Neutral Masculinity: An Analysis of Parliamentary Debates on Austria’s Neutrality Law

Competing Perspectives on the Austrian Nation

Institutional nation building in Austria was a very rapid process, starting in April 1945, before the war ended (Binder and Bruckmüller 2005; Rathkolb 2010). A provisional government was set up and began to strive for a sovereign and democratic state of Austria—the so-called Second Republic. The newly created parties were reformed successor organizations of the political parties of the First Republic (1918–1934). The Socialist Party of Austria (SPÖ) succeeded the Social Democratic Party, and the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), the Christian Democratic Party. The Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) also built on a predecessor organization and hoped for support from the Soviet Union. They participated in the provisional as well as in the first elected government, although they won only about 4 percent of the votes. After achieving official recognition by the Allies, the government held the first general elections in November 1945, and in December 1945, the NC (the first chamber of the Austrian parliament) held its constitutional sitting.

All three founding parties of the Second Republic shared a strict commitment to democracy and to an independent Austria, separated from Germany. However, they did not agree on the nature of the Austrian nation (Löffler 2017). The socialists preferred formal citizenship as conception of belonging instead of a nativist concept of the people. They only started to propagate a distinct Austrian nation after regaining full sovereignty in the middle of the 1950s. The communists in contrast developed their notion of an Austrian nation as early as the 1930s in accordance with Stalin’s definition (Klahr 1994); first as a feature of resistance to the Austro-fascist regime and then the Nazis. The conservative People’s Party, the most vehement advocate of a nativist idea of an Austrian nation, tried to return to the tradition of an Austria-ideology stemming from the Habsburg Empire, which they had revitalized during the Austro-fascist period in the 1930s (Spann 1997, 148; Staudinger 2005).

After the rapid rebuilding of the political institutions in 1945, it was a long haul to sovereignty. The narrative of a nation violated by Nazi-Germany proved useful in demanding the withdrawal of the Allied occupation troops. The original version of the victim myth refers to Austria’s annexation by the German Reich in 1938 (Anschluss), when Austria ceased to exist as a sovereign state. However, the myth ignores the fact that many Austrian citizens welcomed the German annexation. There had been a then illegal National Socialist Party in Austria. Moreover, democracy was not at stake in 1938 as the Austro-fascist regime had replaced the democratic republic in 1934. Before the Anschluss, mainly, the Austro-fascist regime and a few monarchists propagated an Austrian identity, distinctive from the German nation (Bruckmüller 1998; Staudinger 2005). Although there were some anti-Prussian resentments, the majority of Austrians and nearly all political parties viewed Austrians as the German population of the Habsburg Empire, which following its downfall, favored a common Reich with Germany over and above a perceived small nonviable country. Only after World War II, the Austrian political elite agreed on a sovereign status and tried to convince the population of Austria’s economic viability. Economic recovery and political independence were thus the primary concerns of the postwar government.

The new political elite included many prewar politicians and activists, many of whom had been prosecuted by the Nazis. The People’s Party, who had won the elections (85 of the 165 seats in the NC) recruited several members of the Austro-fascist system (1934–1938), among others the new federal chancellor, Leopold Figl. They interpreted Austro-fascism as resistance against Nazism. The members of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, in contrast, had been prosecuted by the Austro-fascists and by the Nazis. However, their common opposition to National Socialism facilitated an anti-German attitude after the war. Moreover, the novel political situation demanded a clear rejection of Nazi ideology, which was easiest to achieve by rejecting everything German. Yet, after seven years of ideological indoctrination, and after the Allied bombing toward the end of the war, an anti-German mentality was not very popular. On the contrary, “National Socialist patterns of thought and basic attitudes continued to provide the undertone” (Bauer 1998, 41).

In the 1945 elections, about 400,000 Austrian citizens were not entitled to vote because they had been members of the National Socialist Party (Berger 2008, 240). ⁵ In the second elections in 1949, a new party participated, the Association of the Independents (VdU), the predecessor of the Freedom Party (FPÖ), which particularly attracted the former Nazis. They rejected the concept of an Austrian nation and defined Austria as a German state (Fröhlich-Steffen 2004, 285). Finally, in the debate on the neutrality act in 1955, the representatives of the VdU voted against the bill, and Fritz Stüber, an independent parliamentarian, but former member of the VdU, abstained from the vote in parliament. For them, neutrality symbolized the loss of a common sense of “Germanness” and Austrian participation in the German culture. As we shall see, they expressed their rejection of an Austrian nation by applying metaphors of feminized and failed masculinity.

