Karl Ludwig von Bruck (politician)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Ludwig Freiherr von Bruck, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber , 1849
Signature Karl Ludwig von Bruck (politician) .PNG

Karl Ludwig Bruck , Knight of Bruck since 1844 , Baron von Bruck since 1849 (born October 8, 1798 in Elberfeld , Rhineland (now part of Wuppertal ), † April 23, 1860 in Vienna ) was a German businessman and later an Austrian minister.

Life

Bruck was born the son of a bookbinder . As a young man, like many supporters of the German national movement, he was enthusiastic about the Greek Revolution . He traveled to Greece to support the revolution, but soon settled in Trieste , Austria , and became a successful businessman . Among other things, he was one of the founders of Österreichischer Lloyd . Bruck was ennobled in 1844, mainly because of the positive impact society had on traffic and trade. He assumed his first state responsibility as leader of the negotiations on the customs structure in central Italy . From May 18 to November 28, 1848 he represented Trieste as a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly , where he belonged to the conservative Café Milani faction . From September to October of the same year he was also the Austrian authorized representative at the Provisional Central Authority in Frankfurt .

During the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I, Bruck was Minister of Commerce in the Schwarzenberg Ministry from 1848 to 1851 . In this function he reformed the postal and consular system, ordered the drafting of Austrian maritime and commercial law and created the maritime authority and the stock exchange in Trieste. His big project was the “Central European Customs Union ”, which was supposed to align not only the customs, but also the currency and tax systems of the German Customs Union and Austria. Above all, this project should promote the Greater German Solution . Until his resignation in 1851 he did not achieve his goal, but a year later he led the Austrian delegation to sign customs and trade agreements between Austria and Prussia.

Then Bruck was envoy to the Ottoman Empire for a short time . In 1855 the Kaiser appointed him Minister of Finance. In this function he played a decisive role in the creation of the Vienna Mint Treaty of January 24, 1857, on the introduction of club coins in Austria and German states. The economic expert promoted in particular the expansion of the railway network and founded the Austrian Creditanstalt for Trade and Industry as well as other chambers of commerce and courts. From 1859 onwards, he was primarily concerned with averting the economic crisis and the high national deficit that developed after the loss of the Lombardy territories by the Risorgimento .

Due to a suspicion of having personally enriched himself, which later turned out to be unfounded, Franz Joseph's Baron Karl Ludwig von Bruck was "in an ungracious manner" (although the emperor had given him his "completely unchanged imperial trust" in a personal audience the day before) had pronounced) and died by suicide at the age of 61 on the night of April 22nd to 23rd, 1860 in Vienna and was buried in the Evangelical Cemetery Matzleinsdorf (crypt 20). His older son of the same name, Karl Ludwig von Bruck (1830–1902), worked as a diplomat, his younger son Otto von Bruck (1832–1897) was a frigate captain and board member of the Austrian Lloyd , his daughter-in-law was the actress Marie Boßler .

literature

Web links

Commons : Karl Ludwig von Bruck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Eduard von Klezl Imperial and Royal Austrian Ambassador to Constantinople
1853–1855 		August von Koller
personal data
SURNAME Bruck, Karl Ludwig von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bruck, Karl Ludwig; Bruck, knight of; Bruck, Baron of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businessman and later Austrian minister
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld , Rhineland
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1860
Place of death Vienna