Rudolf Sieghart

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Rudolf Sieghart, portrait photograph taken in 1918 by Ferdinand Schmutzer

Rudolf Sieghart (born March 13, 1866 in Troppau , Austrian Silesia ; † August 4, 1934 in Lucerne ; Rudolf Singer until his conversion in 1895 ) was an Austrian lawyer, economist and banker.

Life

Civil servant career

Rudolf Sieghart, son of a rabbi, came to Vienna from his hometown Troppau in 1883, practically penniless , to study law there. He financed his studies as a private tutor, then from 1884 as an employee in the political and press office of the United Left and the then important German liberal party . From 1894 he worked in the kk finance ministry headed by Ernst von Plener , a leading representative of the German liberals . Among other things, Sieghart was involved in drawing up a cartel law.

His doctorate as Dr. jur. took place in 1892 and the habilitation in 1900. In that year he was in Lehmann's Vienna address book as J.Dr., Ministerial-Vice-Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, member of the State Examination Commission, Lieutenant in the reserve, writer at address 9. , Berggasse 22. ( Sigmund Freud lived diagonally across the street .)

Sieghart's superior Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk recommended him to the Imperial and Royal Council of Ministers Presidium, where Sieghart was active from December 1897 under a number of Prime Ministers, 1902–1910 as chairman of the Presidential Chancellery. During Ernest von Koerber's first ministerial presidency, 1900–1904, he worked out a memorandum on the language issue in Bohemia . Sieghart also advised Koerber on the morganatic marriage of Archduke heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand on July 1, 1900 . In 1904, at Koerber's suggestion, Sieghart was promoted to head of section , then as now the highest official rank in Austria.

Sieghart's special attention was given to media work in the interests of the government. About his work in preparation for the Prime Minister Gautsch proposed and by his successor Beck introduced electoral reform in 1906 that the 1907 universal and equal male suffrage brought, the Christian Social wrote Friedrich Funder decades later: No one dominated like Sieghart the keyboard of public opinion.

Sieghart had already made a phenomenal civil servant career at a young age and initially retained his excellent position among Koerber's successors. The highly intelligent man, about whom numerous compromising rumors circulated, was, however, considered an "uncomfortable personality" and made powerful enemies. These included, among others, the heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, who viewed him as corruption incarnate, and later also Emperor Karl I , who shared Franz Ferdinand's concerns about Sieghart's moral integrity. Christian socialists such as Aloys von Liechtenstein and Albert Geßmann , whom Sieghart had politically supported, were opposed to this position .

Bank manager

Sieghart was appointed governor of the Bodencreditanstalt by Emperor Franz Joseph I as successor to Theodor von Taussig in 1910 on the suggestion of Imperial and Royal Prime Minister Richard von Bienerth-Schmerling . Members of the dynasty, among others, had their wealth administered in this bank, which specialized in mortgage loans . Contemporary observers, such as FFG Kleinwächter , saw this transfer of Sieghart from the political to the economic sphere as a kind of degradation.

Rudolf Sieghart headed the Bodencreditanstalt, the most prestigious banking institute of the Danube Monarchy at the time , with the brief interruption brought about by Karl I from 1917 to 1919 from 1910 to 1929. However, he came into massive opposition to the Rothschild family at an early stage and, according to Alexander Spitzmüller's testimony, was already in 1910 classified by Albert von Rothschild as exaggeratedly ambitious and willing to take risks.

On February 26, 1912, Rudolf Sieghart, already a Privy Councilor (an honorary title awarded by the Emperor ), was appointed as a member of the manor of the Reichsrat for life as a member of the manor house by handwriting and made his swearing-in on March 9, 1912.

In 1913 Rudolf Sieghart was made an honorary citizen of the city of Steyr in Upper Austria . At that time, in addition to his bank function, he was President of the Austrian Arms Factory , which later became Steyr-Werke AG, which was supported by the bank . With the honor, the city thanked Sieghart for preventing the relocation of one of the largest arms factories in Europe.

Even under Koerber, Sieghart was considered a "gray eminence" with a strong influence on the press. In the First Republic he was politically controversial because of the Steyrermühl group , which he personally ruled , including the high-circulation Neue Wiener Tagblatt , and because of his support for the Heimwehr and the Christian Social Party .