Austria’s Roadmap to Neutrality

The declaration of Austria’s neutrality was the final step in a series of diplomatic encounters with Allied representatives. After initial debates of a status similar to Switzerland immediately after the war, the word “neutrality” vanished from the vocabulary of official rhetoric with the emerging Cold War in 1948 (Sonnleithner 2007, 26). In the early 1950s, the Western Allies assumed that the Soviets aimed at neutralizing Austria. As Austria did not want to lose the economic assistance of the West, the state secretary of foreign affairs, Bruno Kreisky (SPÖ), spoke of “nonalliance, not neutrality” in the context of the Cold War constellation. On the other hand, the federal coalition government—particularly, the federal chancellor, Julius Raab, and the then minister of foreign affairs, Alois Gruber (both ÖVP)—offered Austria’s neutral status to the Soviet Union, which they considered the main obstacle to a state treaty and the withdrawal of the occupation troops. While the Western Allies had forgone any reparations from Austria, the Soviet Union exploited land and industries, which they controlled in their occupation zone. Consequently, the Soviets had no reason to leave the land. In addition, they made Austria’s fate dependent on Germany’s. In 1954, the Treaty of Paris returned full sovereignty to Western Germany, who joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This finalized the division of Germany and posed a threat to Austria. A neutral zone along the Alpine region would complicate military operations of the NATO in Europe. Therefore, the Soviets demanded neutrality in exchange for a state treaty with an undivided Austria.

In February 1954, when deciding the division of Germany at the Berlin Conference, the US minister of foreign affairs, John Foster Dulles, and his Soviet counterpart, W. M. Molotow, had a secret conversation on Austria. Dulles is reported to have said: “If Austria wants to be a Switzerland, US will not stand in the way, but this should not be imposed” (Bruckmüller 2005, p. 195). On April 13, 1955, an Austrian delegation negotiated the state treaty in Moscow. ⁶ In the Moscow memorandum, they agreed on the voluntary declaration of neutrality, after restoring Austria’s full sovereignty. On May 15, 1955, the foreign ministers of all Allies signed the state treaty in Vienna. In September, the Austrian NC passed the conscription law and, on October 26, the neutrality law. This date was the assumed last day of military occupation according to the provisions of the state treaty. Later, October 26 became the official Austrian National Day.

Austrian neutrality differs from the Swiss type, which has served as concrete point of reference. Despite its combination with conscription, Austria does not have a militia army. Furthermore, in contrast to Switzerland, Austria accessed the United Nations Organization (UNO). Neutrality had the primary political purpose of concealing Austria’s ideological Western orientation vis-à-vis the Soviet Union by claiming a block free status. This nonalliance is the topic of the second paragraph of the Federal Constitutional Law on the Neutrality of Austria, while the first one declares Austria’s neutrality:

For the purpose of the permanent maintenance of her external independence and for the purpose of the inviolability of her territory, Austria of her own free will declares herewith her permanent neutrality, which she is resolved to maintain and defend with all the means at her disposal.

As the first sovereign act after signing the state treaty, neutrality symbolized Austrian independence. However, this law hardly gives the impression to hold the potential of constituting a defining element of Austrian national identity. Actually, only in the 1970s, when the then federal chancellor, Bruno Kreisky, was employing his version of the so-called active policy of neutrality, neutrality became a source of national pride (Fröhlich-Steffen 2004, 284).

The Austrian Victim’s Myth

The declaration of Austria’s neutrality in 1955 was primarily a political and diplomatic strategy. Therefore, neutrality could hardly be considered a success in terms of identity politics. On the contrary, the parliamentary debates reveal a sense of uneasiness with the idea and the conception of neutrality, which relates to the dominant role of the Soviet Union in the preceding negotiations of the Austrian state treaty. Opponents argued that neutrality was part of a political deal with the Soviet Union who was interested in establishing a zone of neutrality in the middle of Europe to keep the West and the NATO in check. Proponents, in contrast, tried to make clear that the neutrality act was a sovereign decision of the newly independent country and, furthermore, a perfect choice for Austria in regard to her geopolitical position in the Cold War constellation.

