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The inflation destroyed a great deal of capital, especially when investments had been made in state securities (and here once again – especially in war bonds.) There is hardly a bourgeois biography in which this fact is not mentioned, seeing that it affected almost everyone belonging to this class in any way at all.²³ The rent-control legislations that, de facto, expropriated the property owners had a similar effect – Otto Bauer already provided an accurate description of this. Up until 1914, it had been a common security strategy for members of the middle classes to own an apartment building to provide for their old age. Heinrich Röttinger (1869–1952), who retired from his final position as Director of the University Library in 1933, had an annual income of more than 16,000 crowns in 1914; only 34 per cent came from his salary (which still amounted to 5400 crowns), while 36 per cent came from renting and 15 per cent from his investments. Not untypically, the last two items were reduced to zero after 1918, partly due to devaluation and partly to the systematic disposal of property and securities. This was the first time that the government official had to rely entirely on his salary.²⁴

Experiencing insecurity was a central shock for the highly developed desire for security felt by the members of the bourgeoisie of the late monarchy, which Stefan Zweig portrayed so lovingly in his writing.²⁵ The inflation resulted in civil servants losing more than 85 per cent of their real income (1920: civil servants received 14 per cent of the peacetime purchasing power and, in 1925, their salaries were still only about 56 per cent of what they had been before the war).²⁶ This material loss of position was underlined by the levelling of incomes during the inflationary period: In March 1922, a coal deliverer earned 1300 times as much as he did in 1914; for a hairdresser, this was only 400, for a university professor 214, a court councillor 124, and for an assistant doctor only 100 times as much. At the same time, a skilled worker in the metal, sugar, or electrical industry earned up to 1.8 million crowns, while the salary of a ministerial councillor was only 1.5 million crowns.²⁷ Although the wage gap widened again after the stabilisation of the currency (autumn 1922), the relations remained completely different from traditional concepts. By no means, had the labourers become “rich” – they still earned very little compared to their counterparts in other countries.²⁸ Nevertheless, the perception of the levelling for the affected “bourgeoisie” meant precisely the loss of the social advantages that had previously defined being “bourgeois”.

In the first years after the war, the feeling of material deprivation became mixed with the experience of social powerlessness due to the dominance of the left wing in the streets and political process: “Supported on the streets and with the means of trade union struggle, assured of the Bundeswehr recruited from their ranks, social democracy is able to allow itself the tremendous luxury of leaving all responsibility to the bourgeois parties, seeing that, in reality, it remains dominant, even if there is a bourgeois cabinet. However, the pillars of the old regime – the citizens and farmers – are leaving the field, intimidated, uncertain of their own destiny…” ²⁹

The experience of persistent material deprivation continued for quite a few “bourgeois” even after “bourgeois” coalitions had taken over the government. The Geneva Protocol for the Reconstruction of Austria of 1922 forced an extensive reduction in the number of civil servants. It was proclaimed that the number of public employees was to be “reduced” by the round number of 100,000. By the end of 1925, 83,386 had actually retired or been dismissed, in addition to 10,000 who had worked for the Southern Railroad Organisation. The total number reached about 50 per cent of those still active, i.e., about one third of all the people employed in public service had been affected by these measures. In the following years, there was only a slow decrease in the number of public employees. However, this was then accelerated as a result of the collapse of the Creditanstalt Bank and the enormous costs for its reorganisation that were covered by the state. In 1926, around 200,000 people were employed in government administration, federal enterprises and the railroads; this decreased to 166,000 in 1933 (this later increased slightly due to the number of soldiers and police officers hired).³⁰ The succession of bank failures that followed after the stabilisation crisis of 1924 had a similar effect. The Association of Banking and Savings Institute Officials had 24,500 members in 1924; this reduced to 11,000 in 1926 and even further to 7,700 in 1931.³¹

A high percentage of the bourgeois groups who had been hit hardest by the collapse of the monarchy, inflation, rent control legislations, budget restructuring, and bank failures lived in Vienna. The fact that “republic” lacked the positive connotation the word generally has for us today for these impoverished members of the bourgeoisie who were unsure of their status is unpleasant, but it is not incomprehensible. What is less comprehensible is that the “bourgeois” parties and governments showed so little commitment to the interests of their clientele. The radical pay cuts that the employees of the Creditanstalt were expected to accept as a result of the bank’s crisis even prompted Otto Bauer to speak in the main committee of the National Council. He stated that although he had actually nothing against such cuts, he would like to be permitted to state that, by doing this, the bourgeois parties were sawing off the branch they were sitting on.³² It seems possible that this approach was an expression of certain antisemitic currents among the Christian Socials and Greater Germans (bank directors were frequently Jews) and, in connection with this, probably also an attempt to gain popularity by attributing guilt to, and taking massive action against, bank directors and officials.³³

The memoirs of Alexander Spitzmüller (1862–1953) offer a wide range of material for this behaviour – especially on the part of the Christian Socialists: In spite of his clearly Catholic stance, the one-time state official, then bank director (of the Creditanstalt), Austrian Trade Minister, and the last joint Finance Minister of the Austro-Hungarian empire, always remained an outsider for the Christian Socialists. He never received the thanks due to him for the energy he invested as governor of the Austro-Hungarian Bank (until its liquidation at the beginning of 1923) and as head of the Creditanstalt during the crisis of 1931/32; quite the contrary, everything possible was undertaken to hinder him in carrying out these arduous tasks.³⁴ Spitzmüller’s memoirs are not the only case. Those of Hans von Loewenfeld-Russ, who, as a highly respected nutritionist, not only served the monarchy but also the young republic with unwavering loyalty, described the blockade of any further public career by the Christian Social Party as the result of a statement he made in the cabinet that seemed to expose him as sympathising with the Social Democrats.³⁵

Entrepreneurial circles, therefore, started looking for alternatives early on. They supported the Heimwehr as a military force against the Republican Schutzbund of the Social Democrats. The management of the “Alpine” conglomerate in Styria, in particular, promoted the various Heimwehr organisations. Here, the management attempted to weaken the social democratic unions by supporting a “yellow” Heimwehr union. Bourgeois frustration became particularly evident in the results of the Vienna municipal and province election of 1932, when the Christian Socialists suffered severe losses to the National Socialists.