Karl Buresch
Karl Buresch ( born October 12, 1878 in Grossenzersdorf, Lower Austria, † September 16, 1936 in Vienna) was a lawyer and Christian Socialist politician.
Life
The son of a merchant had to help finance his studies by tutoring due to the early death of his father. After a Konzipientenzeit at a famous Viennese lawyer Buresch was as a lawyer in his home town worked, was elected as a member of the Christian Social Party in 1909 in the City Council and was mayor from 1916-19 Grossenzersdorf. 1919 Buresch was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1920 to 1924 he was Member of Parliament.
In the summer of 1922 Buresch was after the resignation of John Mayer Governor of Lower Austria. He had this position until his appointment as Chancellor in June 1931 held, as well as the May 1932 to May 1933. As Governor Buresch represented with determination and success to the financial interests of his country, especially in contrast to the social democratic governments Vienna. In the country itself existed but until 1934 a co-operation with the Social Democrats. The Bureschs relation to its social democratic deputy Oskar Helmer is actually described as warmly. Especially in the period 1929-30 to Buresch approached but politically the Home Guards. In connection with the authoritarian tendencies of the time it would be that Buresch 1932 as Chancellor launched a campaign to reintroduce the death penalty through the means of a referendum. However, he failed due to opposition of the Social Democrats and the even more uncensored liberal and left-wing press.
The name Buresch was mentioned in connection with a series of financial scandals of the First Republic. The Lower Austrian farmer Bank, the founding members Buresch In 1920, fell in 1924 by participating in the failed wave of speculation against the French Franc in serious trouble and had to be merged with the already weakened Central Bank of the German savings ultimately. In October 1926 there was in this context, a press campaign against Buresch, which included allegations of personal enrichment. Also in connection with the so-called Newag scandal of 1932, the name Buresch ( 1925-1933 Chairman of the Board of the Electricity Industry -AG) was called. Buresch also came in 1933 as Minister of Finance by its comparison with the speculators Siegmund Bosel, which since the 1920s owed the Postal Savings Bank about 100 million shillings, called to talk, and was associated with the phoenix scandal in 1936 as " takers".
At the height of the Great Depression and in the midst of the broken in the May 1931 disaster Creditanstalt Karl Buresch was appointed after the failure of first entrusted politician Otto Ender and Ignaz Seipel to form a government. His government was considered a transitional cabinet. The crisis of the Creditanstalt, massive balance of payments problems and the plight of the ÖBB employed the Cabinet and were fought with ad hoc measures. In addition there were domestic problems, such as the so-called coup Pfrimer a Styrian Home Guard officer in September 1931 and the growing agitation of the Nazis. The refusal Bureschs to confess to an explicitly " German Course ", eventually led to the break the alliance with the Greater German, and minority cabinet Buresch II, which was considered to be even weaker ( and as a possible transition to a dictatorship Ignaz Seipel ). The resignation of the government Buresch II beginning in May 1932 was under the impression the state elections in Vienna, Lower Austria and Salzburg on 24 April 1932 the profits of the Nazis, a slight loss of Socialists and heavy losses of the bourgeois parties had brought with him.
After eleven months chancellorship Buresch returned to his post as governor, and here, too, relatively luckless tried to take the time trends account authoritarian. Bureschs consensus politics now went more in the direction of the Nazis than the Social Democrats. As finance minister in the authoritarian state ( 1933-35 ) Buresch could achieve some fiscal successes - such as the hit Bond of 1933 The stability of the currency but was bought by high unemployment..
Bureschs last feature was that the Governor of the Austrian Postal Savings Bank ( as of January 1936). She was until his death the Phoenix scandal and the affair Bosel overshadowed, which has now again pending court. His sudden death has been widely associated with the resulting depression. Federal Press chief Eduard Ludwig said in his memoirs of an overdose of sedatives.
Buresch was a member of K.H.V. Welfia Klosterneuburg, then the CV, now in the ACA.