Word: wien
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...rivalry between Militarist Starhemberg and Civilian Schuschnigg reached a near climax with the Prince's attempt to wreck the Chancellor's Cabinet through the Phönix-Wien insurance scandal (TIME, April 20, et seq.). Politically it was a squib. More serious trouble occurred fortnight ago when Chancellor von Schuschnigg's own private army, the Catholic Freiheitsbund. staged an anti-Semitic march around the Ringstrasse. Word leaked out that Heimwehrmen, in civilian clothes, had been told off to break the parade up with rioting when it reached the Heldenplatz. Scrawny Chancellor von Schuschnigg promptly showed a personal...
Vienna promptly overflowed with rumors of the number of potent Austrians who had been bribed by Phönix-Wien's mysterious manager, the late Dr. Wilhelm Berliner. Last week Chancellor Schuschnigg revealed that he held a powerful counter-weapon against Prince von Starhemberg, the actual, 24-page list of those whom Phönix-Wien had reached with cash euphemistically described as ''loans" "stock sales" and "insurance policies." This lifesaver, which he had been handed by a high Phönix-Wien official, Chancellor Schuschnigg proceeded to publish...
...paid to buy houses for Jewish refugees from Germany, and a payment of 108,000 schillings to Anton Rintelen, now serving a life sentence for participation in the Nazi Putsch which led to the murder of Engelbert Dollfuss. Maintaining the goodwill of the Austrian Press cost Phönix-Wien 1,098,000 schillings...
Press censorship was clamped down on all references to the scandal. Several footless efforts were made to prop up the sagging company. Last week came the end when Phönix-Wien disbanded, three directors were arrested, and from its ashes rose a new insurance company called Austrian Insurance Co. Ltd., capitalized at only $2,000,000. Foreign Phönix policyholders will have to stand their loss. The new company hopes to save Austrian policies with a 5% premium rise, a special tax on other Austrian insurance companies...
...whispers going the Socialist rounds in Vienna were far more colorful. When the Nazis came to power in Germany one of the most successful methods of gaining popular support for their anti-Semitic campaign was the forced bankruptcy of many large Jewish firms in Germany. Phönix-Wien, apart from its handsome board chairman, General Carl Vaugoin, was almost exclusively Jewish...