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

Ronald E. Coons Carey Goodman authority that was the source of the power and prestige he enjoyed as Finance Minister and was the very motor of reforms past, present - and future47. By now enough has been said to allow the manuscript that Karl Ludwig Freiherr von Brack’s eldest son sought permission to publish in 1866 to speak for itself. Although no absolute proof of authorship exists, circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that the Finance Minister either wrote or commissioned the memorandum in July 1855 while contemplating launching a campaign for administrative reform as a means of solving the serious budgetary crisis the Habsburg Monarchy faced during the Crimean War. The editors are not so bold as to claim that they have answered satisfactorily all the questions that surround the manuscript. It is their hope, however, that readers will agree with their judgment that by calling attention to the extent to which Brack opposed the extreme centralism of the Bach era, the memorandum demonstrates the need for further research on a major figure of the neoabsolutist era who well over a century after his death has yet to receive the modern, scholarly biography he deserves. This conclusion gains credibility in light of Brack's earlier pronouncements on the question of centralization. Already as Commerce Minister in February 1849 he had strongly, if unsuccessfully, argued against creating what he considered superfluous intermediate administrative levels that would only impede the exercise of executive authority. (ÖZV Abt. 3, Bd. 4, p. 338, and HHStA Wien, Ministerrats- Protokolle, 13 February 1849, fol. 177v-178r. ) Only a few months before assuming the finance portfolio, moreover, he assured Field Marshal Heinrich Freiherr von Heß in a private communication that although he supported the latter’s view that „die straffste Einheit in der Staatsverwaltung“ was a necessary precondition for Austria’s recovery from its current internal problems, under no circumstances should unity of the empire and its administration be understood to mean uniformity and centralization „nach französischem Muster“: AGKK Ser. 1, Bd. 2, p. 662. Brack’s undated response, apparently from late in 1854, to a memorandum entitled „Höhere Staats- und Finanz-Vorschläge“ that Heß had written in September of that year and sent to him for comment, is reproduced in: i b i d e m, pp. 660-665; for the text of the Heß memorandum see ibidem, pp. 436-442. Capable though Brack was of virtually bravura flexibility at the ideological level - with considerable justification Robert A. K a n n draws attention in his Multinational Empire. Vol. 2, p. 76 to the minister’s ideological „dilettantism“ - throughout his ministerial career he was consistent in affirming the existence of the modem state, which he wished to see function as efficiently and economically as possible. 164

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