Erich Bielka

Erich Bielka (born May 15, 1908 in Vienna , † September 1, 1992 in Bad Aussee ), was an Austrian diplomat , international law expert, resistance fighter and politician .

origin

Coat of arms of the Bielka-Karltreu family, 1878

Erich Bielka ( officially Knight Bielka von Karltreu until the Nobility Abolition Act in 1919 , then also Bielka-Karltreu ) was the son of Arthur Ritter Bielka von Karltreu and Hedwig, born. Baroness von Seiller . He came from the family of the kuk court doctor Dr. August Bielka (1828–1909), who worked for many years as personal physician to Archduke Franz Karl (1802–1878) and was elevated to the Austrian knighthood in 1878 with the predicate "von Karltreu".

Life

Bielka was a graduate of the Consular Academy , entered 1935 in the diplomatic service and in 1938 immediately after the connection of Austria by Nazi Germany when Nazi opponents arrested ( celebrities transport , Gestapo prison Munich, KZ Dachau and Buchenwald). After the end of the war in 1945 he played a key role in setting up the Foreign Office of the Second Republic and was ambassador in Ankara (1952–1958), Cairo , Bern (1967–1972) and Paris (June 1972–1974), as well as head of the Economic Policy Section, Political Director and, as Secretary General for Foreign Affairs, the most senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs .

After Foreign Minister Rudolf Kirchschläger was elected Federal President, Bielka was a non-party foreign minister in the SPÖ government under Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky from 1974 to 1976 . As part of the Austrian “neighborhood policy” towards the socialist states, Bielka also visited the GDR in 1976, before Kreisky in 1978 became the first western head of government to travel to the GDR.

In 1988 Bielka founded the Austria and Europe initiative together with former Foreign Minister Erwin Lanc and Ambassador Hans Thalberg with the aim of developing alternatives to an EC membership application. As an international lawyer, he rejected comparisons between Austrian and Irish neutrality and strictly protested against the postulate made by some of his successors: "We only interpret neutrality". He called the statements of the Federal Government at that time about the compatibility of permanent neutrality with joining the EC a "fatal misjudgment", which filled him with "deepest concern". In his retirement he wrote various international law and contemporary history publications such as Die Ära Kreisky .

He was married to the Hungarian actress Etelka Görög . Erich and Etelka Bielka are buried at the Grinzinger Friedhof (group 7, row 6, number 5).

Awards

• 1965: Great Gold Medal for Services to the Republic of Austria
• 1974: Great Silver Medal of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria
• Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor
• Decoration of honor for services to the liberation of Austria

Web links

• Short biography
• Literature by and about Erich Bielka in the catalog of the German National Library
• Archive recordings with Erich Bielka in the online archive of the Austrian Media Library (lecture, radio broadcasts)
• Erich Bielka on the website of the Austrian Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.nobility.eu/familie.php?id_familie=107
2. ↑ Remise de lettres de créance , JORF n ° 145 du 22 June 1972, p. 6364.
3. ↑ Maximilian Grass / Alexander Lass: A repressed bilateral relationship: Austria acted as an icebreaker for the GDR , in Wiener Zeitung , November 10, 2009 (accessed on November 15, 2013)
4. ↑ ^{a b} List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)

predecessor	Office	successor
Clemens Wildner	Austrian ambassador to Turkey 1952–1958	Karl Hartl
?	Austrian ambassador to Egypt ?	?
Johann Georg Tursky	Austrian ambassador to Switzerland 1967–1972	?
Ernst Lemberger	Austrian ambassador to France 1972–1974	Otto Eiselsberg