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Echos of the Riehl Trial in Fin-de-Siècle Cisleithania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2010

Nancy M. Wingfield
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Extract

The trial of forty-six-year-old Regine Riehl, who was charged with embezzlement, fraud, pandering, and other crimes associated with the operation of her tolerated bordello, opened in Vienna on 2 November 1906. Residents of the imperial capital and in the wider Habsburg monarchy and beyond avidly followed the five-day trial, which incited public debate on the subject of prostitution throughout the monarchy. Indeed, prostitution became a “topic of the day,” a theme that became “salonfähig” (acceptable for good society), due to the extensive newspaper coverage of the trial.

Type
Forum: Writing the History of Sexuality in Fin-de-Siècle Cisleithania
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 38 , January 2007 , pp. 36 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2007

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References

1 Grün, Heinrich, Prostitution in Theorie und Wirklichkeit (Vienna, 1907), 1Google Scholar. The Ostrauer Zeitung, 6 November 1907, 2, carried a report from Bünn/Brno commenting that the Viennese press provided excellent coverage of the trial, but the provincial press, which feared bringing such reading material into “the family,” did not. The assertion of silence in at least some provincial papers is correct. For example, another German-language newspaper in the city, the Ostrauer Tagblatt, carried only a brief article, “Der Prozess Riehl in Wien,” 8 November 1906, 2, describing the main defendant as “die schamlose B…wirtin [the brazen b___ keeper] Regine Riehl.” Neither the word prostitution nor bordello in appeared in the article.

2 Vyleta, Daniel analyses the trial from the perspective of Vienna's anti-Semitic press in Crime, Jews and News, Vienna 1895–1914 (New York, 2006)Google Scholar. In her short discussion of the Riehl trial in Auf der Suche nach der Vorlorenen: Die Prostitutionsdebatten im Wien der Jahrhundertwende (Vienna, 1994), 127–28Google Scholar, Karin J. Jušek asserts that the trial got plenty of attention, but initially had neither noteworthy political nor juridical results. Because of her limited focus, Jušek downplays the importance of results outside Vienna.

3 For a complete discussion, see Vyleta, Crime, Jews and News, 144–50.

4 A member of the voluntary organization, Oesterreichische Liga zur Bekämpfung des Mädchenhandels, which concentrated on the physical and moral health of young girls, had learned about the brothel from one of its clients. The police had allegedly threatened the former general secretary of the organization with its dissolution “for overstepping its boundaries” if members kept raising the issue of the bordello.

5 A 11 200, ZL. 6372, Part I, 1906, Strafverhandlungen, Landesgericht für Strafsachen, Archiv der Stadt Wien.

6 Bohemia, 4 November 1906, 6. See satirist Kraus, Karl's comment that Riehl “could make the shabbiest debutante suitable for good company in two weeks time.” “Der Fall Riehl” (November 1906), reprinted in Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität, vol. 1, Ausgewählte Schriften (Vienna, 1908), 257.Google Scholar

7 “Protokoll,” 6033/07, 20/3 Mädchenhandel, Prostitution, Kart. 2122, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv (hereafter cited as AVA), Allgemeine Reihe (hereaft er cited as Allgem), Ministerium des Innern (hereaft er cited as MdI), Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (hereaft er cited as ÖSA), Vienna, Austria.

8 These details can be found in various newspapers. I have taken them from the Prager Tagblatt, 7 November 1906, 6–7.

9 Illeglible signature to k.k. Minister des Innern, 8 November 1906, 9550/06, 20/3, Kart. 2122, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

10 These characterizations are from Bohemia, 4 November 1906, 6.

11 Friedländer Zeitung, 10 November 1906, 13. See additional descriptions in: Bohemia, 4 November 1906, 6; Neue Freie Presse, 2 November 1906 (evening ed.), 4; 3 November 1906 (evening ed.), 6; Prager Tageblatt, 4 November 1906, 9.

