Franz Schmeykal

Franz Schmeykal

Franz Schmeykal (born December 3, 1826 in Bohemian-Leipa , † April 5, 1894 in Prague ) was a German-Bohemian politician in Austria-Hungary.

Life

After graduating from high school in Bohemian-Leipa in northern Bohemia , Schmeykal studied philosophy and law at the German University of Prague from 1843, and was awarded a Dr. iur. PhD and joined his father's law firm as a lawyer. After the first elections of the constitutional era in 1861, he was elected assessor of the state committee, and in 1862 he returned to Prague as state lawyer. From November 1862 until his death in 1894 he was chairman of the German Casino Association (see: Deutsches Haus (Prague) ) and was the leading politician of the German liberals in the Bohemian state parliament from 1861.

In this function Schmeykal succeeded in bridging the existing German-Bohemian parliamentary groups at Reichsrat level in the Bohemian state parliament and in maintaining a unified German-Bohemian parliamentary group . From 1872 to 1883 he was deputy to the Oberstlandmarschall von Bohemia, member of the city court, from 1864 to 1871 city councilor in Prague and promoter of numerous German associations. Schmeykal, who never belonged to the Imperial Council (Austria) , was thus the Prague governor of rival imperial politicians such as Eduard Herbst and Ernst von Plener . He integrated the latently oppositional left groups on the left wing. He also pursued a policy of “repressive tolerance” towards the early (still non-attached) German Nationals ; because of their explosive political effect, he reacted against anti-Semitism , which could deprive the Prague Germans of an essential support.

Schmeykal supported - against initial reservations - the German boycott of the Bohemian Landtag from December 1886. He considered the efforts to achieve the Austro-Czech compromise to be premature; but he insisted on the resulting provisions of the “Vienna punctuations” of January 1890, even when they turned out to be politically impracticable to force the Eduard Taaffe government to take sides with the Germans. As a calm pole in changing constellations, Schmeykal was the most important Bohemian state politician in the German liberal party.

From 1880 he was the spokesman for the constitutional party in Vienna, from 1883 he was an advocate for the division of Bohemia into two parts, and in 1886 he left the state parliament with other German-Bohemian representatives.

Honors

• Order of the Iron Crown (Austria) II. Cl.
• Monument in the city park of Bohemian Leipa
• Honorary citizen of 24 German-Bohemian cities
• Honorary member of the Association for the History of Germans in Bohemia (1887)

literature

• Ferdinand Seibt , Hans Lemberg , Helmut Slapnicka: Biographical lexicon on the history of the Bohemian countries. Published on behalf of the Collegium Carolinum (Institute) , Vol. III, R Oldenbourg Verlag Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-55973-7 , p. 675
• G. Haubner: The influence of the German Bohemians on the liberal party in Austria; Diss. Vienna 1966
• Franz Hantschel : Local history of the political district of Bohemian-Leipa, 1911
• Hey Slapnicka:  Schmeykal Franz. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 10, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-7001-2186-5 , p. 236 f. (Direct links on p. 236 , p. 237 ).
• Lothar Höbelt :  Schmeykal, Franz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 136 ( digitized version ).
• Josef Bendel .:  Schmeykal, Franz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 54, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1908, pp. 72-76.
• Alfred Klaar: Franz Schmeykal - a memorial . Prague 1894.
• Prager Tagblatt April 7th and 8th, 1894
• Neue Freie Presse, Wiener Zeitung, Narodni listy April 6th and 7th, 1894

Web links

• Meyers