Otto Oberhammer

Otto Oberhammer (born September 25, 1934 in Innsbruck ) is an Austrian administrative lawyer.

Life

The Tyrolean Oberhammer made a career in the Vienna Ministry of Justice under Justice Minister Christian Broda . In view of the growing contradictions between the authoritarian General Director of the ORF Gerd Bacher and the equally power-conscious Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky , the latter initiated a reform of the ORF reform that was intended to curtail the competencies of the General Director. As a result of this reform, the ministerial lawyer Oberhammer, who is considered to be close to the SPÖ, became general director of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) in 1974 , and Wolf in der Maur became the new radio director . Oberhammer was considered a competent civil servant, but not sufficiently familiar with the medium. In the general manager election in 1978, therefore, media professional Helmut Zilk became Kreisky's candidate, but due to the majority-building influence of the ORF works councils, he was defeated by Gerd Bacher, who was running again. Otto Oberhammer was then head of the presidential section in the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice until the end of 1999 . In this role, he pushed ahead with the modernization of internal court operations by using IT at an early stage . For example, he was significantly involved in the digitization of the land register in Austria .

When at the end of 1990 another term of office of the independent Justice Minister Egmont Foregger failed due to the veto of the SPÖ, Oberhammer was under discussion as his (also non-party) successor. Due to reservations in parts of the ÖVP, Nikolaus Michalek was eventually preferred to him.

Awards

• 1985: Great Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria
• 1993: Great Silver Decoration with the Star for Services to the Republic of Austria
• Decoration of honor of the state of Tyrol
• Grand Cross of the Danebrog Order

literature

• Klaus Hoffmann, Georg Weissmann (ed.): Ambience of a legal life. Festschrift Otto Oberhammer on the occasion of his 65th birthday , Manz-Verlag Vienna 1999

Web links

• Entry on Otto Oberhammer in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
• Archive recordings with and about Otto Oberhammer in the online archive of the Austrian Mediathek (radio reports)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ So gossiped . In: Der Spiegel . No. 52 , 1990 ( online - 24 December 1990 ).
2. ↑ ^{a b} List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)