However, some parliamentarians related neutrality to national identity and argued that a neutral status corresponded perfectly with a kind of innate Austrian character. Since Austria’s liberation did not rest on widespread anti-fascist resistance, national self-consciousness could not develop out of anti-fascism. “Instead, the preferred postures were the role of the victim and the denial of all responsibility” (Bandauer-Schöffmann and Hornung 1996, 214). Against this backdrop, some parliamentarians insinuated that neutrality would assist the genuinely peace-loving people of Austria to find the way back to themselves. Neutrality could thus pave the way to overcome the Austrians’ involvement in the war on part of the German Reich, and it would invite the whole nation to join the collective of victims of Hitler’s aggression, as reaffirmed by the Allies in the Moscow Declaration of 1943. In this account, neutrality supports the so-called victim myth, which established Austria as the “first victim” of “Hitlerite aggression” (Beniston 2003). ⁷ Claiming victimhood initially served the purpose to demand Austria’s sovereign status and, hence, the withdrawal of the occupation troops. With the state treaty, signed in May 1955, the Austrian government had achieved this goal. However, the victim myth had already become a common topos ⁸ in political rhetoric and would remain so until the 1980s.

Self-victimization delegitimated both German nationalism and heroic masculinity, which had found their paradigmatic expression in Prussian militarism and was highly valued and normalized by the Nazis (Hanisch 2015, 19; Frevert 1996). Neutrality, in contrast, offered a novel political and national identity committed to peace, friendship, and fraternity, which was in line with the victim myth. However, there is a problematic tension between victimhood and masculinity encapsulated in the notion of neutrality, which indicates a kind of “crisis of masculinity” in postwar Austria: on the one hand, the Allied occupation signaled that Austria had lost the war. On the other hand, the official rhetoric claimed that Austria was not defeated but liberated by the Allied forces. Those Austrians who had served in the Wehrmacht were defeated in any case, either by the Nazis forcing them to fight for the German Reich and to commit war crimes or by the Allies who had bombed their homes and raped their wives. ⁹ They had fought the wrong war in the wrong army and, as a result, were not allowed to present themselves as defeated heroes (Hanisch 2015, 99). They could not hope for public recognition of their military service, and their “sacrifice” was in vain. Therefore, especially, the veterans’ associations contested the narrative of Austrian victimhood (Uhl 2011, 185). Instead, they launched narratives about the heroism of the fallen soldiers of the German Wehrmacht countering the narrative of the genuinely peaceful Austrian nation.

Masculinity in the Parliamentary Debates on Neutrality

Although the governing parties SPÖ and ÖVP as well as the communist party (here VO) ¹⁰ agreed on the declaration of neutrality, many speakers in parliament criticized almost every phrase of the declaration: Was it “her own free will” or rather a diktat—imposed by the Soviet Union? Is “permanent neutrality” a novel issue in Austria’s history or hasn’t it always been her true mission? Will the federal army be able to “maintain and defend” Austria’s neutrality or is she in need of protection by the Western Allies? Does the neutral policy of nonalliance compel ideological indifference, which would finally render democratic disputes impossible? Although the meaning of neutrality is contested, the parliamentary debates on the neutrality law form part of a discourse of nation building in postwar Austria. Moreover, they employ an intrinsically gendered rhetoric, which I have analyzed in the context of postwar and postfascist crisis of masculinity.

To talk of a crisis of masculinity is problematic because the majority of men are not able to achieve the ideal or normative masculinity, and hence, (their) masculinity is always in crisis (Connell 2005, 70; MacInnes 2001). Moreover, to speak of a crisis of masculinity usually aims at restoring male domination. Hämmerle (2008) shows this by analyzing the crisis discourse in Austria after the First World War. A minority of former military officers constructed the hegemonic discourse of a crisis of masculinity and complained about effeminate soldiers, disrespectful civilians, and unfeminine women in the newly founded democracy. Their lament, supported by the political and economic situation of the First Republic of Austria, finally reinstalled militarized masculinity as public ideal. On the other hand, postwar societies use to experience significant deviations from traditional gender relations because women have to replace men in economic and everyday life. Furthermore, warfare promotes “aggressive masculinity” (Mosse 1996, 180) or at least adds militarized dimensions to traditional models of masculinities (Ashe 2012, 235), which can prove inappropriate after the conflict.

Connell (2005) argues that masculinity cannot be in crisis in a logical sense because masculinity is “a configuration of practice within a system of gender relations” (p. 84), and a “crisis” presupposes a coherent system of some kind. Consequently, Connell applies the concept of “crisis tendencies” to problematize transformations of the gender order and divergent dimensions of gender relations, respectively. When focusing on the rearrangement of the stereotype or public image of masculinity, we can discuss these phenomena in terms of crisis tendencies of power relations as well as symbolic relations (Connell 2002, 73).

