Wilhelm Miklas

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Wilhelm Miklas
The house where Wilhelm Miklas was born in Althangasse in Krems
Memorial plaque on the house where Wilhelm Miklas was born

Wilhelm Miklas (born October 15, 1872 in Krems an der Donau , Lower Austria , † March 20, 1956 in Vienna ) was an Austrian politician ( CS ). From 1928 to May 1934 he was Federal President of the Republic of Austria and then Federal President of the dictatorial state of Austria until March 13, 1938 .

Life

Wilhelm Miklas, son of a postal worker, studied history and geography at the University of Vienna . He was a member of the KÖStV Austria Wien , then in the CV , now in the ÖCV and today's MKV connection Waldmark Horn. From 1905 to 1922 he was the director of the Horn Gymnasium .

In 1907 his political career began as a member of the Christian Social Party in the Reichsrat . Re-elected in 1911, he was a member of the Provisional National Assembly for German Austria from October 1918 and was elected to the Constituent National Assembly for German Austria in February 1919 . Parliament elected him to its steering committee, the Council of State , which existed until March 1919 . In March 1919, Miklas became Undersecretary of State for Culture in the Renner II state government . He belonged to 20 November 1920, the two governments following Renner III and Mayr I to.

When parliament decided on November 12, 1918, the republic and the annexation to the German Reich, Miklas spoke out against this annexation.

From 1923 to 1928 Miklas was President of the National Council . He was elected as the successor to Michael Hainisch by the Federal Assembly on December 10, 1928 as Federal President of Austria and re-elected by the Federal Assembly on October 9, 1931, although the constitutional amendment of 1929 prescribed the popular election. With this amendment, the term of office of the Federal President was extended to six years.

In the crisis surrounding the so-called " self- elimination of parliament " in March 1933, Miklas failed to demand the necessary proposal from the Dollfuss I government to dissolve the National Council and to replace the government that was inactive in this regard with a constitutional one, which he did after Constitution would have been possible at any time. In a popular address (petition) handed over to him on September 20, 1933 by Karl Seitz , Karl Renner and other Social Democrats, Miklas was requested to convene the National Council again, according to statements from the submitters, but did not do so and sat Nothing else to counter the unconstitutional actions of the government. He also failed to request the government to make the necessary proposals for filling vacant judicial posts in the Constitutional Court , and was thus primarily responsible for paralyzing this supreme court.

Due to his passivity - he did not use all the constitutional rights to ensure a constitutional government - Miklas Engelbert Dollfuss made it possible to establish the Austro-Fascist corporate state , which left the position of Federal President untouched. Felix Czeike described Miklas' passivity as a failure in the state crisis , but also noted that he had faced the corporate state with increasing rejection .

In private notes discovered posthumously, Miklas expressed himself critical of the politics of Dollfuss and his successor Kurt Schuschnigg . In particular, he criticized the reintroduction of the death penalty there . While there was no public criticism of government policy, Miklas noted in his private diary:

“Is that still a constitutional state? After the destruction of the parliament, now also the destruction of the constitutional court. A Catholic conscience should endure that! "

In 1934 an attempt by Austrian National Socialists to arrest Miklas in the July coup failed . The offices of the Federal President were then in the Federal Chancellery , which was attacked by the putschists ; At the time of the putsch, however, Miklas was in Velden in Carinthia and could not, as planned, be neutralized by a group of the putschists .

In his second term of office, after Schuschnigg's resignation on the evening of March 11, 1938, under pressure from the Nazi regime, he appointed Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Federal Chancellor. Christian Socials interviewed by Miklas had refused to take over the office. The Federal Chancellery on Ballhausplatz, where the Federal President also held office, was surrounded by SS troops "to protect Miklas". When Seyß-Inquart submitted the connection law for signature, Miklas escaped signing because he resigned his official duties on March 13, 1938. His functions as head of state were thus transferred to the Federal Chancellor, who signed the law that came into force on the same day.

The question of why Miklas, who clearly recognized the breach of the constitution, did nothing against Dollfuss, Schuschnigg and Seyß-Inquart, was discussed in contemporary literature. The reason given is that Miklas feared for his large family and their maintenance and therefore did not dare to endanger his person and his function. This argument was used on March 11, 1938 by General Field Marshal Hermann Göring ; In a telephone conversation with the German military attaché in Vienna, Wolfgang Muff , he said, according to the transcript: "Well, with 14 children you might have to stay seated."

It is noteworthy that the later criticism of the Social Democrats concentrated largely on the acting politicians of Austrofascism and almost omitted Miklas' decisive omissions.

Miklas spent the time of the Second World War in his house, which still exists today, in Vienna 3rd, Hainburger Straße 15 (near today's Rochusgasse underground station ) and his summer house on Lake Wörthersee . He received his federal presidential pension and was not persecuted by the Nazi regime on Hitler's instructions - in contrast to other prominent exponents of the corporate state .

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After 1945, Miklas no longer held any political functions, although he was briefly under discussion again as a candidate for the office of Federal President, although he was reluctant to do so. In January 1948, Miklas was tried for the Wilhelmstrasse trial against Ernst von Weizsäcker et al. (Case 11) heard. The tribunal traveled to Vienna specifically for this purpose. After his death, he was buried on March 24, 1956 in the family grave in the Döblingen cemetery .

literature

  • Peter Malina:  Miklas, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 492 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Biographical data of Wilhelm Miklas . In: Niederösterreichische Landtagdirektion (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch des NÖ Landtag: 1861–1921. Lower Austria Landtag Directorate, St. Pölten, print: ISBN 3-85006-166-3 (as of January 1, 2005). Online version: PDF, 843 kB
  • Franz Schausberger: "We Lower Austrians are the heart and head of the Habsburg Monarchy." Wilhelm Miklas as the Lower Austrian state politician . In: Yearbook for regional studies of Lower Austria. New series, vol. 85, 2019, pp. 629–665

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Miklas  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Social-democratic daily newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung , Vienna, September 21, 1933, p. 3.
  2. ↑ Information on the private website Stadt-Wien.at
  3. ↑ Felix Czeike (Ed.): Miklas Wilhelm. In:  Historisches Lexikon Wien . Volume 4, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-218-00546-9 , p. 264 ( digitized version , entry in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna).
  4. ↑ Quoted from profil , Vienna, No. 46, November 13, 2006, p. 19.
  5. ↑ Hans Werner Scheidl: 1934: Death and Transfiguration in the Federal Chancellery. In: The press . July 18, 2014, accessed October 21, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Norbert Schausberger : The grip on Austria. The connection. Jugend und Volk Wien Munich, Vienna 1978, ISBN 3-7141-6532-0 , p. 290.
  7. ^ Ed. Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance : "Anschluss" 1938. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-215-06824-9 , p. 262.
  8. ^ Report in the social democratic Wiener Arbeiter-Zeitung of March 21, 1956, p. 2.
personal data
SURNAME Miklas, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician (CS), member of the state parliament and federal president
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Krems at the Donau
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1956
Place of death Vienna