Bruno Pittermann

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Bruno Pittermann (born September 3, 1905 in Vienna ; † September 19, 1983 ibid) was an Austrian politician and statesman. From 1957 to 1967 he was chairman of the SPÖ and from 1957 to 1966 Vice Chancellor under the ÖVP chancellors Julius Raab , Alfons Gorbach and Josef Klaus . He was also (as the predecessor of Willy Brandt ) President of the Socialist International (SI) .

Live and act

Pittermann had been politically active with the Social Democrats since he was 18. He received his doctorate in history and geography (Dr. phil.) In 1928 and, after a short teaching activity at a middle school in Vienna - Favoriten, from 1929 was an educational advisor at the Klagenfurt Chamber of Labor ( Carinthia ). In 1930 he married Maria Amster, daughter of a lawyer from Lemberg . After the civil war in 1934 he was briefly imprisoned and lost his post. During the dictatorship he joined the illegal " Revolutionary Socialists " and completed a law degree at the University of Vienna by 1938 . The Dr. jur. Because of his marriage to Maria († 1984) , who was classified as Jewish , he was refused by the Nazis , who came to power in 1938, after which he went abroad for a short time. During the war he was employed by a law firm in Vienna (Dr. Dostal).

In 1945 Bruno Pittermann became Chamber Office Director (First Secretary) of the Vienna Chamber of Labor ; His daughter Elisabeth was born in early 1946 . As a member of the National Council since December 19, 1945, Pittermann prepared his high-profile speeches in detail and then spoke freely and spiritedly. Soon promoted to executive chairman of the parliamentary group, he engaged in heated debates with Hermann Withalm , the ÖVP club chairman and congenial opponent.

After the election of long-time SPÖ chairman and Vice Chancellor Adolf Schärf as Federal President , it was not Interior Minister Oskar Helmer but Pittermann who was elected party chairman on May 8, 1957 and two weeks later he was sworn in as Vice Chancellor of the Federal Government Raab II , the coalition government ÖVP-SPÖ. Under Pittermann's leadership, the SPÖ received more votes in the National Council elections of May 10, 1959 , but one less mandate than the ÖVP, whereupon it successfully raised claims to the Foreign Ministry in favor of Bruno Kreisky , who replaced Leopold Figl as Foreign Minister in the federal government of Raab III . Before the election was for the party chairman with the poster slogan Pittermann for everyone. Everyone has been recruited for Pittermann .

Pittermann subsequently belonged to the federal governments of Raab IV , Gorbach I , Gorbach II and Klaus I as Vice Chancellor. However, the climate in the long-standing grand coalition became crisis-prone. In 1965, after Schärf's death, Pittermann pushed for the presidential candidacy of the Viennese mayor Franz Jonas , who was able to assert himself by a narrow margin against the ÖVP candidate, the ex-chancellor Alfons Gorbach .

Pittermann was responsible for nationalized industry in the federal government ; Within the party, he grew up dangerous opponents in Karl Waldbrunner , but above all in Franz Olah , the influential President of the ÖGB (Austrian Trade Union Federation) and Minister of the Interior. The popular Olah made the claim to leadership and strove for a small coalition with the Freedom Party in order to secure the chancellorship. Olah was recalled as Minister of the Interior in 1964 and, at the instigation of Justice Minister Christian Broda, was excluded from the SPÖ because of dubious media policy (illegal funding of the mass newspaper “Neue Kronen Zeitung ” from union funds ). He then founded the DFP , which contributed significantly to the election debacle of the SPÖ in 1966.

In the National Council election on March 6, 1966 , the ÖVP won an absolute majority with 85 of 165 seats. Olah's DFP, which received around 150,000 votes but no mandate, had seriously damaged the socialists. In addition, Pittermann had not distanced itself clearly enough from an election recommendation made by the communists under Franz Muhri , which enabled the ÖVP under Klaus to capture votes with a “popular front” specter. A few weeks after the election, Pittermann led the SPÖ into the opposition , as negotiations on a new grand coalition had failed due to very different reform plans and Klaus' will to form a sole government.

As a result of this election defeat, Pittermann had to give way in 1967 as SPÖ leader Bruno Kreisky , whose election he tried to thwart until the end with a counter-candidacy from Hans Coppel . Only after a few years did Pittermann support Kreisky, who left him the office of executive club chairman in the National Council.

In 1971 Pittermann resigned from Austrian domestic politics: after almost 26 years of membership, he spoke for the last time in the National Council on July 15, 1971. July decided its early dissolution with the votes of the SPÖ and FPÖ . Since the SPÖ party statute stipulated an age limit, he no longer ran for the National Council election on October 10, 1971 , in which Kreisky won the absolute majority, which he should hold for twelve years.

From 1964 to 1976 Bruno Pittermann was President of the Socialist International and - as in the Council of Europe - campaigned for human rights and concerns of the Third World . He vehemently denounced the colonels' dictatorship in Greece and the Franco regime in Spain as eyesores in a democratic Europe. He was also one of the initiators of the Austrian China Research Institute and was committed to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Austria and the People's Republic of China in 1971. In 1974 he was received by Deng Xiaoping in Beijing .

He suffered a stroke in 1975 during a meeting of the International Bureau in London , which was followed by three more. After eight years of suffering (cared for by friends and his daughter Elisabeth ), he went blind and died in 1983.

Honorary grave of Pittermann in the Vienna Central Cemetery

Pittermann was buried in an honorary grave in Group 14C, number 40, at the Vienna Central Cemetery, where his widow Maria Pittermann was also buried a year later, on October 30, 1984. In Vienna in 1991 the Bruno-Pittermann-Platz was named after him; the subway station Längenfeldgasse , which has been under this square since 1989, was given the place name as a subtitle.

Bruno Pittermann's daughter, the doctor Elisabeth Pittermann , was also politically active from 1994 to 2004: as a member of the National Council and as the leading health councilor in Vienna.

Others

One of Pittermann's specialties was his Virginia cigars, good food or his corpulence and frequent tarot games . His humor , however, did not protect the political opponents from caustic words, which also contributed to the collapse of the coalition with Josef Klaus .

Pittermann's wife Maria was the godmother of a VÖEST ocean- going ship in Bremen in 1960 . The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on it.

Honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bruno Pittermann in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  2. ↑ Stenographic Protocol. 1st (opening) session of the National Council of the Republic of Austria. V. Legislative period. Wednesday, December 19, 1945. p. 1 (PDF; 1.4 MB)
  3. ^ SPÖ election poster for the National Council election of May 10, 1959; Website of the Democracy Center Vienna
  4. ↑ Stenographic Protocol. 52nd session of the National Council of the Republic of Austria. XII. Legislative period. Wednesday, 14th, Thursday, 15th and Friday, 16th July 1971, p. 4185 ff. And 4239 (= p. 43 ff. And 97 of the pdf document; 28.5 MB)
  5. ↑ pdf copy, Der Spiegel , Hamburg, No. 49/1960, p. 95
  6. ↑ Honoring Austrian freedom fighters. In:  The new reminder call. Journal for Freedom, Law and Democracy , issue 11/1977, p. 2 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dnm.
personal data
SURNAME Pittermann, Bruno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician (SPÖ), member of the National Council
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1983
Place of death Vienna