Arthur Polzer-Hoditz

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Coat of arms of Counts Polzer-Hoditz and Wolframitz, 1917.
Arthur Polzer-Hoditz's coat of arms on Modra Castle near Pressburg , now Slovakia, 1912–1922 in his property

Art (h) ur Polzer-Hoditz (born August 2, 1870 in Lemberg , Crown Land of Galicia , Austria-Hungary ; † July 24, 1945 in Baden near Vienna , Lower Austria ) was the office director of the manor of the Imperial Council in Cisleithanien and in 1917 the cabinet director of Emperor Karl I. He was born as Ritter von Polzer, was named after 1914 due to an adoption Ritter von Polzer-Hoditz and Wolframitz and after being raised from October 11, 1917 to the effectiveness of the Nobility Repeal Act on April 10, 1919 Graf von Polzer-Hoditz and Wolframitz. His first name was written without an h in official publications in 1918.

Life

Artur Polzer was born as the son of Maria Christine Countess von Hoditz and Wolframitz (1847-1924) and the civil servant Julius Ritter von Polzer (1834-1912). During the First World War , Maria Christine's sister Mathilde von Hoditz and Wolframitz († 1932) adopted the couple's children, which gave them the names Ritter von Polzer-Hoditz and Wolframitz.

Polzer studied at the University of Graz Jus and received his doctorate in 1893 for Doctor juris. Initially he was an administrative officer in Styria , but in 1897 he was transferred to the Imperial and Royal Ministry of the Interior and in 1900 to the Imperial and Royal Ministry of Culture and Education . From 1904 onwards, initially part-time, he was one of the three secretaries in the manor house and in 1910 was promoted to the man’s office director with the title of Hofrat .

In 1905 Polzer stayed with the later Emperor Karl I in Brixen , where he received the award document and the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece , the house order of the dynasty, by letter from Emperor Franz Joseph I. Together they then studied the old French statutes of the order. A little later, Polzer was busy drafting the program for the Archduke's further education. In 1906 Polzer visited the Archduke at his request on the Hradschin in Prague .

On November 21, 1916, Archduke Karl Franz Joseph came with the death of Franz Joseph I as Karl I./IV. on the throne. Polzer was one of those who unsuccessfully advised Karl against taking the Hungarian coronation oath immediately before important questions of constitutional law were resolved. Karl I entrusted Polzer on February 7, 1917 (succeeding Franz Freiherr von Schießl-Perstorff, 1844–1932, who had been cabinet director since 1900) with the rank of section head with the management of his cabinet office; Polzer soon also became a Privy Councilor . He now accompanied the emperor on trips to the front lines and other parts of the dual monarchy (Franz Joseph I had not left Vienna since the beginning of the war). In the spring of 1917 he called for an imperial manifesto on the internal autonomy of the Cisleithani tribes , which, however, was not issued until the autumn of 1918 , much too late, as the so-called People's Manifesto .

On June 1, 1917, Polzer was commissioned by the Kaiser to examine the files of the high treason trials against Czechs; Based on the results of this examination (tendentious proceedings, judgments without sufficient evidence), the monarch issued an extensive amnesty on July 2, 1917 (without informing Foreign Minister Czernin or the Army High Command beforehand).

At the end of June 1917, Polzer turned down the emperor's offer to appoint him Prime Minister. Charles I raised Polzer to the rank of count in autumn 1917 (see here ). Gordon Brook-Shepherd analyzed 50 years later that Polzer had formed the inner quartet , the basis of the new ruler , together with Imperial and Royal Prime Minister Count Heinrich Clam-Martinic , Foreign Minister Ottokar Count Czernin and Chief of Staff Arthur Arz von Straussenburg .

Polzer agreed with the emperor to give the tribes of the Austrian lands of the monarchy the greatest possible autonomy and to end the war as soon as possible. Circles who feared their loss of power as a result began a boisterous drive against him, which resulted in his leave of absence on November 25, 1917 at Czernin's instigation and in his dismissal by the Kaiser on July 25, 1918. (His successor as cabinet director was the newly resigned Imperial and Royal Prime Minister Ernst Seidler von Feuchtenegg .) A key argument by Polzer's opponents was that he had established the emperor's contact with Heinrich Lammasch , a university professor and peace friend who was the last Imperial and Royal Prime Minister at the end of October 1918 should be.

On August 23, 1918, Polzer was appointed Senate President at the Administrative Court by the Kaiser ; At the end of October the monarchy disintegrated, and on November 11, 1918 Charles I renounced any share in state affairs in Austria . Polzer retired from active service at the end of 1918, retired from the new state of German Austria . In 1929 he published his memoirs on Charles I, which were later published in Italian and French.

Polzer-Hoditz wanted to be a painter even as a young man. But he only joined the company after his retirement. About Google are paintings such as The Baden Thermalstrandbad (1926) Weissbriach (1941), Deer in forest clearing , (1941) Wild boar in winter landscape (1942) and deer rut - An October morning discoverable (undated.).

Own works

  • People and the state - a contemporary view , Rikola, Vienna 1922
  • The Emperor Karl. From the secret folder of his head of cabinet , Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna 1929; 2nd edition: Amalthea, Zurich 1980
  • L'ultimo degli Absburgo: l'imperatore Carlo , Mondadori publishing house, Milan 1930
  • L'Empereur Charles et la mission historique de l'Autriche , Ed. Bernard Grasset, Paris 1934
  • Emperor and king. A dramatic poem. , Zoller-Verlag, Vienna 1935

family

Polzer's brother Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz was a landowner, publicist and anthroposophist. A common ancestor was Albert Joseph von Hoditz .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brook-Shepherd, p. 24 f.
  2. ^ Rauchsteiner, p. 777
  3. ↑ Brook-Shepherd, p. 140
  4. ↑ Brook-Shepherd, p. 74
  5. ↑ Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950, Vol. 8 (Lfg. 37, 1980), p. 189
  6. ^ Rauchsteiner, p. 893
  7. ^ Daily newspaper Wiener Zeitung , Vienna, No. 196, August 28, 1918, p. 1, official part
personal data
SURNAME Polzer-Hoditz, Arthur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Polzer-Hoditz, Artur; Knights of Polzer-Hoditz and Wolframitz, Artur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Office director of the manor house of the Reichsrat in Cisleithanien, and cabinet director of Emperor Karl I (1917–1918)
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Lviv , Galicia , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1945
Place of death Baden near Vienna