No Longer Entitled

Less honor, fewer honorifics

For more than a century, Austrian citizens have dutifully doffed their hats to Post-und Fernmeldezentralinspektoren, bowed and scraped before the lofty Regierungsveterinaerkommissaere and contorted their tongues addressing Werkstaettenobermanipulanten. The bearers of these grandiloquent honorifics, which date back to the Habsburg dynasty, are actually low-ranking civil servants employed in the somewhat less than regal jobs of postal inspector, livestock inspector and repairman.

Starting Jan. 1, however, the government of Socialist Chancellor Bruno Kreisky will abolish 502 of the splendid titles bestowed upon civil servants under the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, until now, faithfully preserved by two Austrian republics. A mere 108 titles will remain in official use. Many of these will be simplified in an attempt to humanize and democratize relations between Austria's 7.5 million citizens and its 345,000 federal bureaucrats, who are notorious for their sloth and discourtesy.

Explains Federal Civil Service Chief Franz Loeschnak: "A title should describe precisely the level of employment of a civil servant and should be pronounceable, at the very least." Thus an Akademischer Oberrestaurator (restorer in a museum) will become a mere Oberkommissaer, or first-class commissioner. A Polizeisanitaetskommissar (police health commissioner) will be reduced to just plain Kommissaer, while a Kellereiinspektor (inspector of state wine cellars) will henceforth be known only as an Amtsrat, or office counselor. In a curious bow to tradition, Austria's 100 Wirkliche Hofraete (real court counselors), who are assistant secretaries in ministries, will be demoted only to the rank of Hofrat (court counselor) --even though no imperial court has existed in Austria for 60 years.

The elimination of so many hallowed titles has caused consternation in the civil service hierarchy. Said one grieving Ministerialsekretaer of the waterways administration: "Our proud captains will become just controllers. It's like losing the command of an imperial battleship in order to conduct Vienna's No. 72 streetcar--the one that runs to the central cemetery."

The government has stopped short at downgrading its diplomats, however; Austrian envoys will be permitted to insist that their colleagues abroad continue to use the traditional form of address: Ausserordentlicher und Bevoellmaechtigter Botschafter, or Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. qed

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