Hugo Breitner

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Hugo Breitner (born November 9, 1873 in Vienna , Austria ; † March 5, 1946 in Claremont , California ) was an Austrian social democratic financial politician.

Life

Christian social, anti-Semitic election poster on the topic of red financial policy, 1920
Dedication plaque of a community building erected in 1927/1928, 2., Wohlmutstraße 14-16, with reference to the housing tax and to the City Councilor for Finance Breitner
Monument to Hugo Breitner in the Hugo-Breitner-Hof in Vienna-Penzing, created in 1957 by Siegfried Charoux . Instead of 1933, 1932 is correct.

His father Moritz Breitner was a Jewish grain trader who immigrated from Budapest and who was also successful on the Vienna Stock Exchange . Hugo attended the commercial academy in Vienna from 1890 to 1893 and then became an employee of the Central European Länderbank , where he built up a section of the union . In 1901 he left Judaism. In 1910 he was granted power of attorney , in 1914 he became a deputy director. 1907–1911 he was Vice President of the Reich Association of Bank and Savings Bank Officials in Austria.

Promoted to director in 1917, he resigned from this union because, in his opinion, his managerial function was no longer compatible with membership. Towards the end of the First World War he toyed with the idea of ​​founding his own party, primarily for civil servants and employees, but in 1918 he joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) , to which he was very welcome due to his specialist knowledge.

Breitner therefore became a member of the Vienna City Council for the Social Democrats from 1918 to 1933 and played a decisive role in shaping "Red Vienna" during this time . In 1919 he took early retirement as bank director and was appointed by Mayor Jakob Reumann , the first social democratic head of the city, on May 4, 1919, as a city councilor to be the leading financial politician of the municipality of Vienna . Since June 1, 1920, he was in the new Reumann City Senate, the executive city councilor for finance, and since November 10, 1920, when Vienna became a separate federal state , also in the function of a regional councilor .

Breitner retained this function under Reumann's successor Karl Seitz in the city senates from Seitz I to Seitz III (until his resignation in autumn 1932). He managed to restore the city's creditworthiness, which had been impaired by the war, by regulating the foreign debt in a few years, even though this was at a time of great inflation in the kroon currency, which was in effect until 1925.

With the separation of Vienna from Lower Austria , which began in November 1920 , the municipality of Vienna , as the city always called itself until 1934, received financial sovereignty. It offered Breitner the opportunity to introduce a state tax system in 1923 that was mathematically extremely progressive, i.e. This means that the tax percentages rose sharply the larger the calculation base. The best known of these taxes was the housing tax , passed on February 1, 1923 , which laid the foundation for extensive social housing in Vienna. The inscription “Built with funds from the Viennese housing tax” can still be read on the “municipal housing” from that time. Breitner is also considered to be one of the creators of the Vienna Electric Light Rail, which opened in 1925 under municipal management .

Other "Breitner taxes" included a. a tax that had to be paid per job by those who had employees in their private household (“domestic servant tax”), a tax on luxury goods (e.g. sparkling wine) and on amusements such as balls (the still existing “amusement tax”).

With these Viennese state taxes, which were collected in addition to federal taxes, Breitner succeeded in just a few years in making the then enormous sum of one billion schillings available for investments of general benefit. Even during the global economic crisis , Vienna was almost debt-free.

The massive tax burden on their clientele made Breitner a target of the Christian Social Party , whose exponents described him as a tax addict. From 1929 onwards, the reaction of the federal government led by Christian Socialists was to continuously worsen the Viennese share in the income from federal taxes , as laid down in the Tax Sharing Act (commonly known as “Finanzausgleich”). This made drawing up the community budget increasingly difficult. Breitner refused, however, to replace missing income with loans to be taken out that would burden later generations; he cut voluntary social benefits in an emergency.

No other Social Democrat was attacked so violently and hatefully in the First Republic as Hugo Breitner. In a campaign speech in October 1930 on Heldenplatz in Vienna , the Heimwehr leader and Interior Minister Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg declared : I will give the Viennese a good recipe for the election campaign: They should fight the election battle under the sign of Breitner. Only when this Asian's head rolls in the sand will victory be ours.

