Sándor Wekerle

Sándor Wekerle [ ʃa ː ndor vɛkɛrlɛ ] (German Alexander Wekerle, born November 14, 1848 in Mór; † August 16, 1921 in Budapest) was a Hungarian politician and the first non- noble Prime Minister of his country. His first term lasted from 1892 to 1895, the second from 1906 until 1910. 1917 he was again prime minister for a year, he lost his office in the autumn of 1918 in the train of the Aster Revolution.

Life

Alexander Wekerle came from a Danube Swabian family that was already bilingual ( Hungarian and German ). He attended the gymnasium in Székesfehérvár. Since 1867, he studied law in Budapest. Wekerle was particularly interested in questions of finance and economics. Since 1877, he worked as a lecturer and had held various posts in the next state administration. In 1886 he was Secretary of the Treasury. The following year he won in the constituency Nagybánya (Romanian Baia Mare) in Transylvania for the Liberal Party a mandate for the Hungarian Reichstag. 1889 Wekerle was finance minister. The more times it is transmitted elevation to the peerage, he rejected time after his life.

The first two terms of office as Prime Minister Wekerle fall during an economic upturn for Hungary. Industrialization made ​​great progress and Wekerle had a significant role in the development of his country and in particular the capital Budapest. He built roads, including the Budapest subway and several bridges over the Danube.

During the first term, Wekerle, the Jewish religion was finally assimilated to Christian denominations legally. Otherwise, Wekerle but has not enrolled as a societal and social modernizers into the history books. Uncompromising he sought the Magyar hegemony in the multi-ethnic Hungarians maintain. He was not willing to grant any nationalities autonomy rights. He was also against a strengthening of workers' rights in Hungary, because he saw thus jeopardizing the economic recovery.