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Dedicated to Austrian-Hungarian Burgenland Family History

This newsletter concerns:

1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER

2) 1918 SPANISCHE GRIPPE IN BURGENLAND

3) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES:
    - HEANZEN - A QUESTION OF IDENTITY

4) ETHNIC EVENTS

5) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES (courtesy of Bob Strauch)

The Spanish Flu was not a coronavirus; rather it was a fairly common H1N1 orthomyxovirus with genes of avian origin. As such it was similar to the 2009 Swine Flu virus, which was an H1N1 with genes of pig origin. H1N1 viruses have spike-like protuberances on their surface, with the spikes being the glycoproteins Haemagglutinin and Neuraminidase that give them their name.

What made the 1918 influenza virus so deadly was twofold: it was much more likely than most to be joined by bacterial pneumonia, and it was able to release material into the lung tissue that caused an over-response by the immune systems of young adults, leading to destruction of lung tissue and secretion of liquid into the organ. The pneumonia, which found a hospitable environment in the damaged and wet lungs, caused most of the deaths in the 1918 flu outbreak.



In truth, I did not have much success in finding specific information about the Spanish Flu in Burgenland. Most of what I found was for the new post-WW-I parent region, the Republic of Austria, and even those numbers were crude estimates, as the Republic, as a single entity, did not exist in the predecessor Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even the size of the national population in the Republic in its early days was unclear. Nonetheless, various sources suggest that the population within the areas that became the Republic of Austria was just over 6 million in 1918, whereas the population within the areas that became Burgenland was just under 300,000; that is, under 5% of the Republic's count. Regardless, I will use 5% to apportion numbers to Burgenland when a total is given only for Austria as a whole.

While the estimated numbers vary, one of the sets of estimates I found for Austria indicates that the military effects of WW-I were far more debilitating to the new Republic of Austria than was the Spanish Flu. Those estimates suggest that Austria suffered about 155,000 war dead and an equivalent number of war invalids. An additional 50,000 people (max) died from the Spanish influenza pandemic.

Apportioning those numbers to Burgenland gives 7750 war dead, 7750 war invalids, and 2500 Spanish Flu deaths.

A different, direct estimate for Burgenland says around 8,000 to 10,000 Burgenländers died on the front, with around 20,000 people left behind as war victims, including a large number of widows and orphans. However, this source did not mention the effects of the Spanish Flu. Regardless, the war numbers seem fairly consistent between the two estimates, suggesting that apportioning by population is fairly reasonable.

Yet another contemporary data set for Austria estimates that around 3.4 of the 6 million inhabitants in 1918 contracted influenza and, officially, 20,646 people died of it in 1918/19. It further estimates that, if they take into account secondary infections of the lungs and the resulting deaths from pneumonia, the total was around 40,000.

Apportioning these numbers to Burgenland suggests that around 175,000 of the 300,000 Burgenländers contracted the influenza virus during this time, with about 1,063 dying directly from the virus and 2,059 dying when you include the related pneumonia deaths.

What is interesting in the above dataset is the 57% infection rate and the 1.2% mortality rate among the infected for Austria (including related pneumonia deaths). Worldwide, the infection rate was about 33% with estimated mortality among the infected ranging from 3.4 to 10%, so Austria's numbers differed greatly. [Note: even if we use the higher (50,000) mortality estimate for Austria from the first dataset, the mortality rate among the infected is still just 1.5%, well below estimates for other areas.]

One aspect of the pandemic in Burgenland drew a little specific comment: there were WW-I prisoner-of-war camps in Frauenkirchen, Neusiedl am See, Bruckneudorf and Neckenmarkt that held about 90,000 people in total at any time. Some of these camps included "civilian interned" women and children who had been deported from Serbia at the beginning of the war. "The mortality rate was horrendous," was one comment, with infectious diseases (even before the arrival of the flu) most often listed as causes of death in the camp books. When the Spanish Flu hit the camp populations, doctors initially diagnosed heart failure, but soon identified the flu as the actual cause of death.

This concentration of deaths in specific locales was common. For example, the Westungarischen Volksfreund of November 26, 1918 reported: “Barátudvar [Mönchhof]. Here, the Spanish disease has become so epidemic that 13 deaths were recorded within 14 days."

Likewise, a November 1918 Tyrolean newspaper stated that the Spanish flu was "ghosting around" in the country and that numerous victims were to be found in villages, particularly in agricultural regions in the mountains. The implication of "ghosting around" was that it appeared in new places seemingly unconnected to other infected areas.

Further, the numerous cases of Spanish flu diagnosed in the Vienna area led the State School Council to authorize closure of individual classes or entire institutions for a period of time "if a large number of such illnesses occur among the school youth."

Even the Austrian military authorities decreed that, in wet and cold weather, accommodations (including prisoner-of-war camps) must be heated "before the prescribed heating time begins" ... and that the military must be instructed "to avoid visiting badly ventilated places such as taverns, cinemas and the like to avoid contact infections."

