Page - 312 - in Wien und die jüdische Erfahrung 1900-1938 - Akkulturation - Antisemitismus - Zionismus

1 Michael Laurence Miller Efforts were also made to expel Ostjuden and other foreign Jews from Vienna’s in- stitutions of higher learning. Already in 1919, there were calls for a numerus clausus at Vienna’s universities and Hochschulen, ostensibly in response to the severe “over- crowding” in the post-war period. In Vienna, as in Budapest, wartime refugees, return- ing soldiers and a poor economy combined to produce an oversupply of students for a limited number of spaces. As a professor at the University of Vienna observed several years later, “Well, the universities and polytechnics are overcrowded, and this is a prob- lem, since thousands of young people, after years of difficult work, possibly in need and deprivation, will find bitter disappointment at the end of their journey …” In 1923, the University of Vienna and the Technische Hochschule each introduced measures directed against foreign students at these institutions. Both measures had the ostensible aim of limiting the overcrowding at Vienna’s universities, but they were framed quite differently. The measure drafted by the academic senate at the University of Vienna targeted all “students from the east European states” (auserordentliche Hörer aus den osteuropäischen Staaten), asserting that these students, irrespective of religion, should no longer be admitted due to their unsatisfactory cultural level (Kulturniveau). While this measure affected many eastern European Jews, they were not the explicit target. In contrast, the measure unanimously approved by the Professorenkollegium at the Technische Hochschule (where Jews constituted 41 % of the student body) di- rectly targeted foreign Jews. It read as follows : “For Jewish applicants from abroad, it has been especially decided that, as a rule, their matriculation can only take place proportionately, so that the number of Jewish students matriculating in a college (Fachschule) does not exceed ten percent of the total number of students.” In the eyes of the Viennese Jewish press, both of these measures were regrettable, but the press made a distinction between the blatantly antisemitic sentiments at the Technische Hochschule and the merely xenophobic sentiments at the University of Vienna. As Die Wahrheit observed, the measure by the Technische Hochschule was tantamount to a numerus clausus, and as such, it had potentially dangerous ramifi- „Ja, es gibt eine Überfüllung der Hochschulen, und sie ist ein Übel, weil Tausende von jungen Menschen nach Jahren schw9erer Arbeit, vielleicht in Not und Entbehrung, am Ende ihres Weges einer bitteren Enttäuschung anheimgegeben sind …“ Franz Gartmayer, 150 Jahre Technische Hochschule Wien. Eine Geschichte ihrer Studenten, Vienna 1965, p. 27. „Numerus Clausus,“ Die Wahrheit, December 15, 1922, p. 8–9. Bruce F. Pauley, From Prejudice to Persecution : A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism, Chapel Hill and London 1992, p. 100. „Für die jüdischen Bewerber des Auslandes wird noch insbesondere bestimmt, dass ihre Immatrikulie- rung in der Regel nur in dem Ausmasse wird erfolgen dürfen, dass die Gesamtzahl aller an einer Fach- schule zu immatrikulieren jüdischen Bewerber 10 Prozent nicht übersteigen dürfe.“ „Numerus Clau- sus,“ Die Wahrheit, December 15, 1922, p. 8–9.