Famous Austrian Activists

Austrian-Jewish feminist and social worker Bertha Pappenheim founded the Jewish Women's Association (Jüdischer Frauenbund), mainly with the objective of improving women's experiences in the Jewish community. She was treated by Austrian physician Josef Breuer for nervous symptoms and her case study (under the pseudonym Anna O.) found place in Breuer’s book Studies on Hysteria, co-authored with Sigmund Freud.

Beate Sirota Gordon was an Austrian-born American women's rights advocate and performing arts presenter. She was part of the team that wrote the Constitution of Japan under American military leader Douglas MacArthur after the Second World War. Beate Sirota Gordon won numerous awards, including the American Dance Guild Award, for her achievement as an arts presenter.

Maria-Anna Galitzine is a Belgian traditionalist Catholic activist. She is best known for her role in a campaign seeking sainthood for her grandparents, Zita of Bourbon-Parma and Charles I of Austria, the last empress and emperor of Austria-Hungary.

Hungarian journalist Karl-Maria Kertbeny is best remembered for coining terms such as homosexual and heterosexual. The suicide of a gay friend after being blackmailed made Kertbeny study homosexuality in detail later. A prominent gay rights activist, he also believed homosexuality was inborn but didn’t live to see acceptance of his ideas.

Neo-Nazi Austrian author and poet Gerd Honsik, also known by his pseudonym, Endsik, was a prominent Holocaust denier. Jailed many times for his far-right extremism, he had also released anti-Semitic books and hate magazines. He was also a member of the now-banned far-right party NDP.

Karlo Štajner was an Austrian-Yugoslav communist activist. He is perhaps best remembered for his 1971 book Seven Thousand Days in Siberia, which was about his experiences in Siberia. The book achieved popularity and was a bestseller in Yugoslavia. A major newspaper called Vjesnik named it book of the year 1972.