Does the above sound familiar?



Interestingly, though, the Spanish Flu was not the major medical concern in Austria during the war and immediate years after. That dubious honor went to tuberculosis.

Known through history as phthisis (from the Greek), consumption (from the Latin) or the White Plague, it was renamed tuberculosis in 1834. TB ravaged Europe in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, killing close to a billion people during that 300-year reign of extraordinary mortality. Around 1800, mortality peaked and then began a steady decline that lasted for more than a century. But the downward trend abruptly ceased with the start of World War I... and didn’t resume until after the war.

However, Austria-Hungary lagged behind Western Europe. Although the tuberculosis epidemic in Vienna followed a pattern similar to that in other major European cities, it took place 100 years later than in London. In Vienna, the peak of the epidemic was around the year 1871, with a death rate from TB of 910 per 100,000 inhabitants. For the rest of Austria, as defined by its current borders, the peak level was reached some years later. [By comparison, the maximum estimated Spanish Flu death rate in the new Republic of Austria was 833 per 100,000 inhabitants, and lasted for a much shorter time.]

Following this 1871 peak, Vienna experienced a steady decline in mortality from TB. This trend also applied to the rest of the country, albeit with significant differences between industrialized regions and rural areas. The decline in TB mortality was most pronounced in Vienna. However, WW-I led to a sudden increase in TB mortality that persisted for several years afterward. The period from 1921 was again marked by a steep and sustained drop in the TB mortality curve.

So, in 1918, despite the outbreak of the Spanish flu, tuberculosis was seen as a bigger threat. It had become known to doctors as the "Viennese disease" or the "people's disease." During WW-I, the poor food situation and the deteriorating hygienic living conditions caused a faster course of the disease and an increased threat to life. In 1912-14, on average, 25 percent of those with TB died within one year, but it rose to 59 percent by 1919. In the longer term, the fight against tuberculosis was the greater challenge for the health authorities because, after the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 subsided, there was no further flu wave of this magnitude in Austria. However, the problem of tuberculosis remained.

The charts below shows all these issues. In the top chart, Austria and Hungary (along with Czechoslovakia) are the uppermost lines, being the countries with the highest TB mortality rates in the 1885-1935 range of years. The spike in mortality rate during WW-I is quite evident.


The second chart (below) is similar, but for countries in northwestern Europe and the British Isles. If this lower chart were to be overlaid on the upper chart, all its lines would tuck in with just a slight overlap on the lowest lines above; that is, mortality rates for this second group of countries were generally lower than in all of the countries charted above.



However, both charts show the sustained long-term decrease in TB mortality rate, along with the interruption caused by WW-I. Had these charts continued through WW-II, a similar spike in war-years' mortality would be apparent.



The first graph above shows an overall peak mortality rate for TB of about 450 per 100,000 Austrian inhabitants. If we apply that rate to Burgenland, we get 1,350 deaths per year for the province, or about 5,400 over the four+ years of WW-I. That places it between the 2,000-2,500 Spanish Flu deaths and 7,750 WW-I military deaths previously estimated for Burgenland. However, both the Spanish Flu and the World War ended... but the TB toll continued.

As a last comparison, Burgenland is currently (March 30) reporting 179 confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the province, with three deaths so far.

Ed. note (2020): It is difficult to argue that the Gesta Hungarorum is valid, scientific "documentation" of any event, rather it is folklore (even if written many centuries ago). Wikipedia says, "Gesta Hungarorum, or The Deeds of the Hungarians, is the first extant Hungarian book about history. Its genre is not chronicle, but gesta, meaning 'deeds' or 'acts', which is a medieval entertaining literature." So Wikipedia implies it was written as merely rollicking good entertainment, at best loosely grounded in the reality of the era discussed.

If interested, you can read a (scholarly) English translation here (it is just 71 pages [of double-spaced lines] long, including a 4-page introduction... the original was only 48 pages of Latin text): discovery.ucl.ac.uk/18975.pdf. As part of their introduction, the translators state: "The author of the Gesta, known historically as the Anonymus (always thus), pretends to give a historically-grounded account of early Hungarian history that 'disregards the songs of minstrels and the yarns of yokels,' but does in fact nothing of the sort. Anonymus’s account is essentially a ‘toponymic romance’ that seeks to explain place-names by reference to imagined events and persons."

Nonetheless, these types of concerns did not stop multiple Eastern European governments from acting as if the text provided historical justification for why certain bits of land should belong to them!

A single-spaced, heavily-footnoted, 24-page-long full introduction to the text by the same authors can be found here: google.com/books/Anonymus. This "preview" of the book also includes the first 9 "chapters" of the manuscript, given as page-pairs of original Latin text and its English translation along with extensive footnotes for each page.

