ABSTRACT
Thomas Klestil was elected Austria’s federal president in 1992 as the candidate of the Austrian People’s Party. The Klestil presidency was overshadowed by the setbacks and honorable political defeats, none of which is reflected in this volume of speeches. The president tried to prevent Wolfgang Schussel from assuming the leadership position as chancellor of a “black-blue” coalition. Klestil tried to reinvent the office and to challenge the borders defined by tradition and constitutional practice—in vain. Klestil’s life includes one of the more distinguished careers in diplomacy and politics of the Second Republic. However, they are missing in their entirety in the newly published collection of speeches under review, edited by the prominent former member of the Bundesrat, Herbert Schambeck. The political complexity in Klestil’s career in the Hofburg is not reflected in this documentation of some 100 official speeches.
