Emanuel Treu

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the music producer of the same name, see Emanuel Treu (music producer)

Emanuel Treu (born August 8, 1915 in Vienna ; † August 13, 1976 there ) was an Austrian resistance fighter and one of the most important diplomats in the Republic of Austria in the post-war period.

youth

Born as the son of a wealthy stamp manufacturer and his wife in Vienna, Emanuel ("Mundi") Treu began studying law there after graduating from high school in 1933 and doing military service and was active in the scouting community. Coming from a family of strict opponents of National Socialism, he was arrested after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, initially because of his refusal to participate as a scout leader in building the Hitler Youth (HJ) and severely abused in the Gestapo headquarters , the Vienna Hotel Metropol .

Escape and internment

Before being transferred to the concentration camp , Treu managed to escape from Austria to Switzerland, from where he actually wanted to emigrate to Great Britain in order, like so many Austrian scouts, to take up the fight against Hitler. Arrested at the request of the authorities of the German Reich, he was in various internment camps , u. a. Davesco, Girenbad, Gordoa, Locarno, Vouvry and had to give up his dreams of England and later emigration to the USA. He was able to continue his studies, which he broke off in Vienna before graduation, at the Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement in Geneva, and after the internment conditions had eased, he was able to complete it towards the end of the war. In later years he lectured at this institute and remained connected to it until the end of his life.

Resistance and underground

At the end of 1942, Treu's internment conditions were relaxed so that he could move freely in Switzerland. As a result, he joined the Austrian resistance and became one of the central figures of the O5 movement in Switzerland. In 1944 he became head of the "Austria Student Union" in Geneva. In the course of his work, Treu repeatedly crossed the border to what was then Ostmark in order to establish contact with Austrian resistance fighters . Sworn by nonviolence, he always refused to shoot people. His work focused on political goals; he was involved in early negotiations with the Allies about the status of Austria after the war, tasks that Fritz Molden and his circle were able to continue. The O5 liaison to the Resistance was also loyal and repeatedly crossed the border to France.

Return to liberated Austria

After his return to Vienna, he was taken over to the Austrian Foreign Ministry in 1946 because of his reliability, which was proven in the resistance during the war, and his international contacts, where he initially worked for a short time together with Kurt Waldheim as Secretary of Federal Minister Karl Gruber , and then became an employee of the then To become State Secretary and later Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky . In this function he worked on the state treaty negotiations that finally helped Austria to freedom in 1955.

Career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Second Republic

In the meantime, his diplomatic career took him to the former Yugoslavia in 1947, where, under adventurous conditions, with the help of his language teacher and future wife and with the help of her life, he undertook the (unofficial) assignment to track down the Austrian prisoners of war of the Wehrmacht and personally free them from Josip Broz Tito to get, was able to do successfully, so that they could return to Austria before they were handed over and relocated to the former Soviet Union . His professional path also took him to Great Britain, Brazil, and then to Colombia, where he opened the first Austrian embassy in Bogotà and to Switzerland, where he was the Austrian representative at the European Office of the United Nations and various others in Geneva between 1960 and 1966 international organizations ( International Red Cross , World Health Organization and others). Here he developed his diplomatic skills at GATT and EFTA , in which he also held important positions. Furthermore, as an independent civil servant, he became an advisor to all Austrian foreign ministers on economic and trade issues. He is therefore also considered one of the fathers of Austria's accession to the European Community and was the teacher of many successful diplomats (Manfred Scheich, Gregor Woschnagg, etc.) on the way to a united Europe.

After returning to Vienna in 1968, he founded a new department in the Foreign Office, the “Office for International Organizations and Conferences” (today Department II.5 “International Organizations”), which he initially headed. Soon after, he served for several years as an official of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as an advisor to the directors of these two organizations; he was also responsible for the construction of the UN City in Vienna.

Later career and death

In 1974 Treu became director of the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, where he had already worked as a teacher for the future diplomats for many years. He initiated the modernization and restructuring of this old institution, which is still in effect today, but died unexpectedly in 1976 at the age of 61. His diverse commitment to his home country Austria and his humanity also shaped the image of the funeral ceremony, which was almost like a state funeral and at which numerous personalities from diplomacy, politics, business, science and art paid him their last respects.

Family and children

In Belgrade he met his second wife Christina Popovic, from the marriage the sons Thomas Treu and Martin "Timmy" Treu were born.

literature

• The call of conscience. The Austrian struggle for freedom 1938-45 , Otto Molden , 1958
• July 20 and treason: A documentary about acts of treason in the German resistance , Karl Balzer. Published by KW Schütz, 1971
• The GATT Legal System and World Trade Diplomacy , Robert E. Hudec. Published by Praeger Publishers, 1975
• Fepolinski and Waschlapski on the bursting star: Report of a restless youth , Fritz Molden , 1976
• Squatters, fools, honest men. A report from Austria 1945-1962 , by Fritz Molden , 1980
• Escape to Switzerland: Neutral Switzerland and Austrian emigration 1938 to 1945 by Franz Goldner. European publishing house, 1983
• The Resistance in Austria , 1938–1945, Radomír Luža. Published by U of Minnesota Press, 1984 (Page 221, NOTES 5)
• On the art of being Austrian: memories and diary notes by Hans Thalberg in Volume 6 of "Documents on Everyday Life, Politics and Contemporary History". Böhlau-Verlag, 1984
• Narrated story: Reports of men and women in resistance such as the persecution of Konstantin Kaiser, Heinz Arnberger, Peter Mähner, Christa Mehany-Mitterrutzner, Doris Schmidauer, documentation archive of the Austrian resistance. Austrian Federal Publishing House, 1990
• Country of exile Switzerland. Living conditions and fates of Austrian refugees 1938-45 by Claudia Hoerschelmann, StudienVerlag 1997
• Past and present , study society for contemporary history and political education (Austria), published by Styria, 1997
• From sovereignty to globalization in the experience of a diplomat: Vienna, Zurich, Geneva, Zagreb by Rudolf Martins. Published by Böhlau, 1998
• "250 years: from the Oriental to the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna by Oliver Rathkolb, Studien Verlag 2004
• "Anschluss" and Exclusion 1938 - Displaced and remaining students from the University of Vienna by Herbert Posch, Doris Ingrisch, Gert Dressel from the Reile Emigranten-Exil-Kontinuität, published by Friedrich Stadler (Vienna), LIT-Verlag 2008
• Austria's top diplomats between Kaiser and Kreisky - Biographical handbook of the diplomats of the Higher Foreign Office 1918 to 1959 by Rudolf Agstner, Gertrude Enderle-Burcel, Michaela Follner, publisher: Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance, Austrian Society for Historical Source Studies. Fassbaender publishing house, Vienna 2009
• "... as if our neighbour's house wasn't on fire" - Paul Vogt, Karl Barth and the Swiss Evangelical Relief Organization for the Confessing Church in Germany 1937-1947 by Heinrich Rusterholz, Theological Publishing House Zurich, 2015

Individual evidence

1. ^ Website real estate trustee Martin "Timmy" Immertreu - accessed on August 31, 2014
2. ^ Website photographer Martin "Timmy" Immertreu - accessed on August 31, 2014