Friedrich of Toggenburg

Friedrich Graf von Toggenburg (* July 12, 1866 in Bozen ; † March 8, 1958 there , count from 1892 to 1919 ) was governor of Tyrol and Austrian interior minister.

Friedrich Count of Toggenburg (1913)

Life

The Toggenburg coat of arms

Toggenburg's residence, the Toggenburg Palace in Bolzano

Sarnthein-Toggenburg family crypt in the Bolzano cemetery

Friedrich was a member of the noble family of Toggenburg in Ansitz Burg Gerst born, he was the eldest son of the governor of Tyrol and Lombardy-Venetia Georg Ritter von Toggenburg and his second wife Maria of Sarnthein (1833-1905). He graduated with distinction from the kk Staatsgymnasium in Bozen in 1884 and studied law at universities in Germany and abroad.

After his military service with the kuk Uhlans , Toggenburg entered the state service at the Lieutenancy in Innsbruck in 1890 . In 1892 he and his family were raised to the rank of count. While he was serving as district commissioner in Prague , he married Countess Leopoldine von Ledebur-Wicheln (1878–1953) in Tellnitz in 1897 . The couple had six daughters and two sons. Emperor Franz Joseph's “highest resolution” on July 9, 1892 (diploma in Vienna on September 10, 1892) gave him (and his siblings, as well as their mother Virginie, née Countess Sarnthein ) the counts in Austria as foreign without restriction . Back in Tyrol, from 1901 he was district captain of Borgo Valsugana and then of Trento . In 1909 he withdrew for health reasons, also to manage his extensive estates in South Tyrol.

From April 7, 1913 to July 1917, Toggenburg served as governor of Tyrol and Vorarlberg . During the First World War , especially after Italy entered the war in May 1915, it was not the governor but the head of the national defense command Viktor Dankl who was the most powerful man in the country. The civil administration was largely disempowered. On October 21, 1916, he was sitting with Prime Minister Karl Stürgkh in the restaurant of the Meissl & Schadn Hotel in Vienna when Friedrich Adler was shot.

From June 24, 1917 to July 11, 1918, Toggenburg was Minister of the Interior in the Seidler government . It was hoped that the highly conservative Toggenburg would appeal to the Czechs as Franz Thun's nephew . On behalf of Emperor Charles I, he worked on drafts for national autonomy, but only within the framework of existing crown lands . In 1918, he was the only government representative to publicly criticize the severe attacks by the army on its own civilian population at the beginning of the war.

At the end of the war, Toggenburg lived in Bolzano again. After the end of the monarchy in Austria-Hungary , the parliament of the Republic of German-Austria decided on April 3, 1919, to abolish the nobility. As a result of this nobility annulment law , the Austrian citizens of the Toggenburg family also lost the right to use their titles.

After South Tyrol was ceded to Italy in the Treaty of Saint-Germain , Toggenburg was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament in 1921 as a member of the German Association . As a former minister of the interior of the war opponent, he was violently attacked by the fascists , although he himself showed sympathy for fascism as a form of government, as he openly admitted in an interview with the Corriere della Sera on May 11, 1921 - just a few weeks after the Bolzano Sunday . "If I were Italian, I would probably be a fascist"). In 1926 the German Association, like all other parties, was dissolved by Benito Mussolini . Toggenburg devoted himself to fruit growing and worked as president of the Bozener Sparkasse until he was replaced by a fascist commissioner. With the option in South Tyrol , he spoke out in favor of his Italian citizenship, so he was not ready to leave Bolzano and emigrate to the German Reich.

Friedrich Graf von Toggenburg and his parents, as well as his wife Leopoldine (née Countess von Ledebur-Wicheln ), are buried in the Countess Sarnthein-Toggenburg family crypt in the Bolzano cemetery .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Josef Braunwalder: Friedrich Count Toggenburg. Wattwil 1996, p. 105ff. ( Digitized version ).
   Franz Hieronymus Riedl: Count Friedrich Toggenburg (1866–1956). In: Der Schlern , Volume 40, 1966, p. 413.
2. ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Adelslexikon Volume XIV, Volume 131 of the complete series, Limburg an der Lahn 2003, p. 476
3. ^ Franz Hieronymus Riedl: Friedrich Graf Toggenburg (1866-1956). P. 413ff.
   Theodor Brückler: heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand as monument curator. The "art files" of the military chancellery in the Austrian State Archives (war archive). Böhlau, Vienna 2009. ISBN 978-3-205-78306-0 , p. 601.
4. ↑ Michael Forcher : Tyrol and the First World War. Haymon, Innsbruck 2014. ISBN 978-3-85218-902-4 , online .
5. ↑ Lothar Höbelt : “Standing or Falling?” Austrian Politics in the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2015, ISBN 978-3-205-79650-3 , p. 184.
6. ↑ Lothar Höbelt: “Standing or Falling?” Austrian Politics in the First World War. P. 226.
7. ^ Verena Moritz , Hannes Leidinger : The Republic of Austria 1918/2008. Overview, interim balance sheet, reassessment. Deuticke, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-552-06087-6 , p. 43.
8. ↑ Günther Pallaver , Hannes Obermair (Ed.): Studying South Tyrol to understand fascism. A comparison of cultures of remembrance of the 20th century - Culture della memoria del Novecento a confronto. (= Booklets on the history of the city ​​of Bolzano 7) Stadtgemeinde Bozen, Bozen 2014, ISBN 978-88-907060-9-7 , pp. 55–63, here: pp. 56f.
9. ^ Franz Widmann : Things were not going well with South Tyrol. From resignation to assertion. Records of the political change. Edition Raetia, Bozen 1998. ISBN 88-7283-117-2 , p. 28.
   Rolf Steininger (Ed.): The State Treaty. Austria in the shadow of the German question and the Cold War 1938–1955. Studien Verlag, Innsbruck / Vienna / Bozen 2005, ISBN 3-7065-4017-7 , p. 68.
10. ^ Report in the Innsbrucker Nachrichten . March 15, 1888.