This article analyzes the ideas of Adolf Fischhof (1816–93) on the nationalities question in the Habsburg Monarchy. Throughout his career Fischhof argued that the survival of the multiethnic Habsburg polity required the strengthening of each nationality's separate consciousness as an ethno-cultural unit. In terms of the reform plan he espoused, he was perhaps more supportive of the rights of the non-German peoples of Austria than any other German liberal politician of the post-1848 era. Nevertheless, Fischhof's rationale for proposing such reforms, namely that they would lead the Monarchy's Slavs to reject the notion of ethnic kinship with Russia and instead join the civilized, European (read: German) side in its inevitable clash with barbarous Muscovite tyranny, revealed a clear belief in the supremacy of German Kultur and in a German-centered mission for the Austrian state.
