1.
Heinz Fischer
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Heinz Fischer GColIH is an Austrian politician. He took office as President of Austria on 8 July 2004 and was re-elected for a second and last term on 25 April 2010, Fischer previously served as Minister of Science from 1983 to 1987 and as President of the National Council of Austria from 1990 to 2002. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, he suspended his party membership for the duration of his presidency, Fischer was born in Graz, Styria, which had recently become part of Nazi Germany, following Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938. Fischer attended a school which focused on humanities and graduated in 1956. He studied law at the University of Vienna, earning a doctorate in 1961, in 1963, at the age of 25, Fischer spent a year volunteering at Kibbutz Sarid, northern Israel. Apart from being a politician, Fischer also pursued an academic career, Fischer was a member of the Austrian parliament, the National Council, from 1971, and served as its president from 1990 to 2002. From 1983 to 1987 he was Minister of Science in a government headed by Fred Sinowatz. In January 2004 Fischer announced that he would run for president to succeed Thomas Klestil and he was elected on 25 April 2004 as the candidate of the opposition Social Democratic Party. He polled 52.4 per cent of the votes to defeat Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Fischer was sworn in on 8 July 2004 and took over office from the college of presidents of the National Council, who had acted for the President following Klestils death on 6 July. Fischers critics, foremost among them Norbert Leser, his university colleague, have derided him as a politician who has never been in touch with the real world. They claim that Fischer has always avoided controversy and conflict, even when that seemed required, on being nominated for president, Fischer said that he hated antagonising people and that he considered this quality an asset rather than anything else. In April 2010, Fischer was re-elected as President of Austria, the voter turnout of merely 53. 6% was a record low. Around a third of those eligible to vote voted for Fischer, some prominent ÖVP members, unofficially but in public, even suggested to cast a blanc vote, which some 7% of the voters did. Fischer identifies himself as agnostic and as a social democrat and he has been married to his wife Margit since 1968. The couple have two grown children, Fischer enjoys mountaineering and has been president of the Austrian Friends of Nature for many years
2.
Vienna
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Vienna is the capital and largest city of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austrias primary city, with a population of about 1.8 million, and its cultural, economic and it is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin, Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. The city is located in the part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region, along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, apart from being regarded as the City of Music because of its musical legacy, Vienna is also said to be The City of Dreams because it was home to the worlds first psycho-analyst – Sigmund Freud. The citys roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city and it is well known for having played an essential role as a leading European music centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, Vienna is known for its high quality of life. In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first for the worlds most liveable cities, between 2011 and 2015, Vienna was ranked second, behind Melbourne, Australia. Monocles 2015 Quality of Life Survey ranked Vienna second on a list of the top 25 cities in the world to make a base within, the UN-Habitat has classified Vienna as being the most prosperous city in the world in 2012/2013. Vienna regularly hosts urban planning conferences and is used as a case study by urban planners. Between 2005 and 2010, Vienna was the worlds number-one destination for international congresses and it attracts over 3.7 million tourists a year. The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian version of the name or the French Vienne. The etymology of the name is still subject to scholarly dispute. Some claim that the name comes from Vedunia, meaning forest stream, which produced the Old High German Uuenia. A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech and Slovak names of the city, the name of the city in Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian and Ottoman Turkish has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area. Slovene-speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic languages means the Danube River, evidence has been found of continuous habitation since 500 BC, when the site of Vienna on the Danube River was settled by the Celts. In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north
3.
