Wilhelm Brauneder (1943 – )

Member of the National Council from 1994 to 1999

Third President of the National Council from 1996 to 1999

City Councillor of Baden, Lower Austria from 1990 to 1996

Wilhelm Brauneder became politically active for the first time in 1990, whilst working as a university professor and legal scholar. In that year, he became a member of the municipal council of Baden and a Baden city councillor. From 1994 to 1999, he was an FPÖ Member of the National Council and from 1996 to 1999 served as Third President of the National Council.

Short biography

Wilhelm Brauneder was born in Mödling, Lower Austria, on 8 January 1943.

He studied law in Vienna, graduating in 1965 with the title Dr iur., and then studied political science and business education at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, graduating in 1976 (with the title Mag. rer. soc. oec.). After completing his studies, he worked as a lecturer both at Vienna University’s Faculty of Law and at the Johannes-Kepler-University in Linz. He also taught at Vienna University’s Faculty of Humanities, as well as at Vienna’s Institute for Political Science.

Wilhelm Brauneder was first appointed as an associate university professor at the Institute for Legal and Constitutional Law (1977 – 1980) and then as a full professor (from 1980). From 1987 to 1989, Brauneder was Dean of the University of Vienna Faculty of Law and until 2011 he also headed the University’s Institute for Legal and Constitutional History. From 1993 until 1997, Brauneder was chairman of the Association for Constitutional History (Vereinigung für Verfassungsgeschichte).

However, Brauneder also has an established international reputation as a legal scholar and has taught at universities including the university of Kansas in Lawrence, USA (1986), of Paris in France (1991/1992) and of Budapest in Hungary (1993/1994).

Wilhelm Brauneder commenced his political career in 1990, when he was elected to both the municipal council and the city council of Baden, Lower Austria. In 1994 he entered the National Council on an FPÖ ticket. From 1996 until 1999, Wilhelm Brauneder served as Third President of the Austrian National Council.

In 2018/2019, Brauneder was chairman of FPÖ’s Historians Commission. Its report, which deals with the history of the party, was published in 2019.

Main political positions

Publications by Wilhelm Brauneder

In the course of his research career as a legal scholar at Vienna University, Wilhelm Brauneder published numerous collected essays and monographs. The following could be considered the most significant:

• Die historische Entwicklung der modernen Grundrechte in Österreich. (= Politische Bildung, 54). Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-7028-0269-X.
• Österreichs Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (ABGB). Eine europäische Privatrechtskodifikation. Volume I: Entstehung und Entwicklung des ABGB bis 1900. (= Schriften zur europäischen Rechts- und Verfassungsgeschichte, 60). Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-428-13301-7.
• Europäische Privatrechtsgeschichte. Vienna/Cologne/Weimar 2014, ISBN 978-3-8252-3487-4.

Furthermore, he was also active as the editor of collected volumes, as well as of journals and publication series. Especially well known are:

• Juristen in Österreich. 1200–1980. Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-7015-0041-X.
• Co-editor of the journal “Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte” (ZNR)

Wilhelm Brauneder in the catalogue of the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek):

ÖNB QuickSearch - wilhelm brauneder (onb.ac.at)

Wilhelm Brauneder in the catalogue of the German National Library (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek):

DNB, Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

Literature on Wilhelm Brauneder

• Lothar Höbelt: Wilhelm Brauneder. Verfassungsjurist, Dritter Präsident des Nationalrates. In: Mitchell G. Ash, Josef Ehmer (eds): Universität – Politik – Gesellschaft. (= 650 Jahre Universität Wien – Aufbruch ins neue Jahrhundert, II), Göttingen 2015, pp. 383–388.
• Gabor Hamza: Wilhelm Brauneder: Europäische Privatrechtsgeschichte. Vienna/Cologne/Weimar 2014. In: Jogtudományi Közlöny 70 (2015), pp. 226–228.
• Gabor Hamza: Würdigung. In: G. Hamza, M. Hlavacka and K. Takii (eds): Rechtstransfer in der Geschichte. Internationale Festschrift für Wilhelm Brauneder zum 75. Geburtstag. Peter Lang, Berlin/Bern/Vienna, etc. 2019, pp. 5–7.

Weblinks on Wilhelm Brauneder

Wilhelm Brauneder on the website of the Austrian Parliament:

MMag. Dr. Willi Brauneder, Biografie (parlament.gv.at)

Wilhelm Brauneder on the website of Vienna University:

Professor Wilhelm Brauneder (univie.ac.at)