12 This incident was widely publicized: Bohemia, 4 November 1906, 6; Innsbrucker Nachrichten, 6 November 1906, 8; Právo lidu [Right of the people], 5 November 1906, 7.

13 Quoted in the Friedländer Zeitung, 10 November 1906, 13.

14 Bohemia, 8 November 1906, morning edition, 1.

15 From Vyleta citing Deutsches Volksblatt, 4 November 1906, in Crime, Jews and News, 146, 148.

16 Volksblatt für Stadt und Land, 9 November 1906, 2. Some of the assertions about Riehl in contemporary anti-Semitic newspapers reappeared in more virulent form some thirty years later in Der Jude als Verbrecher, written by two Nazi “experts” on the “Jewish Question,” Josef Keller and Hanns Andersen (Berlin, 1937), chapter 7. The authors cite Riehl and Pollak in chapter seven, which addresses Jewish pimps and white slavers. Pollak was described in stereotypical anti-Semitic terms as an old hunchbacked sadist who delighted in hearing girls scream and groan. According to the authors, Pollak felt herself in her element in the bordello, because exploiting defenseless victims was the classic occupation of not only the male, but also the female Jew.

17 Illustrierte Oesterreichische Kriminal-Zeitung, 25 July 1907, 2, through 18 November 1907, 5.

18 On calls for reform, see, for example, Germania, 6 November 1906, 2; and Reichenberger Zeitung, “Großstadtbilder,” 8 November 1906, 1. A copy of the “Interpellation … betreffend die sittenpolizeilichen Zustände, 6 November 1906” can be found in 9550/06, Kart. 2121, Mädchenhandel 1900–1918; Prostitution in genere 1900–1906, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA; on the police committee, see K.k. Polizei-Direktion Wien, Aufnahmeschrift, 13 November 1906, 6033/06, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

19 These responses, from all Cisleithanian provincial capitals except Lemburg/Lwów/L'viv, are a rich source of information on relatively understudied aspects of the regulation of prostitution in the monarchy: local variations on the toleration of prostitution as well as the backgrounds of the prostitutes and their clients. Th is material, which was a point of reference for later modification of regulation practices, encourages regional and provincial comparisons on the regulation of prostitution.

20 Ministerpräsident betreffend die Neuregelung der Prostitutionsüberwachung, 28 November 1907, 32921/07, 20/3, Kart. 2122, AVA, Algem, MdI, ÖSA.

21 Aufnahmeschrift, 13 November 1906, 6033/06; K.k. schlesische Landesregierung to the k.k. Ministerium des Innern, 6 March 1907, 8008/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

22 K.k. Hofrat to the k.k. Statthalterei in Prague, 1 February 1907, 31633/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA. “Independent,” or discreet, prostitutes plying their trade individually in police-approved, private dwellings were a later development in the Cisleithanian regulation of prostitution.

23 Mayor of Brünn to the K.k. mähr. Statthalterei Präsidium, 26 February 1907, 8008/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA. See also the prostitute in Robert Musil's The Confusions of Young Törless (1906).

24 K.k. schlesische Landesregierung to the k.k. Ministerium des Innern, 6 March 1907, 8008/07, 20/3, Kart. 2122, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

25 K.k. Hofrat in Pilsen to the k.k. Statthalterei in Prague, 1 February 1907, 31633/07; k.k. Bezirkshauptmann in Komotau to the k.k. Statthalterei, 17 January 1907, 4548/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

26 Mayor of Aussig to the k.k. Bezirkshauptmannschaft Aussig, 21 December 1906, 20/3, Kart. 2122; Officials in Bruck an der Mur, Styria, also stressed that the city's size meant excesses would soon come to their attention, K.k. Bezirkshauptmannschaft Bruck a.d. Mur to the k.k. Statthalterei in Graz, 16 January 1907, 13179/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

