Phoenix scandal
The Phoenix scandal in 1936 was an Austrian insurance scandal that profoundly shook the Austro- fascist Schuschnigg regime, triggered a government reshuffle and contributed to the July Agreement , which made Austria extremely dependent on Nazi Germany . In retrospect, the Austrian Financial Market Authority described this scandal as the “absolute low point” in the history of the Austrian insurance industry.
course
The 1882 under the name Azienda founded Life Insurance - Company took over in 1889, the business and the name of 1860 by the Dresden Fire Insurance founded Austrian Phoenix. The life insurance company PHÖNIX , also known as Phönix-Leben , was an insurance provider that had even members of the imperial family among its customers.
During the First World War , the company achieved great growth, not least because its director, Wilhelm Berliner , had created the so-called war participant insurance. This was supposed to ensure the care of the bereaved of soldiers who died in the war.
Notwithstanding the collapse of the Danube monarchy , after 1918 the phoenix managed to overcome the first difficult post-war years by strengthening its position in the successor states. From 1925 the company, still managed by Wilhelm Berliner, was back on an expansion course. In the interwar period it grew into Austria's only transnational corporation and was most recently active in 23 countries.
Aggressive sales methods and a series of acquisitions made the Phoenix number 3 in its industry and, according to other sources, number 2 in Europe. Berliner cultivated excellent contacts with the Austrian government, with the Heimwehr , with the monarchist as well as with the social democratic movement. As it turned out later, he financed both Jewish and Nazi organizations with roughly equal amounts. Rumors of difficulties at Phoenix had been around for some time around the mid- 1930s , and the global economic crisis also had an impact on the company's cover pool . In addition, the collapse of Creditanstalt on May 11, 1931 troubled the company. There are extensive parallels between the collapse of the two companies in the way the company was run: Like Creditanstalt, Phönix-Versicherung also pursued a dangerous expansion strategy in the successor states after the collapse of the monarchy, thus overstretching its financial strength and engaging in daring speculative transactions, who had been veiled through bribery.
The company management managed to dispel these rumors again and again; apparently also by bribing influential journalists, on the one hand regularly in the form of advertisements - "hypertrophic design of the advertising apparatus" called the official news agency - and on the other hand in the form of discreetly presented envelopes. In addition, the management made it a priority to maintain a good relationship with the insurance supervisory authority and the political leaders. Among other things, the former Chancellor Carl Vaugoin acted as President of the Group's Board of Directors. In view of the thousand-mark barrier directed against the Austrian tourism industry , Berlin created its own department of the Phoenix to support domestic tourism.
When Wilhelm Berliner died on February 17, 1936 - "from the consequences of a negligently treated otitis media" - the news triggered a wave of regret at home and abroad for this highly esteemed insurance specialist. The funeral on February 20 was celebrated as a major social event, but without the participation of active members of the government.
case
But just a few weeks later, Phoenix insurance collapsed. Out of nowhere, huge holes in the balance sheets and security funds had burst.
The Phoenix had pursued a daring policy of dumping , in which the insured were offered contracts that could hardly be economical. Berliner's personality and his political relationships had covered up gross inadequacies in his conduct . The well-respected insurance expert deceived the supervisor by traveling personally to one of his more than thirty companies at home and abroad; Always in his briefcase the same securities that he presented once in Vienna and another time in Berlin or elsewhere in his insurance empire as supposed security.
Bribes to senior officials and the heads of Austrian and Czechoslovak insurance regulators may also help.
On February 24, 1936, Eberhard Reininghaus was appointed Berliner's successor . This insurance man, later (1945–1950) head of the Munich Reinsurance Company , subsequently recognized the full extent of the catastrophe after he had learned from the insurance fund on February 28, 1936 that no funds were available for wage payments. On February 29 Reininghaus received from the chief accountant Edward Hanny in a sealed envelope, the correct balance and turned the President of the National Bank and the Finance Minister a. Although the finance minister was only officially notified of the correct balance sheet at the end of February, the members of the Austrian federal government may have known about the situation at Phönix-Leben earlier.
In 1929 the deficit was 80 million schillings . Phoenix helped itself with belatedly submitted, incomplete, obscure, and ultimately falsified balance sheets. In 1936, when everything was discovered, the deficit had reached 250 million schillings - five percent of Austria's national income in 1936. No fewer than 330,000 Austrians were life insured with the Phoenix at that time.
The government realized that it had to act quickly. Politicians responded with a wave of new, even stricter legal regulations. By means of several federal laws of March 25, 1936, a “reform of the private insurance system” was carried out in Austria, which essentially resulted in a rescue company for the Phoenix insurance: The claims of the Phoenix insured were absorbed in a concerted action by the insurance industry, but ultimately had to But not only those insured by Phönix, but almost all insurance customers accept drastic reductions in benefits. Nevertheless, Phönix-Versicherung had to be declared bankrupt and 1,300 employees lost their jobs.
