Karl von Vogelsang

Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang (3 September 1818 – 8 November 1890), a journalist, politician and Catholic social reformer, was one of the mentors of the Christian Social movement in Austria-Hungary.

He was born in Liegnitz in the Silesia Province of Prussia (present-day Legnica, Poland), studied jurisprudence at Bonn, and Berlin, and settled at his family's estate Alt-Guthendorf near Marlow in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. After the Revolutions of 1848 Vogelsang moved to Berlin, where he made the acquaintance of Wilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr von Ketteler and Friedrich Maassen. Like Maassen he converted to Catholicism in 1850, whereafter he had to resign as deputy to the Protestant Mecklenburg Landtag. Vogelsang then worked as a journalist in Catholic Southern Germany and spent several years in Munich, where he wrote for periodical publications established by the circles around Guido Görres. From 1859 he accompanied Prince Johann II of Liechtenstein on his voyages throughout Europe.

Vogelsang finally settled in Austria in 1864. In 1875, he became editor of the Catholic newspaper Das Vaterland ("The Native Country") edited by Leo von Thun-Hohenstein. This conservative publication was highly influential on Catholic social teaching, helping to establish the 40-hour work week and national health insurance for workers under the government of Minister-President Eduard Taaffe. Vogelsang died at Vienna in 1890, aged 72. Many of his thoughts found entrance into the 1891 Rerum novarum encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII. As a social reformer, he was later seen as a precursor by the Austrofascist authoritarian state of the 1930s; he was quoted in the regime's propaganda by its leader, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss.

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