Sieghart's policy of expansion during the 1920s led the mortgage bank, which was highly regarded during the imperial era, into a crisis and ultimately in October 1929 into the merger with the Creditanstalt , forced by Chancellor Johann Schober , which prevented a spectacular bankruptcy. (However, because of this, among other things, the Creditanstalt itself ran into major problems in 1931.)

Retirement

Grave of Rudolf Sieghart in the Dobling cemetery

During the last years of his life, Sieghart lived mainly in Paris . In Vienna he was in Lehmann's address book until 1933 as Univ. Priv. Doz. With the distinguished address 4. , Prinz-Eugen-Straße 36, registered, a few houses from the Vienna Palais der Rothschilds ( Palais Albert Rothschild , Palais Rothschild (Prinz-Eugen-Straße) ); he had lived here before as President of the Bodencreditanstalt. According to the Biographical Lexicon, the Federal Government of Dollfuss examined in 1933 whether Sieghart could use Sieghart to make reparation for his business there.

He was buried in the Döblinger Friedhof in Vienna. His wife Mathilde, who died in 1911 at the age of 39, and his daughter Marguerite, who died in 1973 at the age of 77, were also buried in the family grave laid out three years after his death in 1937.

Others

Heimito von Doderer designed the figure of the Chamber Councilor Levielle in his novel The Demons, which he wrote since 1929 and was published in 1956, supposedly based on Sieghart's model.

Works

  • History and statistics of the Zalenlotto in Austria. Based on archival sources. JCB Mohr, Freiburg 1898; Nabu Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-141-39227-8 .
  • The public games of chance. Manz, Vienna 1899.
  • Customs division and customs unit; the history of the Austro-Hungarian intermediate customs line. Depicted according to the files. Manz, Vienna 1915; LeMet Print, 2012, ISBN 978-5-87360-461-6 .
  • The last decades of a great power. People, peoples, problems of the Habsburg Empire. Ullstein, Berlin 1932.

literature

  • Karl Ausch: When the banks fell - on the sociology of political corruption . Vienna 1968.
  • Peter Eigner, Peter Melichar : The end of the Boden-Credit-Anstalt in 1929 and the role of Rudolf Sieghart . In: bankruptcy. Austrian journal for historical sciences. 19th vol. 3/2008, pp. 56-114.
  • Friedrich FG Kleinwächter : The happy president . Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna 1955.
  • Alexander Spitzmüller: "And also has a reason to love it". (Memoir) 1955.
  • Alfred Ableitinger: Rudolf Sieghart (1866–1934) and his work in the Presidium of the Council of Ministers. phil. Dissertation, Graz 1964.
  • Alfred Ableitinger: The Movement toward Parliamentary Government in Austria since 1900: Rudolf Sieghart's Memoir of June 28, 1903. In: Austrian History Yearbook. Volume 2; Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis / Saint Paul, January 1966, p. 111 ff.
  • E. Lebensaft, Ch. Mentschl, J. Mentschl:  Sieghart Rudolf. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 12, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2001-2005, ISBN 3-7001-3580-7 , p. 239.
  • Gerhard Strejcek: politician banker careerist. In: Wiener Zeitung. August 8, 2003 (also available on the web)
  • Josef Mentschl:  Sieghart, Rudolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 353 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Sieghart  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich Funder : From yesterday to today. From the Empire to the Republic. Herold Verlag, Vienna 1971, p. 333.
  2. ↑ Funder: From yesterday to today. 1971, p. 386.
  3. ↑ Stenographic Protocols. Mansion. 11th meeting of the XXI. Session on March 9, 1912, p. 172 f.
  4. ↑ Steyr pioneers website . A collection of materials on deserving men and women from and in Steyr
  5. ↑ Kai Luehrs-Kaiser (ed.): "Excentric insertions." Studies and essays on the work of Heimito von Doderer. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-11-015198-7 , p. 102.
personal data
SURNAME Sieghart, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Singer, Rudolf (until 1895)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian economist and banker
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Opava ( Moravia )
DATE OF DEATH 4th August 1934
Place of death Lucerne