Anton von Schmerling

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Anton Ritter von Schmerling Signature Anton von Schmerling.PNG

Anton Ritter von Schmerling (born August 23, 1805 in Vienna ; † May 23, 1893 there ) was an Austrian politician and lawyer . In 1848 he served as Reich Minister in the Provisional Central Authority , the first all-German government. From 1860 to 1865 he was Austrian head of government .

family

Anton Ritter von Schmerling, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber , 1849

Anton von Schmerling came from a family who immigrated to Austria from the Duchy of Kleve , whose members were raised to the nobility by Emperor Joseph I in 1707 as imperial knights and noble von Schmerling . Since 1835 he was married to the painter Pauline Freiin von Koudelka (1806-1840), with whom he had two daughters.

His brother Joseph (1806-1884) was kk Feldzeugmeister , 1860-1862 deputy minister of war and from 1868 played a significant role in the development and organization of the Austrian kk Landwehr as a counterpart to the ku Honvéd , the Hungarian Landwehr that the Hungarians on the basis of the compensation of 1867 was granted by Emperor Franz Joseph I as a territorial force alongside the common army . His brother Rainer (1810-1892) was a military doctor, personal physician to Field Marshal Archduke Albrecht and president of the Vienna Medical Doctoral College. His youngest brother Moriz (1822–1882) was also a lawyer and President of the Senate of the Imperial and Royal Administrative Court founded in 1867 . The Imperial and Royal Prime Minister from 1908 to 1911, Richard von Bienerth-Schmerling , was Anton von Schmerling's grandson.

politics

Revolutionary period 1848-1851

Schmerling was a sharp opponent of the Metternich system, which was aimed at maintaining the existing order and suppressing all revolutionary movements . Instead, he advocated the transformation of the German Confederation into a constitutional monarchy .

Caricature from 1848 on Gagern (left) and Schmerling

In February 1848, at the beginning of the March Revolution , Schmerling was one of the revolutionaries who set up the National Guard in Vienna . He was a member of the pre-parliament and of the Frankfurt National Assembly . On July 15, 1848, he was appointed Reich Minister in the central power of Germany by Reichsverweser Johann von Österreich . As a confidante of the Reich Administrator, he actually put together the government team. From July to December 1848 he held the office of interior minister and at times that of foreign minister; after the resignation of the Leiningen cabinet , Schmerling was not officially, but by internal agreement chairman of the Council of Ministers and thus head of government of a Schmerling cabinet .

Schmerling spoke out in favor of a Greater German solution that included the German territories of Austria . However, when this failed due to the contradiction of the Austrian Prime Minister Felix zu Schwarzenberg and the National Assembly came out in favor of a Prussian- led small German solution excluding Austria, he announced his resignation in December 1848, as he had lost the trust of the majority in the casino faction . Since he saw a small German nation-state as not in Austria's interest, he then persuaded Schwarzenberg to torpedo this variant with a Greater Austria plan. Heinrich von Gagern became the new Reich Minister- President , who in a way became Schmerling's little German opponent.

From 1849 to 1851 Schmerling, appointed by Emperor Franz Joseph I , who took over the throne in December 1848, was Minister of Justice of the Austrian government under Prince Felix Schwarzenberg . Because of the intensified neo-absolutism in Austria, he resigned and was President of the Senate at the Supreme Court (OGH) until 1858 . 1865-1891 he was President of the Supreme Court.

Second career in the Austrian government

With the liberalization of Austria triggered by the defeat of the emperor in Lombardy in 1859, he began a second political career. On December 13, 1860 he became Minister of State and was the actual head of the liberal government nominally headed by Archduke Rainer as Prime Minister. Schmerling tried to keep Austria's chairmanship in the German Confederation effective, but failed because of Otto von Bismarck's aggressive opposition . Until July 27, 1865, when the emperor withdrew his trust in the government because of this, he remained the most influential politician of those years, albeit only with the support of the German liberals in the House of Representatives of the Reichsrat , which was located at Währinger Strasse 2-4 because of its theater-like temporary building was popularly known in Vienna as the “Schmerling Theater”.

