Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 33. (1980)

LIANG, Hsi-Huey: International Cooperation of Political Police in Europe, 1815–1914. An Essay Based on Some Austrian Archival Sources

International Cooperation of Political Police

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The European police in the second half of the nineteenth century had no part in the debate over the sociological and geographical demarcation of the “nations” of Central and Eastern Europe. But a look at the files of the Austrian police of one hundred years ago will show a considerable rise in the police’s preoccupation with nationality questions. This trend can be studied in the documents relating to Habsburg subjects in Russia who because of indigence or for other reasons had drawn the unfavorable notice of the local authorities, and to foreign residents in the Monarchy on whose military or other forms of service their country of origin layed claim. To be sure, August Wilhelm Heffter, the German international lawyer, had argued with the passion of the liberal idealist in 1848:

„Kein Mensch ist zur Scholle eines bestimmten Staates unabänderlich geboren. Das gemeinsame Vaterland ist die Erde; der Einzelne muss überall seine Heimath auf- schlagen können, wo er sich am Meisten in seiner Freiheit bewegen vermag; ja es kann seine Pflicht sein, sich nach einer anderen Stelle der Erde zu begeben, um seine Freiheit zu retten“36).

But Heffter’s book dated from 1848. By agreement of 13 December, 1886, Austria-Hungary and Russia charged their respective local police authorities to cooperate with each other directly in assuring the mutual repatriation of vagrants and other undesirables37). The agreement did not cover the entire territory of the contracting powers, but only Austrian Galicia and Bucovina and the seven adjoining Russian gubemie, an indication perhaps that it was meant to resolve a problem of subordinate nature belonging to the work of the low police. The more surprising it is to discover the many examples in the Austrian files of cases where the deportation of a penniless subject of either empire occupied the chancelleries of the Austrian or Russian diplomatic services on the highest level. The following is a random sample taken from the files of the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv: a note verbale from the Russian embassy in Vienna to the Austrian Foreign Ministry, dated Vienna 23 September, 1890:

„Á la demande des autoritás compétents, l’Ambassade Impériale de Russie a l’honneur de recourir ä la complaisance habituelle du Ministére Impérial et Royal des Affaires Étrangéres avec la priére de faire accélérer, si possible, la réponse du chef du district de Lemberg ä la demande qui lui a été adressée directement de Lemberg le 20 avril de cette année, sub. No. 1330., par la gendarmerie du district de Proskourow, Podolie, par rapport ä la vérification des dépositions du sujet autrichien, Schmul Meer Gottlieb, dönt l’affaire est en suspens depuis 1886“ [!]38).

36) August Wilhelm Heffter Das europäische Völkerrecht der Gegenwart (Berlin 1848) 31.

37) Ludwig Bittner Chronologisches Verzeichnis der österreichischen Staatsverträge 3 (Wien 1914) n. 4500.

38) Note verbale, Russian embassy to Austrian Foreign Ministry, Vienna, 23 Sept. 1890, n. 1478: HHStA Administrative Registratur (hereafter Adm. Reg.) F 52/97 Schubwesen Rußland Konv. 1/3 a, fol. 62r.