Wilhelm Klastersky

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm Klastersky , until April 3, 1919 with the noble title Edler von Festenstamm (born July 6, 1880 in Vienna ; † December 24, 1961 there ), was a lawyer and cabinet director of the presidential chancellery of the Federal President of the Republic of Austria.

Life

Klastersky attended the Theresianum in Vienna and then studied law at the University of Vienna , where he received his doctorate in 1903. jur. received his doctorate. Then Klastersky entered the civil service. From 1904 to 1909 he worked at the Baden district administration near Vienna . From 1909 to 1918 he worked in the Imperial and Royal Ministry of Commerce .

In 1919 he was entrusted as Ministerialrat by Karl Seitz , the chairman of the National Assembly, who exercised the functions of head of state before the Federal Constitutional Act came into force on November 10, 1920, with building up the presidential chancellery of the republic. (The Federal Presidents of the First Republic had their official seat in the Federal Chancellery .) Under the Federal Presidents Michael Hainisch (1920–1928) and Wilhelm Miklas (1928–1938) he was deputy director of the Chancellery; In 1934 he was promoted to cabinet director. Klastersky also proved to be a loyal employee of Miklas in the unconstitutional situation of the “corporate state” from 1934 onwards. After working in the presidential office, he was chairman of the Dorotheum's board of trustees from 1936–1938 .

After the “Anschluss” on March 13, 1938, Klastersky was taken into “protective custody” by the National Socialists as a supporter of the corporate state. Dismissed again in 1939, he worked for Cardinal Theodor Innitzer's Archbishop's Ordinariate until 1945 .

After the end of the war , Klastersky was reactivated as a civil servant in 1945 and served until his retirement at the age of 73, in 1953, again as cabinet director of Federal Presidents Karl Renner (1945–1950) and Theodor Körner (1951–1957); Both were over 70 when they took office. He also served these two top social democratic politicians loyally and unobtrusively. From October 1946, his office was in the Leopoldine wing of the Hofburg , as Renner had decided to move the Federal President's official residence there.

In addition to his professional activity, Klastersky worked from 1920 in the Association for the History of the City of Vienna (board member, 1951–1961 president). In addition, he was President of the Notring of the Austrian Academic Associations and Vice President of the Vienna Bibliophile Society in 1954/1955.

His numerous awards include the Great Silver Medal of Honor of the Republic of Austria and his officer rank of the French Order of the Legion of Honor .

In 1971 the Klasterskygasse in Vienna- Favoriten was named after him.

criticism

In 1951, at the instigation of SPÖ Vice Chancellor Schärf , who later became Federal President himself , the young diplomat Bruno Kreisky was assigned to Körner as Deputy Cabinet Director and responsible for the political side of the administration. Decades later, he remembered that Baron Klastersky had developed an almost Habsburg ritual around the Federal President . ... Renner and Körner have objectively benefited from it, because it served their reputation .

Schärf was more critical of Klastersky's activity. In a political study, "Der Bundespräsident", which he gave to Renner and later Körner to read in 1947, he turned against the excessive emphasis on the ceremonial and against the spirit of the "apolitical" presidential chancellery, which is still often in the thoughts from Hainisch's time and Miklas live. There are no officials in the office who are emphatically socialist. The unique extension of the legal period of service for the head of the law firm by five years creates an example for all section heads who are ready for retirement.

Schärf was of the opinion that it would have been better not to build on the pre-war period in 1945, because Miklas 'law firm was not free from joint responsibility for Miklas' weak administration. The unrealistic ceremony hinders the Federal President in his constitutional tasks.

Honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bruno Kreisky : Between the Times. Memories from five decades , Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-88680-148-9 , p. 424
  2. ↑ Bruno Kreisky: In the stream of politics. The second part of the memoir , Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-218-00472-1 , p. 26
  3. ↑ Eric C. Kollman: Theodor Körner. Military and Politics , Publishing House for History and Politics, Vienna 1973, ISBN 3-7028-0054-9 , p. 361 f.
  4. ↑ AAS 17 (1925), n. 1, p. 37.
personal data
SURNAME Klastersky, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klastersky, Wilhelm Edler from Festenstamm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1961
Place of death Vienna