Biography of Raoul Wallenberg

Biography Pictures Calendar
  • Raoul Wallenberg was born in August the 4th 1912 in Lidingö village near Stockholm into one of the most famous families of Sweden: among diplomats, politicians and bankers.
  • His father Raoul Oskar Wallenberg was a naval officer. The two cousins of the father, Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg were the most prominent banker- and factory owners of Sweden. Wallenberg’s father died young at the age of 23 in November 1912 because of malignant tumour.
  • Wallenberg’s mother Maria “Maj” Sofia Wising (1891-1979), is the daughter of Per Johann Wising neurology professor. After the death of Raoul Oskar Wallenberg she married Fredrik von Dardel, the director general of the Karolina-hospital in Stockholm. Two children were born brother Guy and sister, Nina.
  • Raoul was brought up by his paternal grandfather, Gustav Wallenberg, former MP, ship entrepreneur, later ambassador to Turkey.
  • The family intended Raoul to become a banker but he was interested in architecture and commerce. The young boy made independent journeys to England, France and Germany. At the age of 12 he followed his grandfather to Constantinople.
  • He graduated his elementary school in Stockholm later on he visited the Swedish National Experimental School where he graduated from high school in the spring of 1930. His first working place was the Stockholms Enskilda Bank. He spent his compulsory military service at the guards. In 1935 he worked in South-Africa, Cape Town at a Swedish firm. Soon after, with the help of his grandfather, he got a job at a Dutch bank in Haifa where he first met Jews escaping from Germany accounting their shocking stories.
  • In 1936 he returned to Sweden and began to deal with international commerce. In 1941 he entered the Mellaneuropeiska Handelsaktienbolaget founded by Sven Salén and Dr. Kálmán Lauer and as its Trade director he visited Switzerland, France, Austria, Germany and Hungary as well.
  • After the German occupation of Hungary (March 19th, 1944) the deportation of the Jewry accelerated. The Swedish Embassy gave Provisorikt Pass, provisional passports to those persons who had relatives or important business connections in Sweden. The Swedish – partly for the demand of the United States – decided to send someone to Hungary to obtain information and in order to help. Kálmán Lauer recommended Wallenberg who by his commercial connection knew the Hungarian relations, circumstances. However he was not considered the competent one to this task. After the request of the American War Refugee Board’s representative Lauer again suggested Wallenberg, finally his proposition was accepted. The Swedish King appointed Wallenberg as embassy secretary and was sent to Hungary as the Attaché of the Swedish Embassy.
  • Wallenberg arrived on July 9th 1944 at Budapest with his official passport issued on June 30th, 1944 by the Swedish Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the agreement with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Wallenberg was given free hands to his work. He could send reports by separate, special couriers and delivery and he contacted the Hungarian government, the personalities standing against the Germans, whose list of names was given by the British and American Embassy. The colleagues of the Swedish Embassy were shocked by his methods differing from the traditional diplomatic ones but experiencing his successes they supported all his activities.
  • Wallenberg brought about a Swedish protective passport, the so called “Schutzpass” that put his owner under the protection of the Swedish Embassy. Officially they permitted about 4500 such certificates, nevertheless there were much more than this amount and these were falsified, too. Wallenberg developed the system of the Swedish “protected-houses” where the Swedish flag marked that they are under Swedish sovereignty. Here several thousands of people found shelter. After the seizure of power of the extreme right wing anti-Semitic Arrow-Cross Party mostly the documents confirming the protection were not taken into consideration. Wallenberg at the period of disintegration of law and order used a simplified protective passport. On these passes we cannot find anymore the signature of the Swedish Ambassador Carl Ivan Danielsson.
  • At the end of 1944 because of the arbitrariness of the Arrow-Cross bandits the people were not safe, neither in the international ghettos, nor in the protected houses. Wallenberg moved his office from Buda to Pest. In January, 1945 Eichmann planned a massacre in the ghetto. Wallenberg with the intercession of Pál Szalai (the messenger of the Arrow-Cross Party) achieved that the German commissioner prevented this action. Two days later, on January 18th, 1945 the Soviets reached the two Budapest ghettos. As a result of the work of Wallenberg several thousands of people escaped from certain death.
  • Wallenberg left Budapest for Debrecen with his chauffeur Vilmos Langfelder. As he told it to Dr. László Pető, his oldest acquaintance of Budapest on January 17th, 1945 with the permission of General Chernyishev “commanding over district called Zugló’. However there he never arrived: the Soviet counter-intelligence at some time between January 19th-and 22nd arrested him and dragged off to the Soviet-Union. He was kept together with Langfelder in Moscow by the NKVD later on they got into the Ljubljanka prison where they died among unknown circumstances.