Chancellor of Austria
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The Federal Chancellor is the head of government of Austria. In his capacity as chairman of the Austrian Federal Government, the chancellor represents the federal authority of the executive branch. Though formally a member of the cabinet, the Chancellor is considered to be the most powerful position in Austrian politics. His official seat is in the Federal Chancellery, the current Chancellor is Christian Kern of the Social Democratic Party, who was sworn into office on 17 May 2016. The task was fulfilled by the Prince-Archbishops of Mainz as Archchancellors of the German lands. These were also the times when attempts were made to balance Imperial absolutism by the creation of Imperial Governments, ultimately a failure. Beside a Bohemian and Hungarian chancellery, he created the office of an Austrian chancellor in Vienna, responsible for the Archduchy of Austria proper with the Inner Austrian territories, under Emperor Leopold I the term again became Hofkanzler with Johann Paul Freiherr von Hocher, and Theodor von Strattman. He was succeeded by Johann Philipp von Cobenzl, who was dismissed by Emperor Francis II over the Partition of Poland and was succeeded by Johann Amadeus Francis de Paula. With the consequent dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and founding of the Austrian Empire, Francis II abdicated the former Imperial Throne, Prince Klemens von Metternich was appointed by Francis I to the positions of Hofkanzler and Staatskanzler. However, there is some opinion that the Chancellor title was not used between Prince Kaunitz-Rietbergs resignation in 1792 and 1821, as the Metternich system had become a synonym for his reactionary politics, the title of a State Chancellor was abolished upon the 1848 revolutions. With the enactment of the Constitution of Austria on 10 November 1920, the Chancellor is appointed and sworn in by the President. In theory, the President can appoint anyone eligible to be elected to the National Council, in practice, a Chancellor is unable to govern unless he or she commands the confidence of the National Council. For this reason, the Chancellor is usually the leader of the largest party in the National Council, a notable exception to this occurred after the 1999 election. The Freedom Party won the most seats and went into coalition with the Peoples Party, while this would have normally made Freedom Party leader Jorg Haider Chancellor, he was deemed too controversial to be a member of the Cabinet, let alone Chancellor. He thus stepped aside in favour of Peoples Party leader Wolfgang Schüssel, the Chancellor has no term limits. As a matter of convention, the Chancellor usually offers his or her resignation to the President upon dissolution of the National Council. The President usually declines and directs the Chancellor and his or her cabinet to operate as a government until a new National Council is in session. In fact, the constitution expressly encourages the President to use a Chancellor as his or her own interim successor, a Chancellor is typically appointed or dismissed together with his or her ministers
4.
Conceptual art
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Conceptual art, sometimes simply called conceptualism, is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Some works of art, sometimes called installations, may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions. The notion that art should examine its own nature was already a potent aspect of the art critic Clement Greenbergs vision of Modern art during the 1950s. One of the first and most important things they questioned was the assumption that the role of the artist was to create special kinds of material objects. Thus, in describing or defining a work of art as conceptual it is important not to confuse what is referred to as conceptual with an artists intention. The French artist Marcel Duchamp paved the way for the conceptualists, providing them examples of prototypically conceptual works — the readymades. The artistic tradition does not see an object as art because it is not made by an artist or with any intention of being art. This concept, also called Art esthapériste, derived from the infinitesimals of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - quantities which could not actually exist except conceptually, the current incarnation of the Isouian movement, Excoördism, self-defines as the art of the infinitely large and the infinitely small. In 1961 the term art, coined by the artist Henry Flynt in his article bearing the term as its title. By the mid-1970s they had produced publications, indices, performances, texts, in 1970 Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects, the first dedicated conceptual-art exhibition, took place at the New York Cultural Center. Conceptual art emerged as a movement during the 1960s - in part as a reaction against formalism as then articulated by the influential New York art critic Clement Greenberg. According to Greenberg Modern art followed a process of progressive reduction and those elements that ran counter to this nature were to be reduced. The task of painting, for example, was to define precisely what kind of object a painting truly is, later artists continued to share a preference for art to be self-critical, as well as a distaste for illusion. Lawrence Weiner said, Once you know about a work of mine you own it, theres no way I can climb inside somebodys head and remove it. It is sometimes reduced to a set of written instructions describing a work, Language was a central concern for the first wave of conceptual artists of the 1960s and early 1970s. This linguistic turn reinforced and legitimized the direction the artists took. Osborne also notes that the early conceptualists were the first generation of artists to complete degree-based university training in art, osborne later made the observation that contemporary art is post-conceptual in a public lecture delivered at the Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Villa Sucota in Como on July 9,2010. It is a claim made at the level of the ontology of the work of art
5.
