Henri Jaspar

Henri Jaspar

Henri Jaspar (born July 28, 1870 in Schaarbeek , † February 15, 1939 in Saint-Gilles / Sint-Gillis ) was a Belgian Catholic politician and Prime Minister.

Life

Jaspar came from an old Belgian patrician family . After studying law, he graduated as Doctor iuris .

From 1919 to 1936 he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, where he represented the interests of the Katholieke Partij of the Liège arrondissement .

After the end of the First World War , he was Minister of Economics in Léon Delacroix's cabinet from November 1918 to November 1920 . As such, he reorganized industry and trade with some success. In addition, he was briefly Minister of the Interior in 1920. From 1920 to 1924 he was Foreign Minister in the cabinets of Henri Carton de Wiart and Georges Theunis . In this office he succeeded in joining Belgium to the League of Nations and representation at the International Court of Justice in The Hague . He was then given the royal honorary title of "Minister of State". In addition, he played a key role in the creation of the Belgium- Luxembourg economic agreement of 1921. He was also a member of the Belgian delegation to negotiate the Dawes Plan in 1924, which regulated Germany's reparations payments after the First World War.

On May 20, 1926, he succeeded Prosper Poullet himself as Prime Minister of a coalition government made up of the Katholieke Partij , the Socialist Party and the Liberal Party.

During his term of office, which lasted until June 6, 1931, he was also temporarily interior minister and minister for public health (1926 to 1927), minister for the colonies (1927 to 1929 and 1930 to 1931) and again interior minister (1931).

During his term of office, the global economic crisis began , which also led to a serious economic and financial crisis in Belgium. Jaspar tried to counteract this crisis by devaluing money, creating new taxes, converting public debts, nationalizing the railways and financing public works. However, these efforts only revitalized the economy by Black Friday, October 25, 1929.

In the cabinet of Charles de Broqueville he was finance minister from October 22, 1932 to November 20, 1934 and foreign minister for a short time in 1934.

In 1939 he was asked to form a government, but this failed because the Socialist Party refused to join this government. Jaspar died thirty-six hours later.

In addition to his political duties, he was President of the Child Protection Association from 1924 to 1939.

His brother Jules Jaspar (1878–1963), eight years his junior, was active in the Resistance .

Honors

On the 25th anniversary of his death, the Belgian Post issued a special stamp in 1964 .

Web links

• Biography on the homepage of the Prime Minister of Belgium
• Biography in the Nieuwe Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Bewegungsing
• Short biography in rulers.org
• Cabinet Ministerial List 1926–1927
• List of ministers in the Cabinet 1927–1931
• “Help”, article in TIME magazine on July 26, 1926
• “Snappy Days”, article in TIME magazine on October 29, 1934
• “Pressure on Gold”, article in TIME magazine on November 26, 1934
• “Firm Hand”, article in TIME magazine of March 13, 1939
• Newspaper article about Henri Jaspar in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Oeuvre Nationale de l'Enfance (ONE) ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ special stamp