Baron Max Wladimir von Beck
Max Vladimir ( Freiherr von ) Beck ( born September 6, 1854 in Vienna, † 20 January 1943 ) was an Austrian politician and Prime Minister.
Life
The father of Anton Beck (1812-1895) came from a modest ( the parents ran a small inn in the South Moravian Butsch ) eventually became director of the kk Court and State Printing Office in Vienna. He was a 1848/49 to the Reichstag Kremsier and regarded himself always as a Czech.
Max Vladimir had four sisters and attended the Academic Gymnasium in Vienna, where Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, in the autumn of 1918, the founding president of the Czechoslovak Republic, was one of his classmates. He graduated with honors and studied until 1878 at the University of Vienna Law.
Official
After studying Max Vladimir Beck entered the civil service, a first in the Financial Procurator, he belonged from 1880 to 1906 the kk Ministry of Agriculture, one of the ministries Cisleithania on.
He was destined later to act with Franz Ferdinand of Austria -Este, from 1889 to Archduke heir apparent, as a teacher of law and political science. He won it the trust of the heir to the throne and became his adviser on legal and political issues, including the constitutional issues that arose around the morganatic marriage of the heir.
1898 Beck was head of section in the Ministry of Agriculture. As CEO of legislative and organizational department, he prepared important laws for agrarian reform. Contemporaries and biographers always found it hard to classify him ideologically and politically.
Prime minister
During the political crisis of 1905/ 06 Beck was after the resignation of Konrad to Hohenlohe on June 2, 1906 by Kaiser to kk Prime minister appointed. Franz Joseph I saw in the former tutor to the heir to the throne an intermediary between himself and his wayward nephew.
In his inaugural speech in the Imperial Parliament from June 7, 1906 Beck described his difficult task:
"We Providence has been a problem on the way, as any other state in Europe. 8 nationalities, 17 countries, 20 parliamentary bodies, 27 parliamentary parties, two different worldviews, a complicated relationship with Hungary, the cultural distances given by casually eight and a half -width and about the same longitude - all these unite at a point from all this a resultant to drag, which is necessary in order to rule in Austria. "
Beck became one of the most capable Prime Minister Cisleithania. Boosted by the economic boom, he succeeded a parliamentary majority with the core of the Liberal party to form the main Cisleithanian nationalities. Governments had before, because they could not resolve the conflicts in parliament, ruled with imperial ordinances. Beck did not attempt, like its predecessors, on the parties to govern away or to form a neutral caretaker government. It adopted, without a formal agreement German, Czech and Polish deputies in his cabinet on which he " in perpetuity compensation conference" known as.
Although he held office only until November 15, 1908, he brought key reforms on the way. Above all, he brought against the resistance of Franz Ferdinand on December 1, 1906, the old Austrian Empire Council Election reform, which by the Social Democrats have long called for universal and equal male suffrage. This led to a rift with Franz Ferdinand, the intention in the manor house of the Imperial Council opposition to the decision, but was outmaneuvered by the Emperor through the use of the High Steward as per speaker. Whether there has been a hidden Becks cooperation with the Social Democrats under Victor Adler, is controversial; Beck has denied it. The introduction of universal and equal male suffrage had failed at the Prime Minister Eduard Taaffe in the 1890s, by the Russian Revolution of 1905, the Social Democrats and Slavic parties was favored strongly influenced.
Anyway, Beck also won the Christian Socialists by a comprehensive social- political program of reform of the workers' insurance and the introduction of old-age and disability insurance in addition to the Social Democrats.
In addition, Beck renewed the financial settlement with Hungary with a new, lower for Cisleithania rate of 63.6 % compared to 36.4 % for the economically become slightly stronger Hungary.
In his politics he encountered mainly due to the resistance of the aristocratic dominated conservative parties and the translated confrontational kuk Foreign Minister Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal. Beck was a man of domestic politics and foreign policy not a gambler, so he was forced to resign during the Bosnian annexation crisis, even under pressure from the old opponents of electoral reform, on 15 November 1908.
Other Features
He was from 1907 to 1918 Member of the manor house of the Austrian Imperial Council, 1915-1918 President of the Supreme Court, then to 1934, the ( Republican ) Auditors and 1919-1938 President of the Austrian Society of the Red Cross.
Honors
1949 Beck in Vienna, 13th District, part of the district was sub - St. - Veit, named after him.
Writings (selection )
- The emperor and the electoral reform. In: Eduard Ritter von Steinitz (ed.): Memories of Franz Joseph I Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary. Publishing for Cultural Relations, Berlin 1931, pp. 197-225.