Julius Raab

Julius Raab (29 November 1891 – 8 January 1964) was a conservative Austrian politician, who served as Federal Chancellor of Austria from 1953 to 1961. Raab steered Allied-occupied Austria to independence, when he negotiated and signed the Austrian State Treaty in 1955. In internal politics Raab stood for a pragmatic social partnership and the "Grand coalition" of Austrian Conservatives and Social Democrats.

Biography

Raab was born into a middle-class Catholic family in Sankt Pölten, Lower Austria, the son of a master builder. He attended a Catholic high school and in 1911 enrolled at the Vienna University of Technology to study civil engineering. He was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army as a pioneer officer before graduation and fought on the Russian and Italian fronts of World War I. After the defeat of Central Powers Raab returned to the university and engaged in politics. He married Harmine Haumer in 1923.

The death of his father and the beginning of his political career in the First Austrian Republic compelled Raab to drop out of the university in 1925. From 1927 to 1934 he was a member of the National Council parliament as a Lower Austrian deputy of the Christian Social Party. Backed by Chancellor Ignaz Seipel, he was also active in the Heimwehr paramilitary arm of right-wing political forces, and was appointed chief for Lower Austria in 1928. However, his attempts to bind the paramilitary forces to the Christian Social Party ultimatively failed. In 1932 he joined the Catholic Ostmärkische Sturmscharen forces led by his party fellows Kurt Schuschnigg and Leopold Figl. In 1933 Raab joined the Fatherland's Front, the newly established right-wing coalition led by Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. During the austrofascist period of 1934–1938 Raab progressed through the ranks of the Corporate State, and was appointed Minister of Commerce by Chancellor Schuschnigg just four weeks before the 1938 Anschluss to Nazi Germany.