Sonderband 3. „wir aber aus unsern vorhero sehr erschöpfften camergeföllen nicht hernemben khönnen…” – Beiträge zur österreichischen Wirtschafts- und Finanzgeschichte vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (1997)
Ronald E. Coons - Carey Goodman: An Audacious Proposal. A Memorandum Attributed to Finance Minister Karl Ludwig Freiherr von Bruck
An Audacious Proposal: A Memorandum Attributed to Karl Ludwig von Bruck Mein verstorbener Vater suchte die Mittel darin daß er eine Umgestaltung des Systems der büreaucratisehen Centralisation nicht nur dringend nothwendig fand, sondern daß er, mit Hinweis auf alle jene Übel welche dieses System dem Kaiserstaate bereits gebracht hat, den Beweis zu liefern sucht daß diese Umgestaltung eine ganz radicale sein müßte und man nicht auf dem Wege halber Maßregeln stehen bleiben dürfe. Admitting that until recently the government might have objected to publication by an Austrian diplomat of an article that opposed centralization, the younger Bruck expressed the hope that in light of the monarchy’s current political situation - as a passage struck from the draft of the letter indicates, the reference was to the formation during the previous year of the cabinet of Richard Graf Belcredi8 - his superiors would take no offense to an edition of a manuscript „welche Principien huldigt die in Österreich derzeit in mancher Beziehung Ausführung finden“9. As far as can be ascertained, Brack's son never published the memorandum he intended to edit10. Although the Foreign Ministry informed the Austrian envoy to Belgium, Karl Freiherr von Hügel, on 4 February that it was willing to grant the younger Brack the permission he sought on the single condition that Hügel satisfy himself that the manuscript’s contents did not compromise the government11, that is as far as the documentary trail leads. Since there presumably would have been further correspondence had Hügel found objectionable material, it is possible that the Austro-Prassian War and the diplomat’s subsequent appointment in October 1866 to serve in the Austrian mission in Florence deflected his energies in other directions. It is also possible that the impending settlement of the constitutional issue in both halves of the monarchy caused him to lose interest in the project or that he was dissuaded from pursuing it further. Be that as it may, for almost a century and a quarter after 1866 the memorandum the younger Brack thought would cast his father in a new and favorable light appears to have remained in private hands, to surface only recently in the manuscript collection of the Austrian National Library. 8 Karl von Bruck to Ministry of Foreign Aifairs, 17 January 1866 (draft), Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Wien, Handschriftensammlung [hereafter cited as ÖNB Wien, HSS], Codex Series nova 32.687, fol. 4r. For a recent, balanced summary of Belcredi’s plans for administrative reform see. W a wro, Geoffrey D.: The Austro-Prussian War. Politics, Strategy and War in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1859-1866. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University 1992, p. 287, who observes that „Belcredi ordered the devolution of administrative powers from the overmanned ministries in Vienna to the Austrian provinces and a .clean sweep1 of the bureaucracy to remove superfluous employees of the Bach and Schmerling centralizations“. On the Belcredi ministry and its political program see Friedrich Engel- Janosi ’ s introduction to Die Protokolle des österreichischen Ministerrates 1848-1867 [hereafter cited as ÖMR], Abt. 6: Das Ministerium Belcredi. Bd. 1: 29. Juli 1856 -26. März 1866. Wien 1971), pp. VII- LXI1I. 9 HHStA Wien, AR, Fach 4, Karton 40, Convolut „Personalia Bro-Bru“, fol. 238r-241r, Karl von Bruck to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 17 January 1866. The memorandum is not cited in B r a n d t, Harm-Hinrich: Der österreichische Neoabsolutismus: Staats- fmanzen und Politik 1848-1860. Göttingen 1978 (Schriftenreihe der historischen Kommisson bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 15), which gives extensive coverage to Brack’s tenure as Minister of Finance, nor is it mentioned in Richard Charmatz’ admittedly sketchy biography. 11 HHStA Wien, AR, Fach 4, Karton 40, Convolut „Personalia Bro-Bru“, fol. 243r, Foreign Ministry to Hügel, 4 February 1866. 153 i
