Neue Freie Presse
- A Sensational Speech by President Reisch
- Feuilleton
- A Decorations Scandal in Paris
The front page of 7 November 1926 led with a commentary on a speech by National Bank President Richard Reisch to a parliamentary subcommittee on the condition of the Postsparkasse, Austria's state postal savings bank. The paper read his sharp remarks as a deliberate show of complete openness meant to dispel every suspicion, while pointing out that he had pronounced a final verdict before the detailed report setting out his reasoning was published. A feuilleton on Stefan Zweig's "Volpone" opened by recalling a lecture scene on Elizabethan literature from his novella "Confusion of Feelings". A short report from Paris told of a senior Ministry of Commerce official arrested for taking up to 100,000 francs from people who wanted decorations.
Translation
A Sensational Speech by President Reisch
Dr. Reisch wants to give the public an example of complete candor. Only from the will to fend off the hornet, even at the price of great sharpness, and to make every shadow of suspicion impossible — only from these strong feelings can the speech in the subcommittee on the situation of the Postsparkasse be understood. The President of the National Bank delivers a final verdict even before the detailed report has appeared, which will evidently set out the premises by which he arrived at his criticism.
Feuilleton
Whoever has read Stefan Zweig's latest story "Confusion of Feelings" will, on encountering his "Volpone", feel vividly reminded of an eloquent passage in that novella. There we follow a young student who seeks out his new professor, the famous but also notorious full professor of English philology, in the seminar, and comes upon him just as he, in a casual posture, chatting with kindled fervor rather than teaching in measured fashion, is giving his students a lecture on the literature of the Elizabethan age.
A Decorations Scandal in Paris
A senior official of the Ministry of Commerce was arrested today on the charge of having traded in orders and decorations. He had persons eager for decorations pay him up to 100,000 francs in return for his undertaking to propose them to the Minister of Commerce for a distinction or the award of an order.
Context
The Postsparkasse: why a state savings bank became a scandal in 1926
The Postsparkasse whose situation Reisch addressed was no private bank: it was owned by the Austrian Post Office and thus by the government, and the postal savings system was meant to make important funds available to the state and to guarantee the security of deposits with government liability. Losses there were therefore a public matter. According to a later account of the period, the Postsparkasse scandal became public in September 1926: the state institution had fallen into severe, existence-threatening losses through speculative dealings intended to avoid inflation losses and through "rescue operations" for illiquid private banks. This followed a wider banking crisis; in early July 1926 the Ramek government had already had to rescue the insolvent Centralbank. The opening of the commentary translated here takes this background for granted and concentrates on the manner of Reisch's verdict rather than on figures. In the same year, on 28 December 1926, parliament passed a law transferring the Postsparkasse from direct state administration into a separate legal entity.
Richard Reisch, central banker and former finance chief
Richard Reisch spoke with unusual authority. From 1922 to 1932 he was the first president of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and helped direct Austrian currency policy. Before that, on 17 October 1919, he had been elected state secretary in the State Office for Finance in the Renner III government, a post equivalent to finance minister. When the head of the central bank, himself a former finance chief, criticized the state savings bank before a parliamentary subcommittee, his words carried institutional weight beyond an ordinary political attack. The Neue Freie Presse interpreted the sharpness of the speech as a determination to leave no shadow of suspicion, yet it also registered unease that Reisch had pronounced a final judgment before the detailed report explaining his premises had been published.
Jakob Ahrer, Siegmund Bosel and the search for responsibility
The "shadow of suspicion" the paper mentions fell on a political scene already looking for culprits. Jakob Ahrer had been finance minister in the first Ramek government from 20 November 1924 to 15 January 1926. He was alleged to have enabled the speculator Siegmund Bosel, who owed the Postsparkasse enormous sums, to transfer a large part of his remaining assets officially to Switzerland while finance minister; Ahrer later vehemently denied these accusations. From autumn 1926 Ahrer was in New York and Havana, and in his absence even party colleagues used him as a scapegoat. The excerpt translated here names neither Ahrer nor Bosel, so it does not show whom Reisch blamed; but it was printed at the moment when responsibility for the losses was being fought over.
The 1887 Wilson affair as a French precedent
The Paris report touched on a sensitive subject in the Third Republic. France had already seen a decorations scandal in 1887: Daniel Wilson, son-in-law of President Jules Grévy, was implicated in it, and the affair led to Grévy's removal from the presidency. The 1926 case, as the Neue Freie Presse reported it, was of a different scale: a senior official of the Ministry of Commerce, not a member of the president's family, was arrested for taking up to 100,000 francs in return for promising to recommend buyers to his minister for honors. The paper's report is the evidence here for the arrest and the sums involved.
Original
Eine sensationelle Rede des Präsidenten Reisch
Dr. Reisch will ein Beispiel voller Rückhaltlosigkeit der Oeffentlichkeit liefern. Nur aus dem Willen, selbst um den Preis großer Schärfe die Hornisse abzuwehren und jeden Schatten des Verdachtes unmöglich zu machen, nur aus diesen starken Empfindungen heraus ist die Rede im Unterausschuß über die Situation der Postsparkasse zu verstehen. Der Präsident der Nationalbank gibt ein abschließendes Urteil, noch ehe der ausführliche Rapport erschienen ist, der offenbar die Prämissen mitteilen wird, durch welche er zu seiner Kritik gekommen ist.
Feuilleton
Wer Stefan Zweigs neueste Erzählung " Verwirrung der Gefühle " gelesen hat, der wird bei seinem " Volpone " sich lebhaft an eine beredte Stelle in dieser Novelle erinnert fühlen. Da folgen wir einem jungen Studenten, der seinen neuen Professor, den berühmten, aber auch berüchtigten Ordinarius für englische Philologie, im Seminar aufsucht und ihn dabei betrifft, wie er eben, in lässiger Haltung, mehr entfacht plaudernd als gemessen lehrend, seinen Schülern einen Vortrag über die Literatur des Elisabethanischen Zeitalters hält.
Ein Ordensskandal in Paris
Ein hoher Beamter des Handelsministeriums wurde heute verhaftet unter der Beschuldigung, daß er mit Orden und Ehrenzeichen Handel getrieben habe. Er ließ sich von ordenslüsternen Personen bis zu 100. 000 Francs auszahlen gegen die Verpflichtung, sie beim Handelsminister für eine Auszeichnung oder eine Ordensverleihung in Vorschlag zu bringen.