Persecution of Jews in Austria

Roman emperors
Under Christian emperors, Jews were persecuted in the Roman Empire, which included forbidding Jews from marrying Christians, restricting Jewish ownership of slaves, and punishing those that converted from Christianity to Judaism.

Crusaders
The Crusaders were composed of Christians, and they massacred and forced Jews to convert to Christianity in multiple towns and destroyed the houses and synagogues of the Jews in the late 11th century during the First Crusade, the mid-12th century during the Second Crusade, and in the late 12th century after the Third Crusade.

Blood libels
Jews were accused in blood libels, which are false accusations of having killed Christians (usually children) for rituals, in Salzburg in 1287, Krems in 1293, Vienna in 1305, Lienz in 1442, and Rinn in 1462. In Rinn, the libel involved the death of a child named Andreas. Pope Benedict XIV wrote about the boy in his bull, “Beatus Andreas”: “... The Blessed Andreas from the region of the village of Rinn in the Diocese of Brixen, was butchered in the cruelest fashion before the completion of the third year of life in the year 1462 by Jews out of hatred toward the Christian faith. ...“ Celebrations for the cult of Andreas began in the early 17th century.

Host desecration accusations
Jews were murdered after accusations of host desecration in Laa in 1294, Korneuburg in 1306, Pulkau, Sankt Pölten, and Wolfsberg in 1338, Salzburg, and Hallein in 1404. After an accusation in 1420, Duke Albert V of Austria issued the Vienna Gesera (Viennese Decree) that imprisoned, burned, and banished Jews from Austria. He ordered the children of the murdered Jews to be forcibly baptized into Christianity. Albert V later bragged: “... I burned my Jews.”

Persecution of Jews during the Black Death
Jews were falsely blamed for the Black Death or bubonic plague pandemic in Europe during the mid-14th century. They were persecuted and massacred. Jews were often used by Christians to blame due to their resentment of them, considering the antisemitic Christian belief that Jews as a people hold the responsibility for killing Jesus Christ, known as Jewish deicide. Many Jews were murdered in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

Expulsions
Duke Albert V of Austria persecuted Jews, including imprisoning, killing, and expelling them in 1420–1421. There were also expulsions of Jews in Graz in 1439, Tyrol in 1520, Bregenz in 1559, Hohenems in 1676, and by rulers of the Archduchy of Austria. Archdukes Maximilian I in 1496 expelled Jews from Styria and Carinthia; Ferdinand I, who reigned from 1521 until his death in 1564, expelled Jews from Lower Austria; Maximilian II ordered the expulsion of Jews from Vienna in 1572; Leopold VI in 1670 expelled Jews from the Archduchy of Austria; and Archduchess Maria Theresa attempted to expel Jews from Tyrol in 1748 and proclaimed Innsbruck as a “Jew-free” city.

Ferdinand I
Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria required that all Jews in the hereditary lands of Lower, Upper, and Hither Austria wear a badge. He later expelled Jews from Lower Austria.

Ferdinand III
Beginning in the mid-1620s, the Jews of Vienna were forced to live in a ghetto by Archduke Ferdinand III of Austria. He also compelled the Jews of Vienna to listen to missionary sermons by the Jesuits.

Politicians from the 19th and 20th centuries
Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Karl Lueger were two notable politicians who advocated prejudice against Jews between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Schönerer perpetuated conspiracy theories against Jewish people, advocated for the expulsion of Jews, and ransacked and assaulted the employees of the office of the Jewish-owned newspaper Neues Wiener Tagblatt. Lueger, the mayor of Vienna (1897–1910), pursued antisemitic practices, mostly by not employing Jews in the city services and limiting their access to educational institutions. He supported politicians who actively perpetuated the myth that Jews ritually sacrificed Christian children and supported a bill against Jewish immigration from Russia and Romania. He also founded a Christian antisemitic political party.