Rambousek affair

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The Rambousek affair was a corruption scandal that was exposed in Salzburg in 1918 . The high-ranking state official Eduard Rambousek had acquired private assets of over 7 million crowns through years of embezzlement .

affair

Born in Bohemia , the lawyer Rambousek (1873–1918) was - not least because of his good contacts with Archduke Franz Ferdinand - early on in management positions in the Salzburg provincial administration. From 1914 he headed the presidential chancellery of the state government, the military department, refugee welfare, the accounting department and from spring 1918 also the nutrition department. Rambousek enjoyed the unreserved trust of the state president Felix von Schmitt-Gasteiger , who even gave him blank signatures. Schmitt-Gasteiger was roughly informed about some of the machinations of his subordinate, but not about their gigantic extent.

Rambousek mainly embezzled funds from the emergency budget (for fire and flood disasters) and refugee welfare. The Fund for Refugee Aid was under the sole control of Rambousek. He also sold groceries from the state grocery procurement agency, which he had first bought against high commission payments at excessive prices, on the black market . Rambousek also distributed some of the scarce food (e.g. eggs, flour) to friends. The officer invested the misappropriated funds in a private account, which he disguised as an "invalidity fund".

Exposure

The increasingly critical nutritional situation of the Salzburg population led to riots on September 19, 1918 during a demonstration in the city ​​of Salzburg , in which angry citizens named Rambousek and Schmitt-Gasteiger as the main culprits in their situation.

At the end of October a Salzburg merchant was arrested on suspicion of surreptitious trafficking in sugar. The merchant referred to a manager of the state food procurement office, in whose possession hoarded food was finally found in large quantities. This incriminated the director of the office, who in turn relied on Rambousek's orders and mentioned that he had only recently fixed large sums of money. At the end of October 1918, Heinrich Lammasch , an acquaintance of Rambousek, formed a new government in Vienna . Rambousek offered the prime minister to go abroad on a diplomatic mission. On November 5th - a few hours before his planned escape - he was arrested in Vienna. He was found with banknotes and securities worth over 6 million kroner. Rambousek had confessed in custody and committed on 16 November 1918 in his cell suicide . Two of his subordinates were sentenced to prison terms in 1919; at a higher level, however, the Rambousek affair had no consequences.

literature

  • Janet Dernovsek / Tamara Neurauter: "It was said ... that the high state official in Salzburg had set up a Panamanian administrative system with which he had enriched himself and his helpers for years". The Rambousek affair 1918/19 . In: Michael Gehler / Hubert Sickinger (eds.): Political affairs and scandals in Austria. From Mayerling to Waldheim . Kulturverlag Thaur, Vienna-Munich 1996, ISBN 3-85400-005-7 , pp. 170-184.
  • Nora Watteck: The Rambousek Affair. Salzburg's biggest scandal . Path Publishing House, Salzburg 1978, ISBN 3-900108-40-4 .

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