Wehrmacht
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The Wehrmacht was the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1946. It consisted of the Heer, the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler’s most overt and audacious moves was to establish the Wehrmacht, a modern armed forces fully capable of offensive use. In December 1941, Hitler designated himself as commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, the Wehrmacht formed the heart of Germany’s politico-military power. In the early part of World War II, Hitlers generals employed the Wehrmacht through innovative combined arms tactics to devastating effect in what was called a Blitzkrieg, the Wehrmachts new military structure, unique combat techniques, newly developed weapons, and unprecedented speed and brutality crushed their opponents. Closely cooperating with the SS, the German armed forces committed war crimes and atrocities. By the time the war ended in Europe in May 1945, only a few of the Wehrmacht’s upper leadership were tried for war crimes, despite evidence suggesting that more were involved in illegal actions. The German term Wehrmacht generically describes any nations armed forces, for example, the Frankfurt Constitution of 1848 designated all German military forces as the German Wehrmacht, consisting of the Seemacht and the Landmacht. In 1919, the term Wehrmacht also appears in Article 47 of the Weimar Constitution, establishing that, from 1919, Germanys national defense force was known as the Reichswehr, a name that was dropped in favor of Wehrmacht on 21 May 1935. In January 1919, after World War I ended with the signing of the armistice of 11 November 1918, in March 1919, the national assembly passed a law founding a 420, 000-strong preliminary army, the Vorläufige Reichswehr. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced in May, the army was limited to one hundred thousand men with an additional fifteen thousand in the navy. The fleet was to consist of at most six battleships, six cruisers, submarines, tanks and heavy artillery were forbidden and the air-force was dissolved. A new post-war military, the Reichswehr, was established on 23 March 1921, General conscription was abolished under another mandate of the Versailles treaty. The Reichswehr was limited to 115,000 men, and thus the armed forces, under the leadership of Hans von Seeckt, though Seeckt retired in 1926, the army that went to war in 1939 was largely his creation. Germany was forbidden to have an air-force by the Versailles treaty, nonetheless and these officers saw the role of an air-force as winning air-superiority, tactical and strategic bombing and providing ground support. That the Luftwaffe did not develop a strategic bombing force in the 1930s was not due to a lack of interest, but because of economic limitations. The leadership of the Navy led by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, officers who believed in submarine warfare led by Admiral Karl Dönitz were in a minority before 1939. By 1922, Germany had begun covertly circumventing the conditions of the Versailles Treaty, a secret collaboration with the Soviet Union began after the treaty of Rapallo. Major-General Otto Hasse traveled to Moscow in 1923 to further negotiate the terms, Germany helped the Soviet Union with industrialization and Soviet officers were to be trained in Germany
6.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
7.
Ulm
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Ulm is a city in the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The city, whose population is estimated at almost 120,000, founded around 850, Ulm is rich in history and traditions as a former Free Imperial City. Today, it is an economic centre due to its varied industries, internationally, Ulm is primarily known for having the church with the tallest steeple in the world, the Gothic minster, and as the birthplace of Albert Einstein. Ulm lies at the point where the rivers Blau and Iller join the Danube, at an altitude of 479 m above sea level. Most parts of the city, including the old town, are situated on the bank of the Danube, only the districts of Wiblingen, Gögglingen, Donaustetten. Across from the old town, on the side of the river, lies the twin city of Neu-Ulm in the state of Bavaria, smaller than Ulm and, until 1810. Except for the Danube in the south, the city is surrounded by forests and hills rise to altitudes of over 620 metres. South of the Danube, plains and hills finally end in the edge of the Alps. The city of Ulm is situated in the part of the North Alpine Foreland basin. The Turritellenplatte of Ermingen is a famous site of Burdigalian age. On the right side of Danube and Iller there is the district town Neu-Ulm. On the left side Ulm is almost completely surrounded by the Alb-Danube district, nine districts that were integrated during the latest municipality reform in the 1970s. They have own local councils which acquire an important consulting position to the city council concerning issues that are related to the prevailing districts. But at the end, final decisions can only be made by the city council of the city of Ulm. The oldest traceable settlement of the Ulm area began in the early Neolithic period, settlements of this time have been identified at the villages of Eggingen and Lehr, today districts of the city. In the city area of Ulm proper, the oldest find dates from the late Neolithic period, the earliest written mention of Ulm is dated 22 July 854 AD, when King Louis the German signed a document in the Kings palace of Hulma in the Duchy of Swabia. The city was declared an Imperial City by Friedrich Barbarossa in 1181, at first, Ulms significance was due to the privilege of a Königspfalz, a place of accommodation for the medieval German kings and emperors on their frequent travels. Later, Ulm became a city of traders and craftsmen, one of the most important legal documents of the city, an agreement between the Ulm patricians and the trade guilds, dates from 1397
8.
