Alfred Back

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Alfred Bäck (born November 21, 1903 in Saalfelden , Land Salzburg , Austria ; † November 3, 1974 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian social democratic politician and mayor of the state capital Salzburg.

Childhood and career

Bäck was born as the son of Josefine Bäck, who lived in Graden (then the municipality of Piber ) and was also entitled to reside in the Styrian town. However, he spent his entire childhood with his grandmother in Saalfelden. When his mother married Karl Peter Menzel, the then tenant of the Sternbräus in Salzburg, in 1913, Alfred Bäck moved to the state capital, attended grammar school there up to 6th grade and then began his professional life as a peat cutting worker .

After his military service with the pioneers (1922-1927), he worked from 1927 to 1937 as a simple clerk at the Salzburger Volkskreditbank. In 1932 he married Theresia Flachberger (1905–2003), who came from a family of railway workers. When the Volkskreditbank went bankrupt, he switched to the Salzburger Sparkasse and in 1940 took over the management of the Sparkasse branch in Rainerstraße. In the last years of the war in 1944/45 he was a front soldier in Italy. After his return from the Second World War , he became a member of the board of directors in 1945 and, from 1954, managing director of the Salzburger Sparkasse.

politics

As a staunch socialist, Alfred Bäck joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party in German-Austria on January 1, 1923 . From 1946 to 1970 he was a representative of the Social Democratic Party or its successor, the SPÖ, on the municipal council of the state capital and from 1954 to 1964 as a member of the Salzburg state parliament . From 1952 to 1957 as the City Councilor for Finance and from 1957 to 1970 as Mayor of the City of Salzburg, he ensured a healthy financial policy for the state capital and thus enabled the realization of large projects, including the construction of numerous municipal residential buildings such as the first high-rise in Lehen and the settlement in Taxham which replaced the more than 150 refugee barracks and makeshift homes from the post-war period. In addition, there were new buildings, conversions and extensions that contributed to increasing the quality of life of the population after the war damage, such as new kindergartens and schools, the Paracelsus Kurhaus (1958), Haus der Natur (1959), Großes (1960) and Kleines Festspielhaus (1963), Untersberg cable car (1961), Leopoldskron outdoor swimming pool (1964) and the new construction of the Lehen bridge (1967).

Further highlights of his tenure as mayor were the city partnership between Salzburg and the French city of Reims , entered into in 1964 , the reopening of the Salzburg Museum Carolino Augusteum in 1967 and the completion of the Salzach basement in 1968, which had become necessary due to the floods of 1959.

On September 28, 1970 Alfred Bäck resigned from the office of mayor for private reasons. After his death on November 3, 1974, the former mayor, popular and valued by the citizens, was buried in an honorary grave in the Salzburg municipal cemetery.

Recognitions

Alfred Bäck was the owner of numerous national, international and church awards. In 1957 he was appointed to the Council of Commerce . In 1962 he received the Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold for services to the Republic of Austria . On November 21, 1968, the city of Salzburg made him an honorary citizen . The Alfred-Bäck-Schule in the Taxham district and Alfred-Bäck-Strasse in Maxglan have been named after him since 1983 .

Fonts

  • with Felix Slavik : On the financing of the Austrian community economy (= series of publications of the Austrian Research Institute for Savings Banks. Vol. 4, no . 1, 1964, ISSN  0472-5859 ). Sparkassenverlag, Vienna 1964.

literature

  • Walter Frequler, Guido Müller, Martin Wiedemair: Maxglan. A district of Salzburg. Salzburger Bildungswerk Maxglan, Salzburg 1990.
  • Ludwig Netsch: The Salzburg mayors from 1847. Documentation of the city of Salzburg. Magistrat Salzburg - Documentation about what is happening in the city, Salzburg 1987.
  • Friederike Zaisberger , Reinhard R. Heinisch (Eds.): Life beyond death ... Celebrities in the Salzburg municipal cemetery (= communications from the Society for Salzburg Regional Studies. Supplementary volume 23, ZDB -ID 507477-0 ). Self-published by the Society for Salzburg Regional Studies, Salzburg 2006.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Back, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician (SPÖ), member of the state parliament
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Saalfelden , State of Salzburg , Austria
DATE OF DEATH 3rd November 1974
Place of death Salzburg , Austria