27 “Bericht des Sanitätsauschusses über die Petition des allgemeinen österreichischen Frauenvereines in Wien gegen die Errichtung öffentlicher Häuser in Wien,” 1689 der Beilagen zu den stenogr. Protokollen des Abgeordnetenhauses, XI. Session, 1897, 32921/07, 20/3, Kart. 2122, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA. In Schlesich Ostrau/Slezská Ostrava, for example, the city council opposed the opening in 1911 of the bordello “U labutě” [At the swan] but it had police commission permission to operate. The battle over the bordello continued throughout the war. Inv. č. 451, Kart. 70; and Kronika mesta Slezské Ostravy [Chronicle of the city of Silesian Ostrava], 1920, p. 67; Archív města Slezské Ostravy [Archive of the city of Silesian Ostrava], Archív města Ostravy [Archive of the city of Ostrava].

28 K.k. Oberstaatsanwalt in Graz, 14 March 1907, 13479/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

29 Mayor of Marburg to the K.k. steierm. Statthalterei, 19 December 1906, 13479/07; Officials in Zara/Zadar (Dalmatia) also expressed concerns about local bordello owners cheating prostitutes, letter to the K.k. Minister des Innern in Wien, 17 April 1907, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

30 K.k. schlesische Landesregierung to the k.k. Ministerium des Innern, 6 March 1907, 8008/07, 20/3, Kart. 2122, AVA, Allgem MdI, ÖSA.

31 Äusserung des Stadtvorstandes Mähr. Ostrau für den Bürgermeister, 30 January 1907, 8008/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

32 Myŝka, Milan, Kněžky venušiny aneb z historie prostituce v průmyslovém velkoměstě [Priestesses of Venus or the history of prostitution in an industrial metropolis] (Ostrava, 2006)Google Scholar, quoting Ostravské deník [Th e Ostrava journal], 15 August 1906, and Duch [Spirit], June 1904.

33 Mayor of Cilli to the k.k. Statthalterei Graz, 5 January 1907, 31633/07; the k.k. Amtsleiter to the k.k. Statthalterei in Prague, 10 February 1907, Kart. 2121, 13479/07, AVA Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

34 Grün, Prostitution in Theorie und Wirklichkeit, 30.

35 K.k. Bezirkshauptmannschaft Jungbunzlau, 25 January 1907, 23042/07; K.k. Bezirkshauptmannschaft to the k.k. Statthalterei in Prague, 29 January 1907, 23083/07; “Die Regelung der Prostitution in Oesterreich,” 32921/07, 20/3, Kart. 2122, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA. Also KM/14 Abt. (1906)/3402.3428 Venerie u. Syphilus bei 39–5 von 1907, Kriegsarchiv, Vienna, Austria.

36 K.k. Oberstaatsanwaltschaft in Graz, 14 March 1907, 13479/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

37 Illustrierte Oesterreichische Kriminal-Zeitung, 2 September 1907, 6.

38 For example, Mayor of Brünn to K.k. mähr. Statthalterei Präsidium, 1 January 1907, 1, 8008/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem MdI, ÖSA.

39 K.k. Oberstaatsanwalt to the k.k. Staathalterei in Graz, 14 March 1907, 13479/07, Kart. 2121, AVA, Allgem, MdI, ÖSA.

40 Grün, Prostitution in Theorie und Wirklichkeit, 19. Among the best studies in English of the regulation of prostitution elsewhere in Europe during this period are: Corbin, Alain, Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850, trans. Sheridan, Alan (Cambridge, MA, 1990)Google Scholar; Bernstein, Laurie, Sonia's Daughters: Prostitutes and Their Regulation in Imperial Russia (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1995)Google Scholar; Engelstein, Laura, The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-De-Siècle Russia (Ithaca, 1994)Google Scholar; Walkowitz, Judith, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State (Cambridge, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Walkowitz, , City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (Chicago, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The only recent study of prostitution in the Bohemian Lands and Czechoslovakia is Lenderová, Milena, Chytila patrola aneb prostitutce za Rakouska i Republiky [Nabbed by a patrol or prostitution in Austria and the Czechoslovak Republic] (Prague, 2002).Google Scholar