Item: i102883


Authentic Coin of:

Austria – Death of Doctor Karl Lueger
1935 Silver 2 Shilling 29mm (12.00 grams) 0.640 Silver (0.2469 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 2855
Bearded doctor’s bust facing right.
Double headed eagle coat of arms, year separating denomination.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

Karl Lueger (24 October 1844 – 10 March 1910) was an Austrian politician, mayor of Vienna, and leader and founder of the Austrian Christian Social Party. He is credited with the transformation of the city of Vienna into a modern city. The populist and anti-Semitic politics of his Christian Social Party are sometimes viewed as a model for Hitler’s Nazism.

Karl Lueger came from a modest background, born at Wieden (since 1850 the 4th district of Vienna) to Leopold Lueger of Neustadtl an der Donau and his wife Juliane. His birthplace is now the western part of the main building of the Vienna University of Technology at Karlsplatz where Lueger’s father worked as an usher at the Vienna Polytechnic.

He nevertheless was able to attend the renowned Theresianum boarding school (Theresianische Ritterakademie) as a day student. He studied law at the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1870. While at the university he was a member of the Catholic Student Association (Katholische akademische Verbindung Norica Wien, K.A.V. Norica Wien), part of the Österreichische Cartellverband (ÖCV) fraternities.

He established his own lawyer’s office in Vienna in 1874 and soon became known as a “little people’s” („kleinen Leute“) advocate. In this his role model and mentor was the popular Jewish physician and local politician Ignaz Mandl, known as “God of the Little People” in Lueger’s district of Landstraße (Third District), whom he followed into political life. The association ended when Lueger became identified with anti-semitism. 

Austria, officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich), is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.5 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,879 square kilometres (32,386 sq mi). Austria’s terrain is highly mountainous, lying within the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and Austrian German in its standard form is the country’s official language. Other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene.

The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. From the time of the Reformation, many Northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. The Thirty Years War, the influence of the Kingdom of Sweden and Kingdom of France, the rise of the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Napoleonic invasions all weakened the power of the Emperor in the North of Germany, but in the South, and in non-German areas of the Empire, the Emperor and Catholicism maintained control. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria was able to retain its position as one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. Following Napoleon’s defeat, Prussia emerged as Austria’s chief competitor for rule of a larger Germany. Austria’s defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary. After the defeat of France in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, Austria was left out of the formation of a new German Empire, although in the following decades its politics, and its foreign policy, increasingly converged with those of the Prussian-led Empire. During the 1914 July Crisis that followed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Germany guided Austria in issuing the ultimatum to Serbia that led to the declaration of World War I.

After the collapse of the Habsburg (Austro-Hungarian) Empire in 1918 at the end of World War I, Austria adopted and used the name the Republic of German-Austria (Deutschösterreich, later Österreich) in an attempt for union with Germany, but was forbidden due to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919). The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919. In the 1938 Anschluss, Austria was occupied and annexed by Nazi Germany.^[14] This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies and Austria’s former democratic constitution was restored. In 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral.

Today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $52,216 (2014 est.). The country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, and is a founder of the OECD. Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro in 1999.