The Austrian postwar situation experienced a profound confusion of the traditional gender order (Bauer 1998). In 1945, more than one million Austrian men were prisoners of war (Kurz 1991, 86). Because of the relative absence of men, women had to take over traditional male roles as workers, breadwinners, and protectors of their children and homes (Hanisch 2015, 100). This situation fueled a further popular myth, the widespread counternarrative of “the women in ruins” (Trümmerfrauen), who had pivotal roles in the reconstruction era after 1945 (Bandauer-Schöffmann and Hornung 1996, 213). Although women were not able to capitalize on their postwar position, their image as the “heroines of reconstruction” enabled to hide their “complicity” with Nazism (Thürmer-Rohr 2008). In contrast to the soldiers of the German Wehrmacht, they were not forced to distance themselves from their complicity because women were deemed the prototypical victims.

Bandauer-Schöffmann and Hornung (1996, 215) point to a gender difference in perceiving the German defeat. In biographical interviews, women often said: “The war was lost,” thus expressing emotional distance and detachment. In contrast, men who had served in the Wehrmacht had to admit: “We lost the war.” They had experienced a dramatic visible event, the collapse of military structures, and the end of their lives as soldiers. The homecoming soldiers had good reasons to believe that they had lost the war and they had failed to protect their families at home from Allied violations. This perception contrasted sharply to the ideal of militarized “heroic masculinity” propagated by the Nazis. Their heightened manly ideal of the fascist man did not survive into the postwar world (Mosse 1996, 181). Kühne (1996, 188) observes an inversion of the hierarchy of ideal masculinities in remembering soldierly comradeship after 1945 in Germany. While after 1918, a kind of martial and hard comradeship was hegemonic, after the Second World War comradeship was associated with weak and caring male bonding. Studies on the psychotherapeutic treatment of war veterans confirm that soldiers of those forces, which were considered especially virile such as the air force, tank, or submarine fleet, showed significant higher rates of impotence compared to others (Mattl 1992, 19). Finally, the official rhetoric of Austrian victimhood impeded war glorification and thus denied the soldiers’ heroism.

In this sense, there was a crisis of masculinity or better several crisis tendencies in gender relations, which indicate tensions in the reproduction of the gender order. This crisis of masculinity was first a collective experience of the male war generation and, second, a context of the public postwar discourse on national identity, which includes the reconfiguration of gender identity. The parliamentary debate on the neutrality act in 1955 forms part of the discursive construction of an Austrian nation and national identity. I analyzed these debates with a focus on masculinity and gender democracy, applying the historical approach of critical discourse analysis (Wodak and Meyer 2009; De Cillia, Reisigl, and Wodak 1999). According to this approach, we can consider the crisis tendencies in gender relations a relevant context of these parliamentary debates. They employ some gendered argumentative topoi, which reflect the context of the crisis of masculinity on the one hand and of regained sovereignty on the other. As the analysis will show, they deal with the transformation of the public and ideal image of masculinity, respectively. My focus on neutral masculinity as a novel public ideal masculinity in the construction of national identity refers to the crisis tendencies in the symbolic gender relations. They include rhetorical strategies to reposition different kinds of masculinities. The most striking feature is the metaphorical feminization of Austria and of neutrality in the debates. This is remarkable because the German language does not apply a female gender on states or nations. Therefore, Austria has a neutral grammatical gender in the original debate, while the English translation employs a female one. The subsequent chapters present the findings of my analysis of the plenary debates on the Federal Constitutional Law on the Neutrality of Austria on October 26, 1955, in the Austrian NC (1955) ¹¹ and the debate on October 28, 1955, in the FC (1955). ¹²

Feminization of Austria’s Postwar Status

Although in the German grammar, Austria is gender-neutral, the speakers in both debates describe postwar Austria in terms of stereotypical femininity: small, weak, passive, and an innocent victim in need of protection. This strategy echoes the victim myth by imagining women as apolitical and uninvolved victims of National Socialism (Bandauer-Schöffmann and Hornung 1996, 214). Most speakers depict Austria as a small and weak country (NC 1955, 3701, 3705, 3709), forced into a passive position by the Allies (NC 1955, 3712), who have occupied Austria, although she was a victim of the German Reich as confirmed by the Allies in the Moscow declaration of 1943 (NC 1955, 3689; FC 1955, 2568). This injustice started in 1938, when the League of Nations accepted Austria’s annexation by the Nazis (NC 1955, 3689; FC 1955, 2575). ¹³ Austria has always been an object of other nations’ desires (NC 1955, 3706) and will be a “truly attractive prey” (NC 1955, 3688) in the future. She will thus seek protection within the United Nations (NC 1955, 3710) and via a guarantee of territorial integrity by the great powers (NC 1955, 3692). Although the reconstruction of the previous ten years indicates that Austria can live on her own, her economic development has been dependent on United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration ¹⁴ and the Marshall Plan (NC 1955, 3691). Consequently, opponents of the neutrality act express doubts if Austria will be viable in economic and especially in military respects (NC 1955, 3696, 3714).