On November 25, 1932, Breitner resigned as a financial councilor for health reasons, and in 1933 he also resigned from his council seat. Robert Danneberg , who had already played a major role in the creation of the housing tax, became his successor. Breitner himself took over the management of the Wiener Zentralsparkasse .

Breitner was arrested during the February fighting in 1934 and was released after 14 weeks, but had lost his management position at the Central Savings Bank for political reasons.

In the next few years he stayed temporarily in Florence before he was able to leave the country with his family on February 26, 1938, shortly before the German invasion , and reached the United States via Florence and Paris in 1939. There he held a teaching position at the College of Claremont (California) . In June 1938 his villa in Kritzendorf and the apartment at Weintraubengasse 5 in the 2nd district were "aryanized" .

In 1942 he became a member of the Austrian Labor Committee and an employee of Austrian Labor Information . After the end of World War II , he planned to return to Vienna and get involved in finance again, but died before that.

Common burial place for Tandler, Danneberg and Breitner in the urn grove of the Simmering fire hall

The urn with his ashes was transferred to Vienna and buried in a joint urn memorial for him and for Robert Danneberg and Julius Tandler in the urn grove of the Simmering fire hall in 1950 (Department ML, Group 1, No. 1A). This complex is one of the grave sites of the City of Vienna that are dedicated or taken into custody on account of honor.

In 1952, in honor of Breitner, in Vienna- Penzing (14th district) one of the largest newly built community buildings of the post-war period with over 1,200 apartments, Linzer Strasse 299–325, Hugo-Breitner-Hof was named. Here on June 22, 1957, Mayor Franz Jonas unveiled the Hugo Breitner monument, a bust of Siegfried Charoux . His resignation in 1933 is mentioned on the memorial; in fact, Breitner resigned in 1932.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hugo Breitner. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)
  2. ↑ Anna L. Staudacher: "... announces the departure from the Mosaic faith". 18,000 exits from Judaism in Vienna, 1868–1914: names - sources - dates. Peter Lang, Frankfurt / M. u. a. 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-55832-4 , p. 79.
  3. ^ Felix Czeike : Historical Lexicon Vienna. Volume 1: A – Da. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-218-00543-4 , p. 457.
  4. ^ The creators of the electric light rail , In: Arbeiter-Zeitung number 151 of June 3, 1925, page 8.
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Fritz, Gertraude Mikl-Horke: Rudolf Goldscheid. Financial sociology and ethical social science, Lit Verlag, Münster 2007, ISBN 978-3-7000-0521-6 , p. 79
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Fritz: "The head of the Asian Breitner". Politics and Economy in Red Vienna. Hugo Breitner. Life and work. Löcker Verlag, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-85409-308-X , pp. 13 and 313; and Hugo Breitner. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)
  7. ^ Wiener Stadtbibliothek (Ed.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Vienna City Library. 1856-1956 publications. Verlag für Jugend und Volk, Vienna 1956, p. 194.
  8. ^ Georg Graf: "Aryanization" and restitution of apartments in Vienna. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-56776-4 , p. 100.
  9. ↑ www.friedhoefewien.at - Graves dedicated to honor in the fire hall Simmering cemetery (PDF 2016), accessed on March 7, 2018
  10. ↑ Mayor Jonas unveiled Breitner monument - festive honor for the financial councilor in the First Republic

literature

  • Felix Czeike: Economic and social policy of the municipality of Vienna 1919 - 1934, I. and II. Part. Verlag für Jugend & Volk, Vienna 1958/59.
  • Wolfgang Fritz: "The head of the Asian Breitner". Politics and Economy in Red Vienna, Hugo Breitner - Life and Work. Löcker Verlag, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-85409-308-X .
  • Breitner Hugo. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 111.

Web links

Commons : Hugo Breitner  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Breitner, Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian financial politician (SDAP), member of the Federal Council
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 5, 1946
Place of death Claremont (California)