From Wolfer and followers descended the mighty Counts of Güssing (their line lasted for over 200 years until the Herrschaft was taken over by the Hungarian crown). One of the most well-known Counts of Güssing was "Schwarzen Heinz" (Black Henry), who had the title 1254-74 and was almost an independent monarch. He brought and invited many other German-speaking colonists to the region. For some reason the name Heinzen = followers of Heinz stuck over the centuries, even though other aristocratic families ruled the area for even longer periods (Batthyány from 1524-1918 for instance, wouldn't Batthyania have a nice ring to it?).

Most descendants of these original settler families probably perished through war and plague during the Turkish period (1500's-1700's) and were replaced by new colonists from Croatia, Slovenia, Styria, Lower Austria, Bavaria etc. after the late 1600's. In the north, some even came from around Lake Constance and from Slovakia).

Heinzen (Hianzen) however, is strictly a southern Burgenland term used for centuries to denote Burgenland peasants. The northern region peasants referred to themselves as "Heidebauern" (heath or meadow farmers).

A southern dialect language developed, which is now known as Hianzisch (Dr. Walter Dujmovits prefers to call it Burgenländisch). There are even some poets writing in the dialect. Chief among them was Josef Reichl, (1860-1924), born in Güssing. In a previous newsletter, we printed his poem "Mei Hoamat" (= Meine Heimat = My Home - although "home" does not connote the strong ties associated with the word "Heimat"). Like most of his poems, it was written in Hianzisch. There is a Hianzen Society in Güssing, in which member Heinz Koller and wife are very active. I have a book of Hianzisch poems by Mathilde Pani of Gerersdorf bei Güssing published in 1995. There are other poets. There is also a Josef Reichl-Bundes (club).

What differs from the Viennese and the inhabitants of the other Austrian Provinces is that Burgenland was Hungarian until 1921 and not part of Austria. As such, some older Austrians (born before 1921) tend to look upon Burgenländers as Hungarians, even though the majority speak basic German today. See many articles concerning this in the archives, nos. 31, 45, 55. Also see Heinz Koller's Güssing website (address from our URL list in homepage). This site also has a Heanzen dictionary being compiled by Inge Schuch.

I have the book "Borderland" and have corresponded with Prof. Andrew Burghardt; he's one of our members. His book is out of print, but you'll find it supports my answer.

As stated in the last newsletter, Burgenland is a modern term. It first appeared in the newspaper "Ostdeutsche Rundschau" dtd 24 Dec. 1918. It appeared in a poem by Professor Alfred Walheim which began:

Heinzenland
Burgenland
Kehrst du wiederum zu uns zurück?
(Are you returning to us?)

There was even some discussion at that time about calling the new province Heinzenland, but the northerners objected to that name.

What are "proper Austrians"? There is no such thing. Austria has never had a "national" geographic identity in the way most other European nations do, although you can argue that those born within the borders of today's Austria after 1918 (or better yet 1945 or 1955) are Austrians. It's been a conglomeration of races from the beginning in the same way that the US has. Is there such a thing as a "proper American"? However, there is such a thing as a "proper Englishman" - or a "proper Frenchman". Refer to any geographical history. Freeman & Bury in "Historical Geography of Europe" (Ares Publishers, reprint of the 1903 edition) spend many pages explaining why "Austria" can not be considered a nation geographically in the same manner that England or France can.

Ed. note (2020): given the referenced book was published in 1903, its comments refer to the Austrian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Gerry is correct that the author argued that the Austrian portion of the Empire could not be considered a geographic nation in the same sense as England, etc. The argument, however, does not apply to the modern nation, the Republic of Austria, which only formed in 1919.

If interested, see starting here: gutenberg.org/61375-P305 and read through page 324. The last 3 sentences of the first (partial) paragraph on page 324 provide the text Gerry keys on.

It is also noteworthy that the authors of this 1903 text struggled to define exactly what part of the Austrian state at that time was Austria itself, saying: "The Austrian state is made up of Austria itself—the archduchy with the addition of Salzburg—the duchy of Styria, the county of Tyrol, the kingdoms of Bohemia, Galicia and Lodomeria, Illyria, and Dalmatia with Ragusa and Cattaro." So the authors imply that "Austria itself" is two parts, the "Archduchy of Austria" and "Salzburg," a territory that moved in and out of Austrian control over the centuries, most recently returning as part of Styria. It seems to me that, if it still carried a separate name, it can't be "Austria itself."

Gerry continues...

I imagine the best you can say is that a "proper" anything is something that has adhered to an original definition. I'd not want to try to write the definition of an Austrian, other than to say the term refers (today), to a person born (or naturalized) in Austria.

What your correspondent and the encyclopedia was trying to say (and doing a bad job of it) is that "urban" Austrians (Vienna, Graz, Salzburg, Linz etc.) differ from rural southern Burgenländers in the same way that Americans in NYC or Boston differ from Virginians or Texans or Pennsylvania Dutch, etc. etc. A very important distinction. The major problem with most genealogists who refer to German sources is that they lump all German-speaking sources together. That's like trying to find American or Canadian family history in purely English (UK) publications. It's for this reason that we have a Burgenland Bunch involved in micro-genealogy, and I hope I've not belabored my point. Regards, Gerry
 

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