Michael Hainisch (1858-1940)
Federal President from 1920 until 1928
Born in Schottwien, Lower Austria, Michael Hainisch was by training a legal scholar. After spending several years as a civil servant, he worked in Vienna as a popular educator and author of scholarly and political works. Although he had Liberal sympathies and was an advocate of the union of Austria with Germany, he had no party affiliations. On 9 December 1920, the Federal Assembly chose him to be the first Federal President of the Republic of Austria. Through the painstakingly correct and austere way in which he exercised his office, he won the respect of all political parties in the difficult years after the First World War. After two periods in office as Federal President, Hainisch joined Chancellor Schober’s third government as Minister of Commerce; in 1938, he endorsed Austria’s “Anschluss”, i.e. the country’s annexation by Hitler’s Germany.
© 2010 The Federal President of the Republic of Austria : imprint : legal notes : contact
