Council until 1897, while rivals like the Vienna mayor Karl Lueger and his Christian Social Party took the chance created by his disfavor to get ahead. Schönerer left the Catholic Church in January 1900, and converted to the Lutheran denomination. End of career in politics In 1897, Schönerer helped orchestrate the expulsion of Minister-President of Cisleithania Kasimir Felix Graf Badeni from office. Badeni had proclaimed that civil servants in Austrian-controlled Bohemia must know the Czech language, an ordinance that prevented many Bohemian ethnic German speakers, most of whom did not speak Czech, from applying for government jobs. Schönerer staged mass protests against the ordinance and disrupted parliamentary proceedings, actions that eventually led Emperor Franz Joseph to dismiss Badeni. During these years, while the Kulturkampf divided Imperial Germany, Schönerer founded the Los von Rom! ("Away from Rome!") movement, which advocated the conversion of all Roman Catholic German-speaking people of Austria to Lutheran Protestantism, or, in some cases, to the Old Catholic Churches. Schönerer became even more powerful in 1901, when 21 members of his party gained seats in the Parliament. But his influence and career rapidly declined thereafter due to his forceful views and personality. His party also suffered, and had virtually disintegrated by 1907. But his views and philosophy, not to mention his great skill as an agitator, influenced and inspired Hitler and the Nazi Party. Death Schönerer died at his Rosenau manor near Zwettl, Lower Austria on 14 August 1921. He had arranged to be buried near Bismarck's mausoleum on his estate at Friedrichsruh, Lauenburg, in present-day Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany. References Bibliography 1842 births 1921 deaths Politicians from Vienna Austrian Lutherans Converts to Lutheranism from Roman Catholicism Austrian knights Constitutional Party (Austria) politicians Members of the Austrian House of Deputies (1873–1879) Members of the Austrian House of Deputies (1879–1885) Members of the Austrian House of Deputies (1885–1891) Members of the Austrian House of Deputies (1897–1900) Members of the Austrian House of Deputies (1901–1907) German nationalism in Austria German nationalists Austrian anti-communists Anti-Slavic sentiment Antisemitism in Austria Germanization Pan-Germanism Anti-Masonry