Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)
[He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. In accordance with Swedish law, the Swedish Tax Agency in October 2016 determined his ''pro-forma'' date of death as 31 July 1952.] was a Swedish architect, businessman,
diplomat
A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...
, and
humanitarian
Humanitarianism is an ideology centered on the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotiona ...
. He saved thousands of
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
in
German-occupied Hungary during
the Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
from German
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
and
Hungarian fascists
The Arrow Cross Party (, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National Unity. They were in power from 15 October 1944 to ...
during the later stages of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. While serving as Sweden's
special envoy
Diplomatic rank is a system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, table seating ...
in
Budapest
Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
between July and December 1944, Wallenberg issued protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings which he
declared as Swedish territory.
On 17 January 1945, during the
Siege of Budapest
The siege of Budapest or battle of Budapest was the 50-day-long encirclement by Soviet and Romanian forces of the Hungarian capital of Budapest, near the end of World War II. Part of the broader Budapest Offensive, the siege began when Budapes ...
by the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
, agents of
SMERSH
SMERSH () was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin. The form ...
detained Wallenberg on suspicion of
espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...
, and he subsequently
disappeared. In 1957, 12 years after his disappearance, he was reported by Soviet authorities to have died of a suspected
myocardial infarction
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
on 17 July 1947 while imprisoned in the
Lubyanka, the prison at the headquarters of the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
secret police in
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
. A document released in 2023 as part of the President
John F. Kennedy Assassination
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline, Texas gove ...
Records Collection indicates that
Vyacheslav Nikonov
Vyacheslav Alekseyevich Nikonov (; born 5 June 1956) is a Russian political scientist.
Early life
Nikonov is a grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov, prominent Bolshevik and Soviet foreign minister under Joseph Stalin, whom he was named after, a ...
, then an assistant to the head of the
KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
, determined as part of a 1991 inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his disappearance that Wallenberg had likely been executed by Soviet authorities in late 1947 as a result of claims that he may have been associated with people helping not only Jews but also Nazi war criminals escape prosecution.
However, there is no conclusive proof of this theory of Wallenberg's death, and his cause and date of death have been disputed ever since, with some people claiming to have encountered men matching Wallenberg's description until the 1980s in Soviet prisons and psychiatric hospitals. The motives behind Wallenberg's arrest and imprisonment by the Soviet government, along with questions surrounding the circumstances of his death and his ties to
US intelligence, remain shrouded in mystery and are the subject of continued speculation. In 2016, the
Swedish Tax Agency
The Swedish Tax Agency () is a government agencies in Sweden, government agency in Sweden responsible for national tax collection and administering the Population registration in Sweden, population registration.
The agency was formed on 1 January ...
declared him
dead in absentia, with the ''
pro forma
The term ''pro forma'' (Latin for "as a matter of form" or "for the sake of form") is most often used to describe a practice or document that is provided as a courtesy or satisfies minimum requirements, conforms to a norm or doctrine and tend ...
'' date of death noted as 31 July 1952.
As a result of his successful efforts to rescue
Hungarian Jews
The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived ...
, Wallenberg has been the subject of numerous humanitarian honours in the decades following his
presumed death. In 1981, US Congressman
Tom Lantos
Thomas Peter Lantos (born Tamás Péter Lantos; February 1, 1928 – February 11, 2008) was a Hungarian-born American politician who served as a United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative from California from 1981 until his deat ...
, one of those saved by Wallenberg, sponsored a bill making Wallenberg an
honorary citizen of the United States, the second person ever to receive this honour. Wallenberg also became an
honorary citizen of Canada, Hungary, Australia, the United Kingdom and Israel.
In 1963,
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...
designated Raoul Wallenberg as one of the
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...
. Numerous monuments have been dedicated to him, and streets have been named after him throughout the world. The
Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States was founded in 1981 to "perpetuate the humanitarian ideals and the nonviolent courage of Raoul Wallenberg."
It gives the
Raoul Wallenberg Award annually to recognize persons who carry out those goals. In 2012, Wallenberg was awarded a
Congressional Gold Medal
The Congressional Gold Medal is the oldest and highest civilian award in the United States, alongside the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It is bestowed by vote of the United States Congress, signed into law by the president. The Gold Medal exp ...
by the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...
"in recognition of his achievements and heroic actions during the Holocaust."
Declassified documents have confirmed that Raoul Wallenberg worked with the
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...
(OSS), the predecessor of the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
.