While the state treaty promised the formation of an independent and sovereign state, those speakers, who opposed the neutrality act—that is, the members of the VdU, and Fritz Stüber, their former member, yet formally without parliamentary faction—contrast neutrality and sovereignty. Neutrality seems to endanger sovereignty. In their view, neutrality means restricted sovereignty (NC 1955, 3694). Because of her “three-quarter sovereignty” (NC 1955, 3713), Austria cannot become a relevant actor in international politics. The main reason for her weakness lies in the armament restrictions of the state treaty, which contradict the idea of military self-defense (NC 1955, 3713, 3715; FC 1955, 2577). Moreover, neutrality results in ideological indifference, which disqualifies as an important player in the Cold War constellation (NC 1955, 3695). Again, the speakers of VdU feminize (neutral) Austria rhetorically: Austria lacks the traditional male traits of autonomy and sovereign agency. She is not able to defend herself and her neutrality but seeks for foreign protection. Finally, to achieve this, she must neutralize herself in the ideological battle between east and west; hence, she cannot adopt an own political and ideological standpoint and will consent to the stronger party.

Feminine and Infantile Neutrality versus Adult and Masculine Sovereignty

Although the victim myth declares that the Allied Forces liberated Austria from Nazi occupation in 1945, most speakers in parliament agree with the popular perception that Austria’s liberation happened in May 1955, when signing the state treaty. Lujo Tončić-Sorinj (ÖVP), for instance, refers to “17 years of bondage and 30 years of international disregard” (NC 1955, 3702) terminated by Austria’s newfound freedom. Parliamentarians depict postwar Austria along the traditional female position in a patriarchal gender order. Yet the neutral Austria of the future will have overcome this subordinate position. From now on, Tončić-Sorinj declares, “we claim a voice in all those issues concerning middle-Europe, and we accept negotiations only on the basis of absolute equality” (NC 1955, 3702). In his view, neutral Austria will be a fully-fledged member of the international community of nations and an equal player in international relations.

As discussed above, the Soviet Union was interested in establishing a zone of neutral states in the center of Europe, which would complicate NATO activities. Nevertheless, the United States did not veto Austria’s declaration of neutrality if it was not imposed. Therefore, the neutrality law included the phrase “on her own free will.” For the federal government, it was important to emphasize the voluntary nature of the declaration. The decision in parliament takes place only after “the last foreign soldier has left Austrian territory” as federal chancellor, Julius Raab declares (NC 1955, 3690); hence, there is no violence or pressure at work. Already the timing should “show clearly that the legitimate, freely elected representation of the Austrian people decide completely independently and in perfect liberty” (NC 1955, 3690). It was crucial for the government to suggest that the declaration of neutrality was a sovereign act of the free and democratic Austria. As a side effect, though a telling one, this diplomatic necessity encouraged the gendered rhetoric in the plenum.

Max Stendebach (VdU) tries to unmask the phrase “on her own free will” by stating that “our declaration of neutrality is and will remain the essential price for the state treaty and for the related final liberation from occupation and paternalism” (NC 1955, 3694). Later, Max Rabl (VdU) calls it a “historical lie” concealing what “every schoolboy knows” (FC 1955, 2577) that it was a deal with Moscow. Metaphorically, both visualize Austria’s postwar situation in terms of boyhood, which will not end with the declaration of neutrality. Although the Allies’ paternalism hindered the people of Austria to grow up, that is, to become sovereign (male) adults, they still understand that neutrality will be a new obstacle to mature masculinity. Several similar statements of VdU representatives and Stüber indicate a rejection of the victim myth in favor of male honor and autonomy. Therefore, neutrality holds the risk of prolonging infancy by curtailing full sovereignty. In their view, neutral Austria cannot act on equal footing with other nation states in her foreign policy.

