Anton von Schmerling
Anton Ritter von Schmerling ( born August 23, 1805 in Vienna, † May 23, 1893 ibid ) was an Austrian politician and lawyer.
Family
Anton Schmerling came from an immigrant from the Duchy of Cleves to Austria family whose members in 1707 by Emperor Joseph I as an imperial knights and nobles of Schmerling were raised to the peerage. Since 1835, he was with the painter Pauline Baroness von Koudelka ( 1806-1840 ) married, with whom he had two daughters. His brother Joseph (1806-1884) was kk Feldzeugmeister, 1860-1862 Deputy Minister of War, and had in 1868 a significant part in the structure and organization of the Austrian kk Landwehr as a counterpart to ku Honvéd, the Hungarian National Guard, the Hungarians on the basis of a balance between was granted in 1867 by Emperor Franz Joseph I as territorial force in addition to the common army. His brother Rainer (1810-1892) was a military physician, personal physician of Field Marshal Archduke Albrecht and president of the Vienna Medical College of Doctors. His youngest brother Maurice (1822-1882) was also a lawyer and President of the Senate established in 1867 kk Administrative Court. The k.k. Prime Minister of the years 1908 to 1911, Richard Earl of Bienerth - Schmerling, Anton von Schmerlings was grandson.
Political activity
Schmerling was a strong opponent of the directed on maintenance of the existing order and the suppression of all revolutionary movements Metternich system and advocated the transformation of the German Confederation in a liberal and constitutional monarchy.
In February 1848, the beginning of the March Revolution, Schmerling was among the revolutionaries who set up the National Guard in Vienna. In March 1848, a Pre-Parliament to form a German National Assembly, which was to develop a unified, liberal German Reich constitution, scheduled. Schmerling belonged to the approximately five hundred men, who traveled to Frankfurt. In the same year he was elected to the National Assembly in Frankfurt. He was Regent of Archduke Johann of Austria Reich Minister of the Interior, in the short term Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He spoke out in favor of the German regions of Austria German enclosing large solution. As this, however, the opposition of the Austrian Prime Minister Felix failed to Schwarzenberg and the National Assembly in favor of an Prussian managed small German solution to the exclusion of Austria, he declared in December 1848 his resignation because he could not enforce the Austrian point of view. Since he did not see a small German nation-state as in Austria's interest, he moved then Schwarzenberg to torpedo the variant by a Greater Austria plan.
From 1849 to 1851 Schmerling was appointed by Emperor Franz Joseph I, who assumed the throne in December 1848, Minister of Justice of the Austrian government under Prince Felix Schwarzenberg. Because of increased neo-absolutism in Austria, he resigned and was until 1858 the Senate President of the Supreme Court (OGH ). 1865-1891 he was president of the Supreme Court.
The triggered by the defeat of the Emperor in Lombardy 1859 liberalization of Austria, he began a second political career. On 13 December 1860 he was Minister of State and was the real head of the nominally led by Archduke Rainer as Prime Minister Liberal government. Schmerling trying to get the Austrian Presidency of the German Confederation, but failed due to the aggressive opposition of Bismarck. Until July 27, 1865, when the Emperor of the Government therefore withdrew his confidence, he remained the most influential politicians of those years, but only with the support of the German Liberals in the House of Representatives of the Imperial Council, which because of its theater similar erected makeshift building at the Währinger Straße 2-4 was adopted in Vienna in the vernacular " Schmerling Theatre ".
Schmerling had large share of the centralist constitution in February of 1861, which created, among others, the requirement for local self-government in Austria and contained the valid Cisleithania and 1918 constitutions of the Crown Lands. Even with the Protestant Patent (1861 ), the Act of 27 October 1862 protection of personal freedom and the law of October 27, 1862 to protect the house rules further significant steps were taken to liberalize. 1861 Schmerling honorary citizen of Vienna and Innsbruck in 1862 and an honorary member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Schmerling belonged since 1867 at the request of the emperor as a life member of the manor house of the Austrian Imperial Council at which he presided as Vice President in 1871 and in 1868 as president. 1873, 1875, 1879 and 1891 he was president of the Austrian delegation to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise negotiations.
Schmerlings grave is located at the Hietzing Cemetery (Group 05, No. 47). In the year of his death, 1893, was in Vienna, Inner City (1st district ), named right next to the Parliament Building Schmerlingplatz after him, also adjacent to the Palace of Justice. The course thus combines the two areas of impact Schmerlings, the political and the legal. In the garden of the Theresianum, 4th, street favorites, seat of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and a traditional high school, whose curator was Schmerling, there is a Schmerlingbüste by Anton Dominik Fernkorn.
Coat of arms
1707: Squared shield: 1 in silver a gold crowned, black double-headed eagle; 2 in red with a silver, occupied with three red roses bar; A root- beating on the top of a green hill silver cross 3 in Red; 4 in silver a red, einwärtsgekehrter, erect, doppelschwänziger lion, a tree with silver stem and green leaves holding in its paws. On the shield two gold, winning helmets. In the right, on a green velvet cushion between two outstretched, black flights, the cross sticking out of the shield. On the left of the Lion of 4 now growing, in its paws all over the tree in green holding. The ceilings are red front - silver, back black and golden. Shield-bearers are two upright, away sighted, natural tiger.
Portraits
- Silver and Bronze struck medal in 1879, on his 50 -year anniversary officials, 67 mm, by Anton Scharff ( 1845-1903 ), medalist
- Silver ( rarity ) and Bronzegußmedaille (a few copies) in 1885, on his 80th birthday, 175 mm, by Anton Scharff
- Silver and Bronze struck medal in 1890, on his 25th anniversary as Curator of the Theresianum, 66 mm, by Anton Scharff