Although some have claimed that Wallenberg was responsible for rescuing 100,000 Jews who survived the Holocaust in Hungary, historians regard that figure as an exaggeration; Yad Vashem estimates the number of people granted protective paperwork as about 4,500 individuals.
Early life

Wallenberg was born in 1912 in
Lidingö Municipality
Lidingö Municipality (, semi-officially ) is a municipalities of Sweden, municipality east of Stockholm in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. Its seat is located on the island of Lidingö. The municipality is a part of Metropolitan Stockh ...
, near
Stockholm
Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
, where his maternal grandparents, Per Johan Wising and his wife Sophie Wising (née Benedicks), had built a summer house in 1882. His paternal grandfather, Gustaf Wallenberg, was a diplomat and envoy to
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
,
Istanbul
Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
, and
Sofia
Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...
.
His parents, who married in 1911, were Raoul Oscar Wallenberg (1888–1912), a
Swedish naval officer, and Maria "Maj" Sofia Wising (1891–1979). His father died of cancer three months before he was born, and his maternal grandfather died of pneumonia three months after his birth. His mother and grandmother, now both suddenly widows, raised him together.
[ In 1918, his mother married Fredric von Dardel; they had a son, Guy von Dardel,] and a daughter, Nina Lagergren.
After high school and his compulsory eight months in the Swedish military, Wallenberg's paternal grandfather sent him to study in Paris. He spent one year there, and then in 1931 he studied architecture at the University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
in the United States.[ Although the ]Wallenberg family
The Wallenberg family is a prominent Swedish family of bankers, industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats and diplomats, present in most large Swedish industrial groups, including EQT AB, Ericsson, Electrolux, ABB, SAS Group, SKF, Atlas Copco, ...
was rich, he worked at odd jobs in his free time and joined other young male students as a passenger rickshaw handler at Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
's Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Exposit ...
. He used his vacations to explore the United States, with hitchhiking being his preferred method of travel. About his experiences, he wrote to his grandfather saying, "When you travel like a hobo, everything's different. You have to be on the alert the whole time. You're in close contact with new people every day. Hitchhiking gives you training in diplomacy and tact."
Wallenberg was aware of his one-sixteenth Jewish ancestry and proud of it. It came from his great-great-grandfather (his maternal grandmother's grandfather) Michael Benedicks, who immigrated to Stockholm in 1780 and converted to Christianity. Ingemar Hedenius (one of the leading Swedish philosophers) recalls a conversation with Raoul dating back to 1930 when they were together in an army hospital during military service:
Raoul Wallenberg's Jewish ancestry is supported by Sweden researcher Paul A. Levine, who wrote in his monograph about Wallenberg:
Wallenberg graduated from the University of Michigan in 1935 with a degree in architecture. Upon his return to Sweden, he found that his American degree did not qualify him to practice as an architect. Later that year, his grandfather arranged a job for him in Cape Town
Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
, South Africa, in the office of a Swedish company that sold construction material. After six months in South Africa, he took a new job at a branch office of the Holland Bank in Haifa
Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...
, where he met and befriended Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. He returned to Sweden in 1936, securing a job in Stockholm with the help of his father's cousin and godfather, Jacob Wallenberg, at the Central European Trading Company, an export-import company trading between Stockholm and central Europe, owned by Kálmán Lauer
Kálmán is an ancient Germanic origin Hungarian people, Hungarian surname and male given name. Outside Hungary, the name occurs sometimes in the form Kalman. It was derived from the Germanic name: Koloman, Coloman or Kolman. The Germanic name C ...
, a Hungarian Jew.
World War II
Beginning in 1938, the Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...
, under the regency of Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957) was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who was the Regent of Hungary, regent of the Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946), Kingdom of Hungary Hungary between the World Wars, during the ...
, passed a series of anti-Jewish
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
measures modeled on the so-called Nuremberg Race Laws enacted in Germany by the Nazis in 1935. Like their German counterparts, the Hungarian laws focused heavily on restricting Jews from certain professions, reducing the number of Jews in government and public service jobs, and prohibiting intermarriage. Because of this, Wallenberg's business associate, Kálmán Lauer, found it increasingly difficult to travel to his native Hungary, which was moving still deeper into the German orbit. Hungary became a member of the Axis powers
The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, was the military coalition which initiated World War II and fought against the Allies of World War II, Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Ge ...
in November 1940 and later joined the Nazi-led invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Out of necessity, Wallenberg became Lauer's personal representative. He traveled to Hungary to conduct business on Lauer's behalf and to look in on members of Lauer's extended family who remained in Budapest. He soon learned to speak Hungarian and, from 1941, made increasingly frequent travels to Budapest
Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
. Within a year, Wallenberg was a joint owner and the International Director of the company. In this capacity, Wallenberg also made several business trips to Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and German-occupied France
The Military Administration in France (; ) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zone in areas of northern and western France. This so-called ' was established in June 19 ...
during the early years of World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. It was during these trips that Wallenberg was able to closely observe the Nazis' bureaucratic and administrative methods—knowledge which proved valuable to him later.
