Ernest von Koerber

Ernest Karl Franz Joseph Thomas Friedrich von Koerber (born November 6, 1850 in Trient , † March 5, 1919 in Baden , Lower Austria ) was a leading politician of Austria-Hungary and twice Prime Minister .

Ernest von Koerber (photograph by Carl Pietzner , printed 1905)

Life

As the son of Josef von Koerber, Ernest came from an old family of officers and civil servants. His father was a lieutenant colonel in the gendarmerie . He attended the Theresianum in Vienna and studied law at the University of Vienna .

The German -liberal oriented Koerber joined the Ministry of Commerce after completing his studies and completing the court year in 1874. In 1895 he was appointed general director of the state railways , and in 1896 a privy councilor. In 1897/98 he acted as Minister of Commerce, in 1899 as Minister of the Interior of the Austrian half of the empire ( Cisleithanien ), from January 19, 1900 to December 31, 1904, he was its Prime Minister . He resigned on December 31, 1904 for health reasons. From 1902 to 1904 he was also Minister of Justice. In 1903 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Stephen , and since 1906 he was a member of the Academy of Sciences. 1915/16 Koerber was active as the joint finance minister of Austria-Hungary. On October 31, 1916, Emperor Franz Joseph I appointed him as Stürgkh 's successor after Friedrich Adler's assassination attempt on Prime Minister Karl Graf von Stürgkh . However, Koerber did not harmonize with Emperor Karl I , who refused to take the oath on the constitution and had to quit his office on December 13, 1916 after Franz Joseph's death. He died on March 5, 1919 in a Badner sanatorium and was buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery.

politics

Ernest von Koerber in his office (1901)

Koerber's policy corresponded to the bourgeois-liberal view, which tried to maintain the unity of the Danube monarchy regardless of the diverging nationalities with the help of the army and the state administration. Especially during his work as Prime Minister from 1900 to 1904, Koerber tried to promote the economy and its growth through infrastructure measures such as railroad and canal construction. Koerber planned this extensive infrastructure program in 1901 with many new railway lines and waterways to connect all of the major rivers of Cisleithania. The Koerber Plan was described by contemporaries as the boldest and most far-reaching project in the history of the dual monarchy . The propagated economic and integration policy was a central point of Koerber's political ideas. He tried to generate an upswing through his economic program, as a result of which not only the general prosperity should be raised, but the nationality dispute, also with a view to the consolidation of the monarchy, should be contained. For financial reasons, however, only a small part of the projects could be carried out.

Koerber tried to have a politically equalizing effect, for example against the Social Democrats , and he abolished press censorship . Like his predecessors, however, he had to rule by means of emergency ordinances, since the German liberals around 1900 no longer had any notable political base, and the various language disputes, for example between Czech and German speakers in Bohemia (see also: Bohemian language conflict) or between the Italian -speaking and German-speaking Residents of Tyrol around an Italian-speaking university turned out to be insoluble. Koerber's years as prime minister at the beginning of the 20th century are sometimes seen as the “last chance of the Danube monarchy”, which, however, could not be used.

As finance minister, Koerber took a position at the Council of Ministers for Common Affairs on October 6, 1915, on the Austro-Polish solution , the possible annexation of Congress Poland to the monarchy. He said that Austria-Hungary was difficult to accept because of its national structure and constitutional institutions. Due to the course of the war, a possible annexation of Poland could not be rejected, but the character, determination and balance of the monarchy would suffer, and dualism would be put to a severe test. He considered giving the Polish part of the country so much autonomy to be questionable, because that would provoke the same endeavors among other peoples.

Compared to the Saxon ambassador on August 16, 1915, it had become even clearer when he said:

“That the population of Lviv , insofar as they are not Jewish, have almost always shown themselves to be Russophile! The same will probably also be the case, even more so, in Congress Poland ... If Congress Poland were to fall to Austria, this would only mean great concern for the monarchy! "

Koerber's grave at the Vienna Central Cemetery

At the Council of Ministers on January 7, 1916, Koerber also considered territorial affiliations after the conquest of Serbia difficult to enforce because of the national structure and the constitutional institutions of the monarchy.

"The war goal that we set ourselves at the beginning of the war was primarily to bring us to rest in the south of the monarchy and to secure our economic position there."

Now is the opportunity to end the untenable conditions that the Greater Serbian idea has caused. Therefore, the independent Serbia, as the "nursery of the Greater Serbian movement", must disappear from the map. It doesn't matter for the peace negotiations, because the resistance of the Entente, especially Russia, to leaving a smaller, dependent Serbia would be the same. The Sanjak Novi Pazar was to be brought back into the power of the monarchy because of the traffic with Saloniki , Montenegro was too poor and uncultivated, its continued existence if the monarchy had a good strategic border and the coast was of little concern. Koerber doubted whether a protectorate would bring peace to Albania , and he considered a division to be more appropriate. A partition of Poland would drive Russia towards it, Koerber agreed to Foreign Minister Burián .

literature

• Alfred Ableitinger: Ernest von Koerber and the constitutional problem in 1900. Austrian nationality and domestic politics between constitutionalism, parliamentarism and imposed universal suffrage. Böhlau, Vienna 1973, ISBN 3-205-08542-6 .
• Rudolf Gustav Ardelt: Koerber, Ernest von . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe. Volume 2, Munich 1976, pp. 424-426.
• Alexander Gerschenkron: An Economic Spurt that Failed. Four lectures in Austrian history. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1977, ISBN 0-691-04216-0 .
• Herwig Leitgeb: The Prime Minister Dr. Ernest v. Koerbers from 1900 to 1904 and October to December 1916 . Dissertation. University of Vienna, Vienna 1951.
• Lorenz:  Koerber, Ernest von (1850–1919), Prime Minister. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 4, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1969, p. 44 f. (Direct links on p. 44 , p. 45 ).
• Christian Matzner: Ernest von Koerber: last Prime Minister of Emperor Franz Joseph, companion of Joseph Schöffels . Pilum Literatur Verlag, Strasshof 2018, ISBN 978-3-902960-78-8 .

Web links

Commons : Ernest von Koerber  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Newspaper article about Ernest von Koerber in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Hans Jürgen Rieckenberg:  Koerber, Ernest von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 374 f. ( Digitized version ).
2. ↑ Dr. Ernest von Koerber †. In:  Badener Zeitung , March 8, 1919, p. 2 (online at ANNO ). .
3. ^ Eibe Hinrichs: Ernest von Koerbers' economic policy as an integration factor for the nationalities of the Habsburg Empire (1900-1904). Unprinted dissertation, Vienna 1998 passim .
4. ↑ Alexander Gerschenkron: An Economic Spurt that Failed. Four lectures in Austrian history. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1977, ISBN 0-691-04216-0 , p. 71.
   Roman Sandgruber : The 20th Century. (= History of Austria Volume 6) Pichler, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85431-315-2 , p. 13.
5. ↑ Miklós Komjáthy (Ed.): Protocols of the Joint Council of Ministers of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1914–1918). Budapest 1966, p. 285ff (wording).
6. ^ Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War (up to the February Revolution). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 183.
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Miklós Komjáthy (Ed.): Protocols of the Joint Council of Ministers of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1914–1918). Budapest 1966, p. 352ff (wording).

predecessor	Office	successor
Leon Ritter von Biliński	kuk Finance Minister Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina Feb. 7, 1915 - Oct. 28, 1915	István Baron Burián von Rajecz (interim)