Kurt Jungwirth (1929–2025): Five Decades with steirischer herbst

9.5.2025 / Herwig G. Höller

In this blog, steirischer herbst research fellow and journalist Herwig G. Höller shares his discoveries in the festival archive. They frequently reveal surprising connections between steirischer herbst and the world of—local as well as international—politics.

First of all, I wanted to assert … how incredibly important it is to defend the delicate flower of steirischer herbst against all the intolerance and bigotry around us.
—Kurt Jungwirth, 1983

After Wolfgang Bauer’s play Gespenster (Ghosts) was broadcast on TV in 1975, a right-wing clique zeroed in on steirischer herbst and its founder, conservative politician Hanns Koren (Austrian People’s Party, or ÖVP). The progressive art scene and its supporters retorted: on 11 December 1975, Koren—who was president of the Styrian state parliament in addition to being president of steirischer herbst—gave a notable speech in which he vehemently defended the freedom of art.

The speech following Koren’s, by the state cultural adviser, Kurt Jungwirth (ÖVP), received less attention—undeservedly. The Francophile liberal was more conciliatory toward the festival’s critics: calling some “leftists” and “destroyers” and others “reactionaries” and “fascists” was wrong. Still, Jungwirth fundamentally supported Koren’s position: “Those who call for a censor in art are indirectly also calling for a censor in politics,” he said, explaining that in a Western democracy only “our self-censorship” is admissible.

Acting discreetly in the background, high-ranking ÖVP members clearly appreciated Jungwirth’s performance: a few days later, he was asked to become president of steirischer herbst, according to Koren biographer Kurt Wimmer. On 9 March 1976, Koren resigned and, on 22 March, the state government appointed Jungwirth at his own request. He would play a key role for the festival over the next thirty years.

Jungwirth had already been active at steirischer herbst since 1970, when the political newcomer had replaced Koren as state cultural adviser. His activities have left clear marks in the steirischer herbst archive. In December 1970, Jungwirth wrote to Dieter Glawischnig that he would put the inclusion of jazz up for discussion in the advisory board. There were no major jazz concerts at the festival until a few years later. Outside the Styrian Academy, which was organized by the Office of the Styrian Cultural Adviser, Jungwirth didn’t thrust his ideas upon the program.

In 1974, after years of operating with a questionable legal status, it was Jungwirth in particular who campaigned for a written agreement between the Province of Styria and the City of Graz, thus significantly contributing to the festival’s institutional anchoring. It was especially important to him—also as state cultural adviser—that the whole of Styria was considered: “Jungwirth emphasized the need to ensure that steirischer herbst did not become a Graz herbst again, i.e., that the participation of the districts had to be secured. International standards need not be applied to events in the districts,” the minutes of a meeting on 13 January 1975 read.

At the beginning of his presidency, Jungwirth didn’t consider an artistic director suitable for a multidisciplinary festival. Yet, between 1983 and 2005, he supported four artistic directors to the best of his abilities, not merely approving business trips as the festival’s statutes demanded (such letters comprise a large part of Jungwirth’s correspondence in the archive).

Until 1991, Jungwirth was state cultural adviser and could make funding decisions, repeatedly enabling larger productions at steirischer herbst. “State Adviser Jungwirth accepts the indemnity bond for the premiere of Jelinek’s Nora at the Schauspielhaus, amounting to S 280,000—in addition to the total grant of 1.8 million promised by the state [for all of steirischer herbst, AN],” executive secretary Paul Kaufmann noted on 19 December 1978.

Jungwirth also backed controversial projects such as Werner Fenz’s Bezugspunkte 38/88 (Points of Reference 38/88) on Graz’s Nazi past, speaking at the opening in the Landhaushof on 15 October 1988.

He liked to use his traditional opening speech for frank comments on current affairs. Yet, as president of steirischer herbst, he was seldom truly polemical. A letter to Kleine Zeitung editor-in-chief Fritz Csoklich dated 21 September 1983 is a rare exception. The Graz daily, which was generally sympathetic to steirischer herbst, had published an article two days earlier titled “The Battle for the Cold Buffet,” illustrated with photos of politicians eagerly helping themselves to the buffet at the festival opening. Their eyes were covered with black bars, yet Jungwirth, among others, was easily recognizable.

The state cultural adviser responded:

First of all, I wanted to assert not only how incredibly important it is to defend the delicate flower of steirischer herbst against all the intolerance and bigotry around us, but that we should be proud of it in Graz. With everything that goes with it, it is still unique in Austria as a forceful attempt to awaken this village of Graz from its cluelessness, from its deep sleep, to make it sensitive and cosmopolitan and finally make this city and the people who live there known, thus providing them with the confidence they are so dramatically lacking.

The Kleine Zeitung’s brilliant article, Jungwirth quipped, would hopefully impress all festival guests, especially those from abroad, with the quality journalism had finally achieved in Graz.

Jungwirth’s relationship with the Kleine Zeitung quickly straightened out, and a few days later the paper published a friendly portrait of the “nonbaroque cultural politician.” However, the case had a lasting effect: when the Styrian state suggested reallocating the budget for the opening reception of steirischer herbst ’84, director Peter Vujica protested. “Abandoning this tradition would undoubtedly be misinterpreted as a reduction in sympathy on behalf of politicians,” Vujica wrote to the Office of the State Cultural Adviser on 13 June 1984.

After he resigned as president in 2005, Jungwirth remained on friendly terms with steirischer herbst. He last participated as a panelist at On the Dialectics of Pleasure and Ideology: Styria’s Weinstraße between the Nazis and Putin on 13 October 2019. There, he explained his particular sensitivity regarding Slovenia, among others, with his wartime deployment in Lower Styria, still under Nazi occupation:

In February 1945, when the Red Army was already in Hungary and approaching Austria, Greater Germany, we spent weeks sleeping on the floor at the health resort in Rogaška Slatina, Rohitsch-Sauerbrunn. As fifteen-and-a-half-year-olds, we were erecting the so-called South-East Wall of the German Reich. It was a completely absurd activity; the winter was very hard, the earth was frozen, and we only had shovels and pickaxes,

he recounted in a moving appearance that has become even more topical in view of current discussions about the Styrian state anthem.