Bruno Kreisky (1911-1990) was chancellor of Austria from 1970 to 1983, presiding over a period of domestic prosperity combined with the a growing importance in international affairs.

Bruno Kreisky was born in Vienna, Austria, on January 22, 1911, into a wealthy Jewish family whose industrial fortune and political involvement could be traced to the early 19th century. Critical of his bourgeois background and angered by the poverty around him, Kreisky joined socialist working youth at dances when he was 16 without becoming a doctrinaire Marxist or entirely alienating his family. This fortunate set of circumstances later enabled him to appreciate much of the old Austria even as he adopted a progressive and socialist attitude toward the contemporary world.

In religious matters Kreisky was agnostic but found it difficult to escape the Jewish stereotype. Relations with his Catholic countrymen remained correct rather than cordial despite a personal friendship with Cardinal Koenig. He never considered...