopped and defended Austria-Hungary’s entry into the war and the party leadership’s pro-war position.
- 1918Elected foreign minister by German Austria’s provisional National Assembly, he served for eleven days.
Chief theoretician of orthodox Marxism in the Second International, founding editor of Die Neue Zeit, editor of Marx's Capital Vol. IV
"Socialism as a means to the emancipation of the proletariat, without democracy, is unthinkable." — The Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1918)
Leading Marxist theoretician of the Second International. He authored the Erfurt Programme, refuted Bernstein's revisionism, and after the Russian Revolution critiqued Bolshevik rule, creating the defining point of divergence between social democracy and Leninism.
Career timeline
- 1875Joined Austrian SDAP; published Darwin and Socialism
- 1880–1883Moved to Zurich, met Bernstein; travelled to London and befriended Marx and Engels
- 1883–1917Founded and edited Die Neue Zeit for 35 years — leading Marxist theoretical journal of the Second International
- 1885–1890Worked closely with Engels in London; began editing Marx's Theories of Surplus Value
- 1891–1892Authored theoretical section of Erfurt Programme and commentary The Class Struggle — defining SPD Marxism
- 1899–1909Led orthodox Marxist counter-attack against Bernstein's revisionism; published The Road to Power
- 1917Broke with SPD over war policy; co-founded Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD)
- 1918–1922Published The Dictatorship of the Proletariat criticising Bolshevik rule; provoked Lenin's polemical reply
A Nazi commando leader magnified by propaganda
Standing before Mussolini at Gran Sasso, Skorzeny became the face of a victory whose command credit belonged elsewhere.
Born in Vienna, Skorzeny became a Waffen-SS officer who directed sabotage and commando operations for Nazi Germany. In the 1943 Gran Sasso raid, he helped locate Benito Mussolini and led an SS detachment at the landing site, but the operation as a whole was planned and commanded by the airborne officers Harald Mors and Kurt Student. Nazi propaganda presented him as Mussolini's liberator, while he also took part in the overthrow of Hungary's government and the Ardennes deception operation. Acquitted at a postwar war-crimes trial, he later lived in Spain amid far-right networks.
Career timeline
- 1932Joined the Austrian Nazi organisation
- 1938Served with the SS during the Anschluss
- 1943Led the RSHA sabotage and commando section
- 1943Led an SS detachment in the Gran Sasso raid
- 1944Took part in Operation Panzerfaust in Hungary
- 1944Commanded Operation Greif in the Ardennes
- 1947Acquitted at the Dachau military trial
- 1953Military adviser to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser
An Austrian Europeanist who helped open the Iron Curtain
On 27 June 1989, Mock and Gyula Horn cut the fence near Sopron, making the border opening visible to the world.
Alois Mock was an Austrian People's Party politician who made European integration a central aim of Austrian foreign policy. As foreign minister, he pursued Hungary's border opening and Austria's entry into the European Communities, helping shape Central Europe's reordering at the end of the Cold War. On 27 June 1989, he and Gyula Horn symbolically cut the border fence, creating an international image of the openings that enabled East German escapes and preceded the collapse of the Eastern bloc.
Career timeline
- 1957Doctor of law, University of Vienna
- 1961–1966EEC and EFTA adviser in the Federal Chancellery; Austrian OECD mission in Paris
- 1966–1969Cabinet secretary to Chancellor Josef Klaus
- 1969–1970Federal minister for education, science, research, arts, culture and sport
- 1979–1989Federal chairman of the Austrian People's Party
- 1987–1989Vice Chancellor of Austria
- 1987–1995Foreign minister of Austria
- 1990Temporary administrator of defence affairs
