Richard Schmitz
Encyclopedia
Richard Schmitz was the last Social-Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 mayor of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

.

Richard Schmitz served as Vice Chancellor of Austria
Vice Chancellor of Austria
In Austrian politics, the Vice-Chancellor is a member of the federal government acting as a deputy to the Federal Chancellor.Art. 69 of the Constitution of Austria states:...

, as well as its Minister of Social Welfare and of Education, and as Commissioner of Vienna. He was a member of the pro-Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

 Christian Social Party.

After an active role in the Heimwehr
Heimwehr
The Heimwehr or sometimes Heimatschutz were a Nationalist, initially paramilitary group operating within Austria during the 1920s and 1930s; they were similar in methods, organisation, and ideology to Germany's Freikorps...

-Fascist clash with the Clericals, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...

 appointed him Mayor of Vienna in 1934. He succeeded elected Mayor Karl Seitz
Karl Seitz
Karl Seitz was an Austrian politician and the first President of Austria.Karl Seitz was born in Vienna, then capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire, as the son of a struggling small-time coal trader. Following the premature death of his father in 1875, the family was thrown into abject poverty,...

. Ardently anti-Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

, Schmitz was Mayor four years later when Austria was absorbed into the Third Reich in the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

. Up until that point, Schmitz spoke out publicly against Nazism and its tactics.

Along with thousands of other prominent Austrians, Richard Schmitz was arrested and taken to Dachau concentration camp in Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 where he remained for the length of the war. In late April 1945 Schmitz was, together with other prominent concentration camp inmates, transferred to Tyrol
Transport of concentration camp inmates to Tyrol
The Transport of Inmates of German Concentration Camps to Tyrol happened in late April 1945 and led to the only time such prisoners were liberated by German troops.- Transfer and liberation:...

 where the SS left the prisoners behind. He was liberated by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 troops on May 5, 1945.
|-
|width="30%" align="center"|Preceded by:
Karl Seitz
Karl Seitz
Karl Seitz was an Austrian politician and the first President of Austria.Karl Seitz was born in Vienna, then capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire, as the son of a struggling small-time coal trader. Following the premature death of his father in 1875, the family was thrown into abject poverty,...


|width="40%" align="center"|Mayor of Vienna
1934 1938
|width="30%" align="center"|Succeeded by:
Hermann Neubacher
Hermann Neubacher
Hermann Neubacher was an Austrian Nazi politician who held a number of diplomatic posts in the Third Reich. During the Second World War, he was appointed as the leading German official for the Balkans.-Austrian activism:...


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