Years at the Top of the Federal Theaters: Georg Springer Dies at 79
The long-time managing director of the Bundestheater-Holding, Georg Springer, has passed away. He died unexpectedly on Thursday evening at the age of 79 in Vienna, as his family announced to the APA. The trained lawyer and cultural manager led the Bundestheater from 1991 to 2014. Amid the Burgtheater scandal involving black accounts, he resigned shortly before his retirement, but all investigations against him were subsequently dropped.
Springer had been an opera fan since his youth, the former fanatical standing-room visitor became president of the Association of Friends of the Vienna Opera in 1976 and was considered for leadership positions in the festival and opera sector for many years. As the head of the Bundestheater, he was present at almost all premieres of the State and People's Opera, Burgtheater, and Akademietheater, and moved confidently in Japanese-inspired fashion on the smooth society parquet for a long time. Ultimately, the affair over the opaque accounting of the Burg brought him to a stumble.
Early Retirement
With Springer, one of the most powerful figures in the domestic theater scene retired in the summer of 2014 - into early retirement. The Burgtheater scandal involving black accounts brought the career of the long-praised great tactician to an inglorious end. The anti-corruption prosecutor's office eventually dropped its investigations against Springer and the former Burgtheater director Matthias Hartmann, as no criminal misconduct could be proven. The former managing director of the Burgtheater, Silvia Stantejsky, was convicted. In 2020, she received a two-year suspended sentence for breach of trust and embezzlement.
At the time, the "Alchemist of Consensus" (as once described by "profil" in a portrait) had nothing more to counter the allegations related to the Burgtheater case than to bring forward his retirement from December 31 to June 30, 2014. A light version of a resignation, while Burgtheater director Hartmann was dismissed without notice by the then Minister of Culture Josef Ostermayer (SPÖ).
In fact, hard numbers were Springer's everyday life since the culture lover was appointed Secretary General of the Austrian Bundestheater Association in 1991 and became its managing director after its transformation into a holding. The first years after the outsourcing of the Bundestheater in 1999 were characterized by extensive austerity measures and restructuring - while Springer repeatedly called for an increase in the federal base compensation to offset inflation and rising salaries. However, the gaps that appeared in the Burgtheater's balance sheet were too large even for Springer.
Springer's Career
Springer was born on August 20, 1946, in Vienna. After attending primary school and secondary school (four years each at Kollegium Kalksburg and Bundesgymnasium Mödling), he graduated in 1964. In the fall of the same year, he began studying law at the University of Vienna, which he completed in 1973 with a doctorate, after interruptions including military service.
After working freelance at the Institute for Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Vienna, Springer became a university assistant at this institute in 1975. In 1978, he joined the Constitutional Service of the Federal Chancellery, and in 1984 he was appointed head of the department V/4 for "Media Affairs" there. Four years later, the then secretary of Franz Vranitzky (SPÖ) and later Minister of Education Rudolf Scholten (SPÖ) brought him in as Deputy Secretary General to the Austrian Bundestheater Association, where he became Secretary General in 1991. Since his resignation, Springer largely withdrew from the public eye, only theater and opera fans could spot him at one or another performance. He remained loyal to "his" houses even without a function.
(APA/Red)
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