On the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026, the ACF DC welcomes Dr. Barbara Sauer for a book presentation of Advokaten 1938.
For many lawyers, especially those of Jewish descent, the downfall of Austria as an independent state and its annexation to the German Reich in 1938 implied the end of their career. What were their stories? What was their personal history as lawyers? How did their lives develop? These questions and others will be explored during the presentation of the book “Advokaten 1938”, which aims to thoroughly revisit this period in the history of the Austrian lawyers.
PROGRAM
WELCOME by H.E. Ambassador Petra Schneebauer
VIDEO MESSAGE by Dr. Anna Sporrer, Austrian Minister of Justice
VIDEO MESSAGE by Dr. Armenak Utudijan, President of the Austrian Bar Association (ÖRAK)
ACCOMPANYING WORDS by Dr. Alix Frank-Thomasser, Attorney, President of the Association “Advokaten 1938”
BOOK PRESENTATION by Dr. Barbara Sauer, Author of “Advokaten 1938”
The evening will conclude with an Austrian wine reception.
BACKGROUND
The downfall of Austria as an independent state and its annexation to the German Reich in 1938 implied for many lawyers the end of their career. On March 13, 1938, 2,605 lawyers were registered in the list of the Austrian Bar Association in Vienna. By the end of that year, only 771 of them remained. On the basis of the regulation of March 31, 1938[1], it became possible to ban Jewish lawyers and solicitors from the exercise of their profession, depriving them of their livelihoods. As of September 1938, also “half-breed Jews” had to be deregistered from the list of the Austrian Bar. The dimension of the terror and injustice linked with these grueling developments are brought to light with this new and comprehensive compendium that serves as a memorial book as well as a critical analysis.
The “Association of Research of the Professional History of the Members of the Austrian Bar Association which were discredited Between 1938 and 1945” has been founded by all the regional Chambers of Lawyers of Austria including the ÖRAK (Österreichischer Rechtsanwaltskammertag) and has the duty to investigate the professional fates of lawyers’ existences lost between 1938 and 1945.
What is the story of these colleagues, what was their personal history as lawyers, how did their lives develop? These and other questions will be explored in the course of this event which aims at thoroughly revisiting this part of the history of the Austrian lawyers.
The book “Advokaten 1938” was published by the Association in November 2010. Since then, more archives and their digitalization have enabled them to continue their research and to document the personal and professional history of about 400 colleagues whose lives could not be documented sufficiently well in the 1st edition of the book. Moreover, the new edition includes the documentation of the professional lives of all lawyers in training (“articled clerks”: had to pass a mandatory traineeship in order to become admitted to practice). The results of this recent research were published in a 2nd edition of the book “Advokaten 1938” in English language. This 2nd edition includes further information about Nazi propaganda specifically concentrated on the legal profession of lawyers in various propaganda newspapers with a lime light on propaganda displayed in "Völkischer Beobachter".