For the first time, two important periods in the history of Austrian Freemasonry are systematically reviewed and made accessible to the public. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867, the first lodges were founded in Hungary after decades of prohibition of Freemasonry. Section 18 of the Austrian Law on Associations stipulates that a state commissioner can attend meetings of an association at any time without prior notice. This is the reason why it was not possible to carry out ritual work on Austrian soil in the years between 1867 and 1918. In the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy, however, despite having the same monarch, no such provision existed. An Austrian way was soon found: a humanitarian non-political association on Austrian soil, ritual work as a lodge under the protection of the Symbolic Grand Lodge of Hungary in Pressburg, on what was then Hungarian soil. All border lodges, just like the Hungarian lodges, were engaged in charitable activities on a large scale, such as asylums for abused children, apprentice homes, newspapers for the sick, and much more. On 12 November 1918, the First Republic was proclaimed, and only three weeks later, the Grand Lodge of Vienna was constituted with exactly 1,044 members in 14 lodges. After 1918, the internationality of Freemasonry was strengthened through the special promotion of the so-called World Chain, and the High Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite were officially accepted with the founding of a Supreme Council for Austria. With the occupation of the rooms in the lodges at Dorotheergasse 12 and Schwindgasse 8 on 12 March 1938 and the associated confiscation of all material goods, the light went out in Austria once again for several years.