Street sign Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring

A street sign that concentrates several historical epochs. First, fin-de-siècle Vienna: In 1893 Karl Lueger founded the Christian Socialist Party, and from 1897 to 1910, as mayor of Vienna, he reformed local politics. At the same time he used rabid anti-Semitism as a political weapon. Second, Austro-Fascism in 1934: The section of the Ringstrasse between the university and the Burgtheater was named Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring. In the years before, anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish students had increased. Third, the present: In 2012 the city of Vienna dismantled the street signs and renamed the section Universitätsring. This does not by any means mark the disappearance of Lueger’s name from the city. There is still a square named for him with a monument, as well as a church, a fountain, a park, other monuments and busts, altar pictures, countless inscriptions, a Lueger oak, Lueger-Hof, and Lueger bridge.