Franz Rauscher

Franz Rauscher, born in Vienna, Austria, (30 July 1900 – 11 March 1988) was an Austrian Social Democrat politician.

Life Provenance and early years Rauscher's father was a railway worker. He himself embarked on an apprenticeship as a mechanic and found work in a munitions factory. Despite his youth he was elected a trades union official. He took part in the wave demonstrations and strikes that broke out in Vienna directly after the First World War. Then, in 1919, he switched to the railways, now employed as an office worker at the Westbahnhof (main railway station). He again became active as a trades unionist. Workers' education would be a recurring theme in Rauscher's career, and at the Westbahnhof he set up the Railwaymen's Library. In 1926 he teamed up with Rosa Jochmann to found the Workers' Academy ("Arbeiterhochschule") in Vienna 19 (Döbling). It is not clear when or whether the two of them actually married, but they now became life-partners.

Years of political polarisation In the late 1920s he was among the co-organizers, in Lower Austria, of the Republikanischer Schutzbund, The Self-elimination of the Austrian Parliament took place on 4 March 1933 and was interpreted by Chancellor Dollfuss as an unexpected but not unwelcome invitation to suspend parliamentary democracy. Social Democratic members were escorted from the parliament in Vienna by the police. Over the next few months the Social Democratic Party was progressively repressed and outlawed, formally on 12 February 1934. Trades unions were also banned: Franz Rauscher remained politically engaged and went "underground" (which involved living without being registered at the city hall). He then appeared as one of 28 defendants in the so-called "trial of the socialists" ("Sozialistenprozess") which opened at the Vienna district court on 16 March 1936. One of his co-defendants was Bruno Kreisky who would go one to become, many years later, Austria's longest-serving federal chancellor since the creation of the republic in 1919. he was held in state detention for the next six years.

Postwar From 1945 Rauscher was involved in the re-establishment of the Social Democratic Party of Austria. He also contributed at a national level to rebuilding the country. On 26 September 1945 he accepted an appointment as Undersecretary of State for security, administration, planning and the application of state assets. He resigned from this post after slightly less than three months, in connection with his election the previous month to the National Council (parliament), in which he sat as an SPÖ member till standing down in November 1949, ahead of the next general election. Between March 1946 and January 1947 Rauscher served briefly as secretary of state at what would today be identified as the Ministry of Economics.