Moreover, Austrian citizens, especially young males going to serve in the conscription army, will not be able to keep up with the ideal of (past) heroic masculinity. As mentioned above, one argument was that the armament restrictions of the state treaty would impair the effectiveness of military self-defense. Furthermore, “armed neutrality” according to the Swiss model, Rabl argues, does not compare to Austria because “we have become cautious regarding the phrase ‘defend your fatherland’, since we have learnt that there were many who did not, neither 1914 to 1918, nor later” (FC 1955, 2577). As “1914–1918” means the First World War, we can suppose that “later” refers to the Second World War. Although Rabl employs a rather vague wording, he seems to address the veterans of the German Wehrmacht, who in their perception just defended their fatherland. Instead of glory and honor, they received distrust from the new democratic government in 1945, who excluded former members of the National Socialist Party from the elections. This means that postwar Austria disregarded their sacrifice and their virile and heroic masculinity by claiming the existence of an Austrian nation, which profoundly differs from Germany. The Austrian government favored the strategy of self-victimization and thus symbolic emasculation. From this point of view, military service in the neutral state will not restore masculinity because heroic warfare is the touchstone for masculinity. Moreover, soldiers in the neutral and weak army cannot sacrifice their lives for their fatherland heroically because “the Austrian federal army will be a suicide mission” (FC 1955, 2578). It will not be able to win a single battle. Accordingly, the lamented restricted sovereignty in international relations refers to the inability of the neutral state to declare war and to pose a threat to other nations.

Advocates of neutrality, in contrast, emphasize the peace mission of Austria and her contribution to the maintenance of world peace. This is not simply a task of the future but also a historical mission, which resulted from the geopolitical situation in the middle of Europe. Austria assigned to balance the great powers unfortunately failed in 1914, which caused the First World War. In general, neutral states play a balancing role (NC 1955, 3705, 3709; FC 1955, 2572). Therefore, some parliamentarians claim that Austria has always been neutral in the sense of acting as a mediator between potential warring factions (NC 1955, 3688). Tončić-Sorinj (ÖVP) calls this “Austria’s function” (NC 1955, 3701) and concludes that “neutrality is, according to the current political situation, the prevailing shape of the old task of our historical function.” Alfred Porges (SPÖ) adds: “If the resolution on Austria’s neutrality is a brick in the huge construction of world peace, then, we Austrians have fully completed the mission, assigned to us by history!” (FC 1955, 2576) In these depictions, neutrality seems to be the mature version of an embryonic neutrality inherited from the Habsburg Empire. Therefore, the phrase permanent neutrality represents eternity by linking past and future. Accordingly, neutrality is no artificial invention or Allied imposition, but the product of historical—not to say natural—development. Although this historical narrative characterizes conservative positions, the socialist, Ernst Koref agrees: “The position of our country and the tradition of our people predestine us to be a bridge between West and East” (NC 1955, 3709).

From this point of view, sovereignty does not refer to declaring war, but to an eternal peace mission. In order not to fail again, Austria is encouraged to pursue an active foreign policy (FC 1955, 2569). Federal chancellor Raab (ÖVP) points out that neutrality does not restrict sovereignty but forms the basis of Austria’s foreign policy (NC 1955, 3691). This will pose a special responsibility on Austria and will force “us to make difficult decisions. We do not fear these decisions,” he adds, “because we will follow a clear and unambiguous line in our foreign policy.” This straight way of conducting politics requires brave and rational politicians such as those who have fought for the state treaty. “We have proven a truly manly stance” (NC 1955, 3708), Koref (SPÖ) states, when evaluating his party’s performance during the ten years of Allied occupation. Raab and Koref frame the notions of sovereignty and active policy of neutrality in terms of masculinity, and both refer to a heroic version of masculinity when talking about themselves or future politicians.

Proponents as well as opponents of neutrality conceptualize sovereignty with reference to masculinity. However, the advocates of neutrality do not contrast it to sovereignty but try to explain how a neutral state is fully sovereign, that is, masculine. The key to this conjunction is neutral masculinity, which, as we will see in the subsequent chapters, represents both a national characteristic and an individual ethos of Austrian citizens.

Neutral Masculinity of the Austrian Nation

By quoting a Swiss thinker, Tončić-Sorinj (ÖVP) compares neutrality to “Caesar’s wife, [who] must carefully avoid giving rise to any suspicion of unfaithfulness” (NC 1955, 3700). This way of feminizing neutrality does not simply refer to passivity in contrast to sovereign agency but invokes a wife’s virtues that support her husband’s social position. Consequently, feminized neutrality does not assume symbolic emasculation but requires an adequate masculine counterpart: a man who is willing and able to protect and fight for her. “[O]ne cannot merely enjoy neutrality, but one must be ready to fight for it” (NC 1955, 3710), Koref (SPÖ) remarks. Speakers in parliament associate this readiness to fight with conscription and refer to the phrase of the neutrality law stating that Austria “is resolved to maintain and defend [her neutrality] with all the means at her disposal.”