Schmerling played a major role in the centralized February constitution of 1861, which among other things created the prerequisites for local self-government in Austria and contained the state constitutions of the crown lands valid in Cisleithanien until 1918 . With the Protestant patent (1861), the law of October 27, 1862 for the protection of personal freedom and the law of October 27, 1862 for the protection of house rules, further essential steps towards liberalization were taken. In 1861 Schmerling became an honorary citizen of Vienna and Innsbruck and in 1862 an honorary member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences .

Since 1867, at the request of the emperor, Schmerling had been a member for life of the manor house of the Austrian Imperial Council , of which he was vice-president from 1868 and president in 1871. In 1873, 1875, 1879 and 1891 he was president of the Austrian delegation in the Austro-Hungarian settlement negotiations.

Grave, coats of arms and portraits

Schmerling's honorary grave is located in the Hietzinger Friedhof (group 05, no. 47).

Designations

In the year of his death, 1893, in Vienna, Innere Stadt (1st district), directly next to the parliament building, the Schmerlingplatz , which is also adjacent to the Palace of Justice , was named after him . The square thus connects Schmerling's two areas of activity, the political and the legal.

In Brno in Moravia, too , the noble Alleegasse, Brno's first and to this day only boulevard , at that time in the newly built district, was named Schmerlingstrasse on June 13, 1893. On June 26, 1919 it became Legionärgasse in the young Czechoslovakia , on January 10th 1940 during the German occupation it became Alleestrasse, after the liberation it became the třída Legionářů again, and since October 12th 1950 Brno's only real boulevard is called “Třída kapitána Jaroše ".

bust

In the garden of the Theresianum, 4th, Favoritenstrasse, the seat of the Diplomatic Academy Vienna and a traditional high school , whose curator was Schmerling, there is a bust of Schmerling by Anton Dominik Fernkorn .

coat of arms
Coat of arms of the Imperial Knights von Schmerling 1707

The coat of arms of the Schmerling family, defined in 1707, was described as follows: Squared shield: 1 in silver, a gold-crowned, black double-headed eagle; 2 in red a silver bar covered with three red roses; 3 in red a silver cross that has taken root on the summit of a green mountain; 4 in silver a red, inward-facing, erect, double-tailed lion, holding a tree with a silver trunk and green leaves in its paws. Two golden, crowned helmets on the shield. In the right, on a green velvet cushion between two outstretched black flights, is the cross from the shield. On the left the lion of 4 now growing, in his paws holding the tree all in green. The ceilings are red and silver in front, black and gold in the back. Shield-bearers are two erect, outward-looking, natural tigers.

Medals
  • Silver and bronze minted medal 1879, on his 50th anniversary as a civil servant, 67 mm, by Anton Scharff (1845–1903), medalist
  • Silver (unique) and bronze cast medal (few copies) 1885, on his 80th birthday, 175 mm, by Anton Scharff
  • Silver and bronze minted medal 1890, on his 25th anniversary as curator of the Theresianum , 66 mm, by Anton Scharff

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Anton von Schmerling  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Felix Czeike : Historisches Lexikon Wien , Volume 5, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-218-00547-7 , p. 106 f.
  2. ↑ The Constitution of the Austrian Monarchy, together with two supplements (Basic Law on Reich Representation as well as State Order and Landtag Election Order for the 17 Cisleithan Crown Lands), RGBl. No. 20/1861 of February 28, 1861 (= p. 69 ff.)
  3. ↑ RGBl. No. 87/1862 (= p. 243 f.)
  4. ↑ RGBl. No. 88/1862 (= p. 245 f.)
  5. ^ Website of Hedwig Abraham: Art and Culture in Vienna
  6. ↑ After Johann Siebmacher: "Johann Siebmacher's great Wappenbuch", Volume 27, Verlag Bauer & Raspe, Neustadt an der Aisch 1984, p. 341
personal data
SURNAME Schmerling, Anton von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmerling, Anton Ritter von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian lawyer and politician, member of the state parliament
DATE OF BIRTH 23 August 1805
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1893
Place of death Vienna