Karl Staaff

Karl Albert Staaff (21 January 1860 – 4 October 1915) was a Swedish liberal politician and lawyer who served as the Prime Minister of Sweden from 1905 to 1906 and again from 1911 to 1914. He was chairman of the Liberal Coalition Party from 1907 to 1915. He was Sweden's first liberal prime minister, as well as its last prime minister whose governance was ended by a lack of monarchical support.

Biography

Karl Albert Staaff was born on 21 January 1860 in the city of Stockholm. His parents were and Fredrika Wilhelmina "Mina" Schöne.

Staaff ran into sharp conflict with the arch-conservatives, and became a hated figure in the conservative, pro-monarchic and anti-democratic establishment. An intense smear campaign was launched against him, picturing him as the destroyer of Swedish tradition and society. Wealthy Stockholmers could even buy ashtrays which were shaped after the likeness of his head. His staunch anti-military politics, which included a refusal to fund a new battleship for the Swedish Navy, led to the greatest fundraising effort up to that time in Swedish history. A total of 15 million kronor were raised in just a few months in 1912, entirely through public donations spurred on by King Gustav V, to help fund the construction of what would become the coastal defence ship HSwMS Sverige.

In 1914 Staaff stepped down from the government in protest after the conservatives had summoned a farmers' demonstration at the Royal castle's court in Stockholm, where King Gustaf V – who according to law was supposed to stay out of politics – denounced Staaff's defence policies.

The contemporary Swedish Liberal party the Liberals count him as the first among the more prominent leaders of Swedish 20th-century liberalism, followed by such parliamentarians as Nils Edén, Carl Ekman, Nobel Prize laureate Bertil Ohlin, Gunnar Helén, Per Ahlmark and Bengt Westerberg.

Staaff died on 4 October 1915, after a cold he contracted had developed into pneumonia. He never married.