Austria, determined to fight for her neutrality, is no longer the small and weak postwar country, but a self-conscious nation—a people willing to be “the only master in its own house” (NC 1955, 3701-2.). In contrast to the representatives of the VdU who insinuate that neutrality means infinite adolescence, advocates of neutrality in parliament depict the postwar era as a final step of becoming an adult nation. “The Austrian people wants to enjoy its freedom, not like a school-boy, weak at his knees, but as a self-conscious, despite all the blows of fate, a strong people, in a neutral way” (FC 1955, 2571), Ernst Kolb (ÖVP) proclaims. Accordingly, Ernst Fischer (VO) claims that Hitler “degraded Austrians to Ostmakers” (NC 1955, 3704) and as a reaction, the Austrian national sentiment started to stir. “From the idea of annexation (Anschluss) to the declaration of neutrality: this is Austria’s way to herself, away from dangerous adventures toward advantageous conditions for our existence and for the future” (NC 1955, 3704.). The thirst for adventures is not conceived a masculine trait but rather a childish passion. Moreover, the dangerous adventures represent warfare. In contrast, Austrians are a “peaceful people” (NC 1955, 3689), whose national sentiment is committed to friendship and fraternity (NC 1955, 3693, 3694). These national commitments contradict “aggressive masculinity” that is militarized and usually supported by nationalists (Mosse 1996, 53). Yet they form part of the novel and adult version of masculinity, which I propose to call neutral masculinity.

Citizenship and Gender Democracy

Austrian neutrality was diplomatically tied to the Soviets’ consent to withdraw their occupation troops. Their conditions form part of the state treaty and include provisions like reparations, armament restrictions, or the prohibition to join Germany. Some provisions of the state treaty such as the prohibition of the National Socialist Party were remains of previous drafts of the state treaty, negotiated with the Allies during the 1940s. The beginning of the Cold War put an end to these negotiations and prolonged the end of Allied occupation. In this Cold War context of the state treaty and the declaration of neutrality, the Austrian coalition government of the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Socialist Party (SPÖ) was determined to make Austria an economically and socially stable Western democracy. “Regarding her world view, Austria is a Western state” (NC 1955, 3700). Accordingly, representatives of both parties define neutrality mainly in military terms, that is, they promise that Austria would never participate in any war to come (NC 1955, 3687). However, their strategy in the debate on neutrality to focus exclusively on war and on the conscription army as defense against possible military invasions fails because the public debate has introduced the notion of ideological “neutralism,” especially propagated by the communist party (VO) and rejected by the VdU. Therefore, the parliamentary debate on the neutrality act also discusses the ideological influence of neutrality on the individual citizen and on democracy.

Most pro-speakers of ÖVP and SPÖ emphasize the fact that neutrality does not impair the fundamental and civil rights (NC 1955, 3688). Neutrality obliges the state, not the individual citizen (NC 1955, 3690); it does not influence individual attitudes and opinions (NC 1955, 3711). They agree that the neutrality act does not pursue neutral citizenship, if neutral citizenship means restrictions of the rights to freedom of expression and especially the freedom of the press. Such restrictions would undermine democracy. From this perspective, neutral masculinity seems to constitute only a rhetorical framework to appreciate active foreign policy. Neutral masculinity does not provide a role model for individual Austrians. On the contrary, democratic citizens are virtually obliged to nonneutral behavior. However, as a member of the Austrian nation, every single man seems to participate in a kind of innate neutrality.

Ernst Fischer (VO) tries to uncover the hardly concealed Western orientation of the government. He seems to agree with the idea that neutrality is not a topic of internal affairs, when he notes that in a neutral state, neither class struggle nor ideological disputes on international problems will end (NC 1955, 3705). However, for him a definition of neutrality confined to foreign policy and military nonalliance is too narrow. Instead, “the spirit of neutrality” (NC 1955, 3705) must be put center stage. This is the willingness to overcome hatred, mistrust, and political divisions (NC 1955, 3705). It is the spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship, and peace (NC 1955, 3707). He does not distinguish between internal (democratic) politics and international politics when he takes sides with the Soviet Union and accuses the Austrian government to be biased in favor of the West. This strategy merges the former division between neutrality of the state and nonneutrality of the citizen. Koref (SPÖ) who takes up the notion of “spirit of neutrality” (NC 1955, 3711) elaborates on this idea. Educators and politicians will have the duty to make neutrality a mental disposition of every single citizen, he states. However, he emphasizes that this education to neutrality must not result in ideological uniformity, a point directed against the communists.