Former Finance Minister and then President of the National Bank Viktor Kienböck tried to calm the angry public on April 24, 1936. It has also been rumored in the result that Berlin the goodwill of the Austrian authorities by bribery should have won.
There were several suicides as a result . Section head Heinrich Ochsner of the insurance supervisory authority shot himself after being summoned for questioning on March 28 in the inundation area of the Danube . The journalist Ernst Klebinder later committed suicide in Abbazia with cyanide . An official report on the Phoenix scandal published on April 29, 1936 in the numerous larger daily newspapers (e.g. Wiener Zeitung , Reichspost ) also named a number of recipients of cash benefits. Whether this list was complete is a matter of dispute. The Brünner Arbeiter-Zeitung , the central organ of the exiled Social Democrats, which was unusually well-informed in this case and apparently had inside information , named Minister Josef Dobretsberger among the “takers”.
The American Time Magazine of May 11, 1936 rated the Phoenix scandal primarily as an instrument in Kurt Schuschnigg's power struggle against the Heimwehr leader Starhemberg, who was involved in the affair . When the government was reshuffled, he also had to vacate his post as Vice Chancellor. Some ministers also disappeared into oblivion, and the sudden death of former Chancellor Karl Buresch in September 1936 was also linked to the Phoenix scandal. Österreichische Versicherungs Aktien Gesellschaft ( ÖVAG ) was founded to reorganize the insurance company, which is in acute danger of bankruptcy . The entire insurance industry and its domestic customers had to make considerable sacrifices due to the special legislation. There were significant reductions in benefits that affected all insurance customers, not just those of the Phönix - the Austrian side made no provision for the Phönix customers abroad.
The political opponents of the authoritarian regime, which saw itself as a Christian corporate state , namely the socialists defeated in the February 1934 uprising , but also the political right (which tried to make anti-Semitic profit from the scandal ), took advantage of this situation.
The reputation of the Schuschnigg government was further undermined, which further boosted the illegal National Socialist movement in Austria. The scandal was seen as proof of the "depravity and corruptibility of the slack east marketers ". In the past, however, the NSDAP itself accepted payments from the Phoenix in Austria and the German Reich.
The massive tightening of the supervisory laws as a result of the Phoenix scandal hardly had any effect. On March 12, 1938 , Hitler's troops marched into Austria. The Austrian law was replaced with retroactive effect from March 1st by that of the German Reich, whose Insurance Supervision Act (VAG) was characterized by the strictest and strictest state supervision.
literature
- Isabella Ackerl : The Phönix-Scandal , in: Scientific Commission of the Theodor-Körner-Stiftungsfonds and the Leopold-Kunschak-Prize for the Research of Austrian History from 1927 to 1938 (Hg): The July Agreement of 1936 Prehistory, Background and Consequences. Protocol of the symposium in Vienna on June 10th and 11th 1976 , Oldenbourg-Verlag 1976 p 241ff, ISBN 3-486-44641-X
- Andrea Hodoschek: The Image of the Austrian Insurance Industry between 1918 and 1938 . In: Wolfgang Rohrbach (Ed.) Insurance history of Austria Volume III, Vienna, Holzhausen 1988
- Hans Urbanski: From the milieu of the insurance industry (First Republic) . In: Wolfgang Rohrbach (Ed.): Insurance history of Austria Volume III. Vienna, Holzhausen 1988
- Illegal Arbeiter-Zeitung (Brno) April to September 1936
- Kurt Bauer: Discrete handling . In: Die Presse (Spectrum), May 6, 2006 ( [1] ; PDF; 87 kB)
- Hans H. Lembke: Phoenix, Viennese and Berliners. The rise and fall of a European insurance group. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-10973-8 .
See also
Web links
- http://www.kurt-bauer-geschichte.at/
- Memoirs of Franz Dungl , accessed again on April 3, 2013
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the Phönix life insurance company in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Austrian Financial Market Authority ( Memento of the original from October 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : 125 Years of Insurance Supervision in Austria - A Brief Outline of a Long History ( Memento of the original from October 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Para. 14 no.1. Accessed on January 8, 2006
- ↑ Jewish weekly. The truth. XLVIII. Volume, Vienna, June 17, 1932, number 25, p. 5 ( Memento from December 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.3 MB), advertisement of the life insurance company "PHÖNIX" with balance sheet data, accessed on 3. April 2013
- ^ Walter Goldinger / Dieter A. Binder : History of the Republic of Austria 1918–1938 . Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna-Munich, 1992 ISBN 3-7028-0315-7 , pp. 252f.
- ^ Walter Goldinger & Dieter A. Binder: History of the Republic of Austria 1918–1938. Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna / Munich 1992, ISBN 3-7028-0315-7 , p. 253
