Walther Kastner

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Walther Kastner (born May 11, 1902 in Gmunden , Upper Austria ; † March 31, 1994 in Vienna ) was an Austrian lawyer, manager, art collector and patron.

Life

On his father's side, Kastner came from Oberneukirchen , where the family ran an inn with a gingerbread and wax-making shop. The father, Dr. Hanns Kastner, was councilor of the financial administration. The son grew up in Linz and was, among other things, active in the migratory bird movement. He attended high school in Linz together with Ernst Kaltenbrunner . The later mayor Ernst Koref was one of his teachers. After dropping out of his studies in art history, German and psychology, he worked at the bank for Upper Austria and Salzburg in Bad Ischl. After his release in 1926, he studied law in Innsbruck for less than two years and received his doctorate on November 5, 1927. His friends at the time included the physicist Hans Thirring , the chemist Heinz Holter and the poet Josef Weinheber . From 1930 Kastner worked in the Austrian Financial Procuratorate. In 1935 he moved to the Ministry of Finance as an examination commissioner.

After the annexation of Austria , Kastner was appointed to the Austrian Control Bank for Industry and Trade by Arthur Seyß-Inquart , whom he said he knew from "the system time ", which was used for the Aryanization of the Austrian economy. In 1939 he became the leading director of this central institution for the expropriation of Jewish businesses, which enabled him to protect them from Reich-German access. He rejected a particularly early issue of the NSDAP from the illegal period and on September 12, 1940 submitted an application for admission to the NSDAP in which he himself stated that he had worked for the illegal NSDAP before 1938: “During the system time I have always known my national sentiments and attitudes and have supported the NSDAP with donations and by keeping illegal propaganda documents. ”When the Kontrollbank was wound up in 1942, because it had done its function of“ de-Judging ”the Austrian economy, Kastner moved to the board of directors of Semperit AG . After the chairman of the board, Franz Messner , was murdered in Mauthausen , Walther Kastner succeeded him and remained chairman of the board until the end of the war. Kastner stated that he had not personally enriched himself in his function as a business airer; only a carpet that he bought from his boss in the financial procuratorate Rudolf Löw in 1938 is mentioned in the autobiography. From Kastner's point of view, this was a support for Löw, from today's legal perspective, probably a forced sale.

Kastner claims to have made it easier for many Jewish fellow citizens to leave the country, as received letters of thanks confirm; It is also known that Kastner had lived in an apartment in Vienna IX, which had previously belonged to a Jewish couple who had fled in 1939, since 1941 .

From autumn 1945 Kastner had to do penal labor as an incriminated person and was deployed as an unskilled worker in an art rescue team. He did not see this as “unjust, because what a terrible injustice had been inflicted on those who were innocently persecuted by the Nazi system”. Peter Krauland personally ensures that Kastner was allowed to work as a personal advisor for Krauland from 1946, despite his Nazi activities. Kastner was responsible for the restitution of large commercial enterprises, which he had "de-Jewised" as head of the control bank. Two war crimes proceedings against Walther Kastner were discontinued following direct intervention by Peter Krauland.

Kastner had worked as a commercial lawyer since 1946 and was involved in restitution cases that he had previously known from the “Aryanization” side, for example he represented the Rothschild family , Karl Kahane Montana AG or Bunzl & Biach (1947). Hugo Bunzl appointed him to the company's supervisory board in 1957, where Kastner's second wife was chief secretary and later a personnel officer.

Since Reinhard Kamitz's term in office , Kastner has advised all subsequent finance ministers. He was offered the post of finance minister several times. From 1964 he also worked as a professor of commercial law at the University of Vienna . Numerous laws of this time bear the signature of the then leading Austrian corporate lawyer . Walther Kastner is the author of the 5th Restitution Act . Kastner became an honorary member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences . On his 80th birthday, Kastner's memoirs: My life - no dream were published by Orac-Verlag in Vienna . From the life of an Austrian lawyer .

In 1982 his previously published essays were published in an anthology.

Kastner received numerous Austrian medals and awards and in 1958 the Great Cross of Merit of the Republic of Germany.

Since the 1930s he has been collecting works by Alfred Kubin , with whom he corresponded, as well as works by his lifelong friend Hans Fronius . After losing almost everything to looting in 1945, he built up a systematic art collection from 1949, which he donated to the Upper Austrian State Museum in Linz in 1975 and which he continued to expand through donations until his death. Today it comprises around 1,600 sculptures, paintings and graphics, coins and works of arts and crafts from the Middle Ages to the modern age. The focus is on the art of the Middle Ages, the old masters and painting from the 19th and early 20th centuries, including works by Jacob van Ruisdael , Josef Danhauser , Franz Eybl , Franz Steinfeld , Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller , Johann Baptist Reiter , August Riedel , Leopold Kupelwieser , Joseph Nigg , Rudolf von Alt , Emil Jakob Schindler , Olga Wisinger-Florian , Theodor von Hörmann , Carl Moll , Marie Egner , Anton Romako , Maximilian Kurzweil , Gustav Klimt , Richard Gerstl , Egon Schiele , Anton Faistauer and Hans Fronius . The holdings were examined by the museum's provenance research. The results led to the restitution of a painting by Anton Romako (from the Oskar Reichel collection), which Kastner had acquired from Rudolf Leopold and which remained in the museum as a loan from the owner.

Kastner was buried at the Grinzinger Friedhof (group 21, row 9, number 24). The Walther Kastner Prize , which was the most important award in the field of banking and corporate law, was named after him. The prize was awarded by the Association of Austrian Banks and Bankers for outstanding scientific work that is suitable for promoting the Austrian banking system - in particular in the field of company law, tax law and economics.

Since 2013, this prize has not been called the Walther Kastner Prize, but is now known as the Banking Association Prize.

Bibliography

  • Walther Kastner: Outline of Austrian company law. Vienna 1986, ( 5 1990).
  • Business Practice and Law - Festschrift for Walther Kastner. Vienna 1972.
  • Benno Ulm : Art Collection Walther Kastner. Catalog Schlossmuseum Linz, Linz 1975.
  • Lothar Schultes : The Kastner Collection . Volume 1: Middle Ages and Baroque. Linz 1992.
  • Lothar Schultes: The Kastner Collection . Volume 2: The Art of the 19th Century. Linz no year
  • Bernhard Prokisch : The Kastner Collection . Part 4: Coins. Linz 1997.
  • Johannes Wieninger, Elisabeth Schmuttermeier, Lothar Schultes: The Kastner Collection . Volume 5: East Asian Art and Jewelry. Linz 1999.
  • Lothar Schultes: The Kastner donation . Part 1: Middle Ages and Baroque. Linz 2010 (with biography).
  • Lothar Schultes: The Kastner donation . Part 2: From Biedermeier to Expressionism. Linz 2010.
  • Manuel Heinl, Birgit Kirchmayr: Provenance research Upper Austrian state museums. Holdings of the Kastner collection. First interim report. Linz 2010.

Honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gregor Derntl, Birgit Kirchmayr: Provenance Research Upper Austrian State Museum: Holdings of the Walther Kastner collection. Second interim report. March 12, 2014. Upper Austrian regional museums , 2014, report available online on the website of the regional museum.
  2. ↑ Honors . In: wu.ac.at . Query 7 March 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Kastner, Walther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian lawyer, manager, art lover and patron
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Gmunden
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 1994
Place of death Vienna