The Guardian
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The Guardian is a British daily newspaper, known from 1821 until 1959 as the Manchester Guardian. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, the Scott Trust became a limited company in 2008, with a constitution to maintain the same protections for The Guardian. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than to the benefit of an owner or shareholders, the Guardian is edited by Katharine Viner, who succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. In 2016, The Guardians print edition had a daily circulation of roughly 162,000 copies in the country, behind The Daily Telegraph. The newspaper has an online UK edition as well as two international websites, Guardian Australia and Guardian US, the newspapers online edition was the fifth most widely read in the world in October 2014, with over 42.6 million readers. Its combined print and online editions reach nearly 9 million British readers, notable scoops include the 2011 News International phone hacking scandal, in particular the hacking of murdered English teenager Milly Dowlers phone. The investigation led to the closure of the UKs biggest selling Sunday newspaper, and one of the highest circulation newspapers in the world, in 2016, it led the investigation into the Panama Papers, exposing the then British Prime Minister David Camerons links to offshore bank accounts. The Guardian has been named Newspaper of the Year four times at the annual British Press Awards, the paper is still occasionally referred to by its nickname of The Grauniad, given originally for the purported frequency of its typographical errors. The Manchester Guardian was founded in Manchester in 1821 by cotton merchant John Edward Taylor with backing from the Little Circle and they launched their paper after the police closure of the more radical Manchester Observer, a paper that had championed the cause of the Peterloo Massacre protesters. They do not toil, neither do they spin, but they better than those that do. When the government closed down the Manchester Observer, the champions had the upper hand. The influential journalist Jeremiah Garnett joined Taylor during the establishment of the paper, the prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty. Warmly advocate the cause of Reform, endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and. Support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, in 1825 the paper merged with the British Volunteer and was known as The Manchester Guardian and British Volunteer until 1828. The working-class Manchester and Salford Advertiser called the Manchester Guardian the foul prostitute, the Manchester Guardian was generally hostile to labours claims. The Manchester Guardian dismissed strikes as the work of outside agitators –, if an accommodation can be effected, the occupation of the agents of the Union is gone. CP Scott made the newspaper nationally recognised and he was editor for 57 years from 1872, and became its owner when he bought the paper from the estate of Taylors son in 1907. Under Scott, the moderate editorial line became more radical, supporting William Gladstone when the Liberals split in 1886
9.
BBC
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The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, the BBC is the worlds oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total,16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting, the total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed contract staff are included. The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBCs radio, TV, britains first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mails Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian Soprano Dame Nellie Melba, the Melba broadcast caught the peoples imagination and marked a turning point in the British publics attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests, John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers, to this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain. The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate, set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee and this was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired. The BBCs broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, the BBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00, and required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee, by now the BBC under Reiths leadership had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production and with restrictions on news bulletins waived the BBC suddenly became the source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position, the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PMs own
10.
Olaf Nicolai
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Olaf Nicolai is a German conceptual artist. Olaf Nicolai grew up in Chemnitz in the German Democratic Republic, from 1983 to 1988 he studied German language and literature at the universities of Leipzig, Vienna and Budapest, in 1992 obtaining a doctorate from Leipzig University. His thesis concerned the Poetics of the Wiener Gruppe, exploring the means of expression used, there exists a close relation between this groups work and his own artistic endeavors. Nicolai also holds a diploma in applied arts from the Technical Collage at Schneeberg in Saxony and his works were shown at documenta in 1997 and at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and 2005. He has been awarded grants and fellowships, for example from Villa Massimo, Rome and from Villa Aurora. Since the early 1990s Nicolai has participated in international solo. Several of his works can be found in collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York and at the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection. Olaf Nicolai lives and works in Berlins Prenzlauer Berg district, Nicolais conceptual approach and continuous use of diverse media and materials both question the way in which we view our everyday environment. Considered one of Germany’s leading artists, Olaf Nicolai takes on a range of conceptual themes, “Questions of form, moods, attitudes, and style are not just vain play with surfaces, ” Nicolai has said. “They are questions of organizational forms of activities, in his artwork Lenin,8 qm the animadversion toward a redistribution of income and wealth stands in net contrast to the sequins of a brilliant and luxurious form of capitalism. Die Flamme der Revolution, liegend is one of the concrete examples of political constructivsm. Since 2009 the Kunstmuseum Thurgau exhibits the artists project Welcome to the Tears of St. Lawrence at the Kartause Ittingen, the work, originally created for the 51. Biennale di Venezia in 2005, belongs to the Collection Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and contains the request of the artist to watch the skies and to search for silence. At its current venue this work of art is located as the Order of Saint Bruno requests silence. In 2010, the Hannover Kestnergesellschaft invited the artist to exhibit his works, Nicolai chose the French title Faites le travail quaccomplit le soleil, his show and its title referred to both the institution and to El Lissitzky whose works were shown at the same place in 1923. The main sculpture of the exhibit was a tower of glass and mirrors accessible by the public, right unter the glass cupola of the Kestnergesellschaft. In a series of art performances called Escalier du Chant, Nicolai took over the staircase of Munich’s modern art museum, Pinakothek der Moderne. In 2012, at Städel in Frankfurt am Main, he presented his sculpture Shutters Lullaby, on October 24,2014 Austrias president Heinz Fischer officially spoke at the opening of Nicolais Memorial for the Victims of Nazi Military Justice at Viennas Ballhausplatz
