Otto Ender

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Otto Ender in 1929

Otto Ender (born December 24, 1875 in Altach , † June 25, 1960 in Bregenz ) was an Austrian politician ( CS ). He was Governor of Vorarlberg and from 1930 to 1931 Austrian Chancellor .

Life

Otto Ender studied law in Innsbruck , Freiburg im Breisgau , Prague and Vienna after attending the Stella Matutina Jesuit college in Feldkirch , which is known far beyond the borders of Vorarlberg and which his brothers also attended . From 1896 he was a member of the AV Austria Innsbruck , then in the CV , today in the ÖCV .

After his doctorate in Innsbruck in 1901, a court year in Feldkirch and his internship there and in Vienna - he also attended courses at the Export Academy in Vienna (which later became the University of World Trade and Vienna University of Economics and Business ) - he was able to practice as a lawyer in 1908 Establish Bregenz . In the same year he married Maria Rusch, nine years his junior, a Swiss woman from nearby Appenzell . Together they had seven children, four sons and three daughters, born between 1909 and 1918.

Otto Ender made a steep career - although his candidacy for the state parliament failed in 1912 - first he was director of Vorarlberger Landeshypothekenbank in 1913 , from 1915 to 1919 he was its chief director; During the First World War, in 1916 he also took over the management of the Vorarlberg branch of the War Grain Transport Authority and finally, in November 1918, he succeeded Adolf Rhomberg as governor of Vorarlberg. Initially, he advocated the connection of Vorarlberg to Switzerland , but after the failure of this project he was a representative of an expanded federalism . He was also a member of the Federal Council (1920 to 1934) and a member of the international Rhine Regulation Commission (1919 to 1934). Despite the prohibition of censorship , he prevented the film Battleship Potemkin from being shown in Vorarlberg in 1926 . Ender was already under discussion as Federal Chancellor in 1929, and in December 1930 he actually became Federal Chancellor of the Republic - as the only Vorarlberger to date. However, his governing coalition broke up after just a few months due to the collapse of Creditanstalt , Austria's largest bank at the time. The end of his chancellorship in June 1931 is closely related to the first two Credit-Anstalt laws, with which the republic assumed liability for various liabilities. At that time, Ender also demanded certain special powers from the National Council , which were intended to enable him to rule with authority, but were not granted. After his resignation, he served as Governor of Vorarlberg from July 14, 1931 to July 24, 1934.

Although Ender condemned the liberal conception of the state and the capitalist conception of the economy, since in his view they were “alien” to Christianity, but in 1930 he also considered a class structure of society to be utopian. His commitment to Christian values ​​found its expression, among other things, in a protective and defensive attitude, which generally referred to foreign things, what came from "outside", to the capitalist economy as well as to "the Jews ". In a campaign speech in 1928 - following anti-Semitic stereotypes - Ender was able to praise Jewish merchants and bankers living in Feldkirch and Bregenz, on the one hand, and to warn in general against "the Jew" who "today controls the finances in almost all European countries" and strives to "To take control of parliament and even control of the government."

Ender was considered a democrat within the Christian Social Party, but in a responsible position he was instrumental in the destruction of democracy and, as he himself said, involved in a breach of the constitution. The people, whose lawyer Otto Ender always saw himself as, was in his opinion not ripe for democracy and obviously had to be protected from themselves, from their own polyphony and their contradicting interests. The defense and protection motive also plays a role here; it runs like a red thread through Ender's thinking. The experience that he made as Federal Chancellor that involved and controversial economic reorganizations could not be carried out successfully with the existing parliamentary system probably contributed to Otto Ender's appointment to the cabinet of the in the summer of 1933 with the task of drafting an estates constitution Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss entered. In March 1931, Ender had brought Dollfuss into his cabinet as the successor to the previous Minister of Agriculture, Andreas Thaler . Dollfuss remained in this position even under Ender's successor Karl Buresch , became Federal Chancellor himself in May 1932 and in September 1933 appointed Ender as Federal Minister in the Federal Chancellery -  without a portfolio  - in his cabinet. Ender was given the task of drafting a new constitution . He also remained governor and commuted regularly between Bregenz and Vienna. As can be seen in the edition of the minutes of the Ministerial Council of the Dollfuss cabinet, he played a leading role in drafting the constitution of May 1, 1934, the so-called “May constitution ”. This finally became - after the suppression of the social democratic February uprising in 1934 - the constitution of the Austro-Fascist corporate state , which also appeared in an edition commented on by Ender. He was unable to live up to his important reputation as an important representative of the democratic wing within the Christian Social Party. He was not very successful with his objections and the word “ republic ” was deleted.

