Citizens Ministry

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The Citizens' Ministry and the Ministry of Doctors were the unofficial, summarizing names used in the political discussion and later also in historiography for the four governments of the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary from December 30, 1867 to April 4, 1870 (resignation) and (until 1918 the Ministry ) April 12, 1870 (removal), beginning with the first ministry after the Austro-Hungarian settlement (which separated the domestic politics of the two halves of the empire) and the entry into force of the December constitution , the K. Auersperg ministry , followed by the largely personal ministries Taaffe I , Plener and Hasner . Most of the cabinet members came from the German Liberal Party . The mayor's ministry pursued a decidedly liberal policy, but failed in 1870 due to the strong contrasts between the nationalities: When the emperor rejected the Hasner ministry's proposal to dissolve uncooperative state parliaments, the cabinet resigned, and the mayor's ministry considered the end of history.

Designations

The term Citizens' Ministry refers to the fact that four of the nine government members of the K. Auersperg Ministry were commoners (without title of nobility) and another member (Plener) had only been ennobled eleven years earlier. The majority of the ministers were thus of bourgeois origin, a novelty in the Danube monarchy .

Doctorate Ministry refers to the fact that five of the nine members of the government had completed their studies with a doctorate and three others (Auersperg, Taaffe, Plener) had completed their law studies. Thus the proportion of academics among the ministers was enormously high, something that had not been a custom in imperial Austria until then.

Members

Prince Karl Wilhelm Philipp von Auersperg

On December 30, 1867, Emperor Franz Joseph I appointed the previous president of the manor house of the Reichsrat , Karl Fürst von Auersperg , as “President of my Council of Ministers of the kingdoms and countries represented in the Reichsrat”. After conflicts in the cabinet over the question of how many concessions should be made to the individual nationalities (ethnic groups) in the multi-ethnic state of Austria through elements of federalism , he resigned under protest on September 24, 1868. He was followed by Eduard Taaffe until January 15, 1870 , followed by Ignaz von Plener (until February 1, 1870) and Leopold Hasner Ritter von Artha until April 12, 1870.

The ministers in the "Citizens or Doctors Ministry" appointed by the Kaiser on December 30, 1867 were

[*] Taaffe, Potocki and Berger could not agree with the majority opinion of the cabinet on the procedure regarding federalism (see below) and therefore asked the emperor to be removed from their offices, which was also granted. The resignation of Prime Minister Taaffe did not result in the resignation of the entire government, since the cabinet did not depend on the confidence of parliament.

The foreign minister, the war minister and the joint finance minister were not members of this cabinet. See kuk joint ministries .

In later cabinets, public security was assigned to the Ministry of the Interior (since the military police were replaced by the civil kk security guard in 1869 ) and in 1896 the railway section of the Ministry of Commerce was elevated to the Ministry of Railways .

requirements

With the compromise of 1867, the previously unified empire of Austria was divided into two states, which under the emperor and king as heads of state of a real union could shape their domestic policy independently of one another. In Cisleithanien , the " kingdoms and countries represented in the Imperial Council", the so-called Citizens' Ministry was the first government after this upheaval.

While foreign policy, the army and navy as well as the financing of these areas were administered by joint kuk ministers (see kuk joint ministries ) with responsibility for all of Austria-Hungary, all other issues for Austria were the responsibility of the new cisleithan government (with currency, customs - and trade policy, company and patent registration and other matters came to voluntary agreements between both halves of the empire).

Like Transleithanien, Cisleithanien continued to be a multiethnic state . In Austria the German nationality formed the largest group, the Slavic nationalities (especially in Galicia , Bohemia and Moravia ) together made up the majority of citizens. However, this did not yet come into full effect, as universal suffrage for men was only introduced forty years later, in 1907.

politics

federalism

The central point of conflict was the relationship between Germans and other nationalities. While the centralists strived for a strong (German-dominated) central government, the non-German crown lands wanted a clearly federal order. When the state parliament of Bohemia was opened on August 22, 1868, the 81 Czech deputies did not appear, but instead demanded a regulation for the countries of the Bohemian crown similar to the one that had just come into force for the countries of the Hungarian crown, thus autonomy from the Viennese government. On October 10, 1868, this government declared a state of siege on Bohemia. The Czech state parliament members behaved in the same way in Moravia .