An important site of the education to neutrality will be the conscription army. “We must have the courage to tell the population that military sovereignty is the precondition for neutrality” (NC 1955, 3710), Koref points out. This means the young generation of male citizens who did not serve in the German Wehrmacht will have to serve as well. Kolb (ÖVP) makes clear: “The maintenance of neutrality requires a brave well educated army, willing to make sacrifices” (FC 1955, 2572). Not the number of troops is important, but the attitude to the military service (FC 1955, 2573). The speakers in parliament do not describe in detail the military education to neutrality. Nevertheless, we can assume that conscription does not simply serve the purpose to spread the idea of neutrality. In the parliamentary debates, appreciating conscription is also a strategy to oppose the representatives of the VdU who have insinuated emasculating effects of neutrality. In this way, the army is rehabilitated and can again fulfill its traditional task as an institution of masculine initiation (Frevert 1996, 82). Again, the sacrifice on behalf of the fatherland legitimates civil rights. Consequently, democracy does not build on equal gender relations. On the contrary, the neutral masculinity of the well-educated soldier of the Austrian conscription army is a heroic conception of masculinity in a postheroic society.

Conclusion

This article demonstrates that neutral masculinity as constituted in the parliamentary discourse on neutrality in the Austrian NC and FC in 1955 did not take the shape of a postheroic masculinity, although there are good reasons to conceive of postfascist Austria as a postheroic society. Postheroic societies abstain from warfare; they experience expanded democracy and restricted sovereignty (Schwartz 2008; Wevelsiep 2011). This holds true for Austria: starting in 1945, the Austrian government installed democratic institutions. All parties of the Second Republic shared a clear commitment to democracy. Finally, the declaration of neutrality meant to stay out of warfare and to refuse any military support of warring nations. However, the question of restricted sovereignty became a topic of dispute, which resulted in a gendered discourse in the plenary sittings.

Speakers in parliament feminize postwar Austria metaphorically by applying two distinct rhetorical strategies: one claims Austria’s status as victim of the German Reich whose occupation has been unfair; the other suggests that postwar Austria is in a state of infancy and only full sovereignty would lead to adult masculinity. By opposing feminine and infantile neutrality to adult masculine sovereignty, this strategy problematizes neutrality as obstacle to full sovereignty. Moreover, a traditional gender order of male domination and female subordination reframes this opposition metaphorically. Parliamentary rhetoric thus evokes a crisis of masculinity originating in distorted gender relations. The first strategy, in contrast, claims a compatibility of neutrality and sovereignty. However, the rhetoric again requires a hierarchical gender order. This becomes obvious when analyzing the construction of neutral masculinity as political identity.

The plenary debates refer to neutrality as political identity on three levels: first, the level of the nation, second, the level of politicians, and third, the level of individual (male) citizens. First, as a national character trait, neutrality seems to be an inherent feature of the Austrian population and its political leaders. In this line of argument, the declaration of neutrality fulfills a historical mission; hence, neutrality is a fate, not a political decision. Second, neutrality is a political strategy of Austrian politicians to achieve sovereignty. Proponents of neutrality associate neutrality with the brave and manly stance of their political leaders; opponents in contrast suspect their cowardice at Soviets. Third, although individual citizens and civil rights are not affected by the declaration of neutrality, speakers in parliament imagine neutral masculinity as an educational task, which will be conducted by the conscription army. Feminized neutrality is in need of protection. This gives the young soldiers and citizens the chance to fulfill their traditional roles and thus to overcome their own victimized position. They were given the opportunity to serve a higher ideal and to sacrifice their lives—or at least a few months of their lifetime—for the nation. Therefore, neutrality does not lead to a kind of “neutralized,” feminized, childish, or emasculated political masculinity, as the opponents of neutrality fear. It simply reinstalls traditional notions of masculinity.

Finally, neutral masculinity is neither a version of postheroic masculinity nor does it support gender democracy. On the contrary, neutral masculinity forms part of a restored traditional gender order, which dominated the social development of the 1950s. Economic reconstruction and stability facilitated the idealization of the traditional family with male breadwinner (Mesner 2005, 164). Women were redefined as mothers and wives, whose civil rights were still constrained by their family duties. Although neutral masculinity is a novel version of political masculinity, which differs from “militarized masculinity” of the war (Ashe 2012), it primarily serves the purpose to overcome the crisis tendencies in the gender relations, that is, a kind of crisis of masculinity induced by the defeat in war. Therefore, neutral masculinity reinstalls a heroic notion of masculinity, which does not contribute to equal political participation regardless of gender. On the contrary, neutral masculinity rather remasculinizes the nation than equalizes the gender order.