1934
The Price and Value of Democracy
07.02. - 26.05.2024
Image Credits
Duration
07.02. - 26.05.2024
Opening
06.02.2024 19:00
Location
History Museum
Show all
About the
Exhibition
In February 1934, civil war dominates the streets of Austria. Armed clashes between the defence organisations of the political parties, the ‘Heimwehr’ (Home Guard) and the ‘Republikanischer Schutzbund’ (Republican Defence League), claim several hundred lives. The events of 1934 are a pivotal moment in the journey from the democratic republic to the end of Austria's existence as a state with the invasion of German troops in 1938. The exhibition traces the events of the time, the catastrophic situation with 600,000 unemployed at the height of the world economic recession in 1932/33, attempts at authoritarian crisis management, the elimination of the National Parliament and the authoritarian government of Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß, the crippling of the Constitutional Court, the prohibition on political parties, the persecution of the Social Democratic opposition and the rise of fascism in Europe.
In 2024, lectures, conferences and school projects will be organised throughout Styria on the death throes of democracy at this time. With an exhibition in the Hofgalerie, the Museum of History vitally helps raise awareness of this key moment in modern Styrian history. The exhibition is based in part on the museum’s own photographic holdings.
Glimpses
The curators of the exhibition "1934. The Price and Value of Democracy" Heimo Halbrainer and Helmut Konrad (from left) with Bettina Habsburg-Lothringen, Director of the History Museum in Graz
Image Credits
Graz, Eggenberg, consumer building shot up in the February battles of 1934
Image Credits
Federal Army in Bruck an der Mur (posed photo), February 1934
Image Credits
Parade of the Heimatschutz in Knittelfeld
Image Credits
Bullet holes in the Legat store in Burggasse in Bruck an der Mur as a result of the February fighting in 1934
Image Credits
Exhibition view "1934. The Price and Value of Democracy"
Image Credits
Exhibition view "1934. The Price and Value of Democracy"
Image Credits
Exhibition view "1934. The Price and Value of Democracy"
Image Credits
Exhibition view "1934. The Price and Value of Democracy"
Image Credits
Exhibition view "1934. The Price and Value of Democracy"
Image Credits
Exhibition view "1934. The Price and Value of Democracy"
Image Credits
Exhibition view "1934. The Price and Value of Democracy"
Image Credits