Walter Breisky

Walter Breisky (8 July 1871 – 25 September 1944) was an Austrian jurist, civil servant, and politician. Nominated by the Christian Social Party, Breisky served as minister of education and the interior from July to November 1920, as the vice chancellor and state secretary of education from November 1920 to May 1922. Together with his Social Democratic deputy, Otto Glöckel, Breisky initiated sweeping reforms of Austria's education system. In January 1922, Breisky became the caretaker chancellor of Austria for a single day.

Walter Breisky was born on 8 July 1871 in Bern, Switzerland. He was the second son of August Breisky and Pauline Breisky, née von Less. Both parents were of Bohemian descent. The family was living in Switzerland at the time of Breisky's birth because his father, a noted physician, had accepted a professorship of gynecology at the University of Bern in 1867. When August Breisky was invited to assume a chair at the University of Prague in 1874, the family moved back home.

In Prague, Breisky attended elementary school and received the first four years of his gymnasium education. In 1886, his father was offered a position with the Second Gynecological Clinic of the University of Vienna. Breisky thus completed his secondary education in the imperial capital, graduating from the high-profile Gymnasium Wasagasse in 1890. Shortly before Breisky could finish school, his father died, a loss that appears to have hit teenaged Breisky hard. Since Breisky was not yet of age, his uncle, Rudolf Baron Breisky, became his legal guardian and eventually adopted him. Baron Breisky was a senior official in the Ministry of the Interior; he had served as the head of the ministry's presidium for 25 years and was one of the closest collaborators of Interior Minister Eduard Taaffe. It is likely that Baron Breisky encouraged his ward to pursue a career in the imperial bureaucracy. Austrian diplomat Michael Breisky is his grandnephew.

Breisky's grades appeared to suggest that his talents lay more in the humanities than in any technical fields. Breisky enrolled at the University of Vienna to study law and political science. He graduated with distinction in 1895.

Within ten days of graduating from university, Breisky secured employment as an apprentice clerk (Amtspraktikant) in the governor's office (Statthalterei) of the Archduchy of Lower Austria. It is unlikely that Breisky owed his swift admission into the civil service to his uncle's patronage. Walter Breisky was chosen for the position by Minister-President Erich Graf von Kielmannsegg, who intensely disliked Rudolf Baron Breisky for the latter's personality; in Kielmannsegg's autobiography, Baron Breisky would be described as a "supercilious fossil". In spite of the enmity between guardian and superior, Breisky rose through the ranks with ease and remarkable speed. In 1895, he was assigned to the Korneuburg precinct administration. Three years later, he was promoted from apprentice clerk to regular clerk (Konzipist) and appointed to the executive committee of the state bureaucracy. His performance reviews were consistently glowing.

On 1 January 1900, Breisky was reassigned to the Ministry of Education. Employment in the ministerial bureaucracy was significantly more prestigious than employment in a state administration, and Breisky was still only 28 years old, unusually young for advancement to the ministry. The step up in rank was all the more remarkable as Breisky was a Protestant, a serious handicap in the Habsburg bureaucracy in general and in the Ministry of Education in particular. In 1905, the Ministry tried to get rid of the religious outsider by offering him to fill a vacancy on the Evangelical Church Council. The move would have advanced Breisky by an additional two steps in rank. Breisky declined.

Breisky's refusal to accept the sinecure did no permanent damage to his career. In April 1907, Breisky was appointed to the ministry's presidium. In February 1908, he was promoted to ministerial secretary (Ministerialsekretär); he subsequently became a noted collaborator of Minister-President Baron Max Wladimir von Beck. The two men grew very close, to the point of spending extended holidays together. In 1909, Breisky received the job title of departmental advisor (Sektionsrat). In 1913, he was made a ministerial advisor (Ministerialrat).

The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I was a serious personal blow to Breisky, who was 47 years old now and had spent his entire working life as a loyal servant of the Habsburg Monarchy. In spite of his despondency, Breisky remained at his post. The emerging Republic of German-Austria knew to appreciate his experience. In May 1919, Breisky was made a department director (Sektionschef) in the Chancellery (Staatskanzlei), personal bureau of Chancellor Karl Renner and heart of the rump state's executive apparatus. Once again, Breisky became a close confidant and trusted lieutenant of the chief executive. Renner instructed his staff that every document addressed to Renner should also be made available to Breisky, preferably before Renner himself had seen it.