In Galicia , the Poles demanded complete autonomy (which they received for the most part a few years later, after which they supported the Viennese government in the Imperial Council); the Slovenes demanded that all areas populated by Slovenia ( Lower Styria , Southern Carinthia , Carniola and the coastal region ) be combined in one Kingdom of Slovenia. In 1869 there was an uproar against the Landwehr Law in Dalmatia. The Tyrolean state parliament, dominated by ultramontanes , rejected the new constitution because of its liberalism in church issues.

No consensus on how the Vienna government should behave was found in the Citizens' Ministry. Taaffe, Potocki and Berger (like Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust , Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister and the only holder of the title Reich Chancellor in Austria-Hungary) advocated a compromise with the nationalities. They therefore called for the Reichsrat to be re-elected with this in mind and then to adapt the constitution. The majority of the ministers (Hasner, Brestel, Giskra, Plener and Herbst) considered the last elected Reichsrat to be responsible for implementing constitutional changes. There were no major changes until the end of the monarchy in 1918.

Church politics

In the Austrian Empire, the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church was constitutionally anchored. The position of this church was reflected in the Concordat of 1855. The Citizens' Ministry sought to remove the primacy and to ensure the neutrality of the state in matters of faith. The Concordat itself was not immediately canceled (this did not happen until the summer of 1870), but the privileges of the Roman Catholic Church were resolved in three individual laws passed by the Imperial Council and promulgated by the Emperor on May 25, 1868 (see May Laws (Austria-Hungary) ) reduced:

  • Jurisdiction in matrimonial matters was transferred to the secular courts.
  • The state now assumed the highest level of management and supervision of teaching and education.
  • The denominations were formally equal (even if the usual unofficial priority of Roman Catholicism still exists today and in case of doubt the church in Austria always means this denomination).

Even if these disputes were less violent than the Kulturkampf in Prussia , there was considerable resistance to the measures: Pope Pius IX. declared the three laws null and void on June 22nd, but Austria stuck to the regulations.

Other

On other issues, a number of demands of the liberal upper middle class were implemented in cultural, economic and domestic politics. Finance Minister Rudolf Brestel succeeded in reducing the national deficit. The following were published in the Reichsgesetzblatt :

  • Conversion of the title of the state debt (Most of the state debt instruments were converted into uniform state debt certificates with an interest rate of 5% p. A.; 16% tax had to be paid on the interest.)
  • Law on Reconciliation Attempts Before Judicial Divorces (Those willing to divorce were released from the legal obligation to notify their pastor of their intention to divorce; if he had not attempted at reconciliation, the court was now obliged to do so.)
  • Law on the costs of regulating the Danube in Vienna (they were divided into thirds between the state , the crown land of Austria under the Enns and the city of Vienna )
  • Law on the organization of the Imperial Court (the highest court of the kingdoms and countries represented in the Imperial Council)
  • The legal norm known unofficially as the " Reichsvolksschulgesetz " ( Reich School Law )
  • Law on the kk Landwehr (the territorial defense of Austria)

Web links / sources

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pieter M. Judson : Exclusive revolutionaries. Liberal politics, social experience, and national identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848–1914 . The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1996, ISBN 0-472-10740-2 , pp. 135ff.
  2. ^ Official part. In:  Wiener Zeitung , (No. 1/1868), January 1, 1868, p. 1. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wrz.
  3. ↑ Law of May 25, 1868, with which ... jurisdiction in matrimonial matters of Catholics is transferred to the secular judicial authorities ... , RGBl. No. 47/1868
  4. ↑ Law of May 25, 1868, which enacts fundamental provisions on the relationship between the school and the church , RGBl. No. 48/1868
  5. ↑ Law of May 25, 1868, which regulates the interdenominational relationships of citizens in the relationships specified therein , RGBl. No. 49/1868
  6. ↑ RGBl. 66/1868
  7. ↑ RGBl. 3/1869
  8. ↑ RGBl. 20/1869
  9. ↑ RGBl. 44/1869
  10. ↑ RGBl. 62/1869
  11. ↑ RGBl. 68/1869