From 1934 to 1938 Ender was President of the Court of Auditors . The Nazis forced after the " Anschluss " his resignation and besieged him with Gauverbot for Gau Tirol Vorarlberg ; Ender had to live in Vienna until 1945. After the Second World War , Otto Ender is said to have been  offered the position of chancellor again - by French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault - but rejected it. He did not take any political office at all, rather he organized the takeover of the Vorarlberger Landesmuseum (today the Vorarlberg Museum ) by the state - up until now the Landesmuseumsverein had been the owner and sponsor - and pursued various transport-political interests, such as making the Rhine navigable to Lake Constance , in order to connect Vorarlberg to Rhine shipping (in 1947 he became president of the Austrian Rhine Shipping Association ) - a goal that could not be achieved.

In 1960, Ender died at the age of 84, just over a year after his wife.

literature

  • Hannes Huebmer: Dr. Otto Ender. Vorarlberger Verlagsanstalt, Dornbirn 1957.
  • Gerhard Wanner : Otto Ender. In: Friedrich Weissensteiner / Erika Weinzierl (eds.): The Austrian Federal Chancellors. Leben und Werk, Vienna 1983, pp. 160–172.
  • Peter Melichar : A case for micro history ? Otto Ender's desk work. In: Ewald Hiebl and Ernst Langthaler (eds.): Looking for the big in the small. Micro history in theory and practice. (=  Yearbook for the History of Rural Areas 2012. ), Innsbruck 2012, pp. 185–205.
  • Peter Melichar: A lawyer as a mediator between the state and the market. Otto Ender, a case for economic history ? In: Austrian Journal of History 2015/1, pp. 128–153.
  • Peter Melichar: Otto Ender and the Jews - a case for anti-Semitism research? In: Gertrude Enderle-Burcel / Ilse Reiter-Zatloukal (eds.), Antisemitism in Austria 1933–1938 , Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2018, pp. 1061–1082.
  • Peter Melichar: Otto Ender 1875–1960. Governor, Chancellor, Minister. Investigations into the inner workings of a politician (=  vorarlberg museum Schriften 39 ), Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2018.
  • Peter Melichar: What do things tell? About the largely forgotten Governor and Chancellor Otto Ender. In: Austria in History and Literature, 2019/2, pp. 175–197.

exhibition

  • Otto Ender 1875-1960. Governor, Chancellor and Putschist? Exhibition in the vorarlberg museum : October 6 to November 18, 2018

With texts by Otto Ender, portraits by Sergius Pauser , Alois Mennel , Leopold Fetz , Bartle Kleber and portrait heads by Franz Plunder and Emil Gehrer .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Melichar : A lawyer as a mediator between the state and the market. Otto Ender, a case for economic history? In: Austrian Journal of History 2015/1, pp. 128–153, here 131.
  2. ^ Rudolf Neck , Adam Wandruszka (ed.): Protocols of the Council of Ministers of the First Republic. Cabinet Dr. Engelbert Dollfuss. Department VIII, Vol. 4–6, Vienna 1984–1985.
  3. ↑ Otto Ender: The new Austrian constitution. Introduced and explained by Federal Minister Dr. O. Ender (=  The New State, Vol. 1), 3rd edition, Vienna / Leipzig 1934.
personal data
SURNAME Ender, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician (CS), member of the Federal Council
DATE OF BIRTH December 24, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Altach , Vorarlberg
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1960
Place of death Bregenz , Vorarlberg