Srbik, Heinrich von

(1878–1951)

   A historian, Srbik began his teaching career at the University of Graz, then moved to the University of Vienna, where he taught from 1922 to 1945. He was federal minister of education from 1929 to 1930. Born in Vienna, he died in the Tyrol.

   Srbik’s three-volume biography (1925–1954) of Metternich remains an authoritative treatment of its subject. During the interwar period, however, he was best known for his efforts to create a German-oriented version of history that would justify Austria’s incorporation into a Greater German Empire, which he and many of his colleagues believed to be inevitable. The cultivation of a sense of common history would end in the creation of a common German people. Srbik’s thinking in this vein is encapsulated in his Deutsche Einheit (German Unity, 4 vols., 1935–1942). Though he would come to change his mind, Srbik regarded the 1938 Anschluss as a realization of his ideas.