Meanwhile, the situation in Hungary had begun to deteriorate as the tide of the war began to turn decisively against Germany and its allies. Following the catastrophic Axis defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad ; see . rus, links=on, Сталинградская битва, r=Stalingradskaya bitva, p=stəlʲɪnˈɡratskəjə ˈbʲitvə. (17 July 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, ...
(in which Hungarian troops fighting alongside German forces suffered a staggering 84% casualty rate), the Horthy regime began secretly pursuing peace talks with the United States and the United Kingdom. Upon learning of Horthy's duplicity, Adolf Hitler ordered the occupation of Hungary by German troops in March 1944. The Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...
quickly took control of the country and placed Horthy under house arrest
House arrest (also called home confinement, or nowadays electronic monitoring) is a legal measure where a person is required to remain at their residence under supervision, typically as an alternative to imprisonment. The person is confined b ...
. A pro-German puppet government
A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government is a State (polity), state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside Power (international relations), power and subject to its ord ...
was installed in Budapest; actual power rested with the German military governor, SS-Brigadeführer Edmund Veesenmayer. With the Nazis now in control, the relative security from the Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
enjoyed by the Jews of Hungary came to an end. In April and May 1944, the Nazi regime and its accomplices began the mass deportation of Hungary's Jews to extermination camp
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...
s in German-occupied Poland. Under the personal leadership of SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann
Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ;"Eichmann"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 19 March 1906 – 1 Ju ...
, who was later tried and hanged in Israel for his role in the implementation of the Nazis' Final Solution
The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a plan orchestrated by Nazi Germany during World War II for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official ...
, deportations took place at a rate of 12,000 people per day.
''"Pimpernel" Smith'' screening
Wallenberg was directly inspired by '' "Pimpernel" Smith'', a 1941 British anti-Nazi propaganda thriller. The film had been banned in Sweden, but Wallenberg and his sister, Nina, were invited to a private screening at the British Embassy in Stockholm. Enthralled by Professor Smith (played by Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard Steiner (3 April 18931 June 1943) was an English actor, director, producer and writer.Obituary, '' Variety'', 9 June 1943. He wrote many stories and articles for ''The New York Times'', ''The New Yorker'', and '' Vanity Fair'' an ...
), who saved twenty-eight Jews from the Nazis, Nina stated, "We thought the film was amazing. When we got up from our seats, Raoul said, ‘that is the kind of thing I would like to do’".
Recruitment by the War Refugee Board
On 21 June, 1944, George Mantello received and immediately publicized two important reports given to him by Romanian diplomat Florian Manilou, who had returned from a fact-finding trip to Romania and Budapest at Mantello's request. Manilou received material from Miklos "Moshe" Krausz in Budapest, who worked with Carl Lutz to rescue Jews. One of the reports was probably Rabbi
A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...
Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl's abridged version of the 33-page Auschwitz Protocols (i.e., the Vrba-Wetzler and Rosin-Mordowicz reports). The reports described in detail the operations of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...
extermination camp. The second was a six-page Hungarian report that detailed the ghettoization and deportation of 435,000 Hungarian Jews, as updated to 19 June 1944, by towns, to Auschwitz.
Mantello publicized the reports' findings immediately upon receipt. This resulted in large-scale grassroots protest in Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
against the unprecedented barbarism against Jews and led to Horthy being threatened by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
and UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
. In a letter, Churchill wrote, "There is no doubt that this persecution of Jews in Hungary and their expulsion from enemy territory is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world...."
Following the report's publication, the Roosevelt administration turned to the newly created War Refugee Board (WRB) in search of a solution to the genocide against Jews. US Treasury Department
The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current U.S. government departments.
The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and ...
official Iver C. Olsen was dispatched to Stockholm as a representative of the WRB and tasked with putting together a plan to rescue the Jews of Hungary. In addition to his duties with the WRB, Olsen was also secretly employed as the chief of " Currency Operations" for the Stockholm station of the Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...
(OSS), the United States' wartime espionage service.
In search of someone willing and able to go to Budapest to organize a rescue program for the nation's Jews, Olsen established contact with a relief committee composed of many prominent Swedish Jews led by the Swedish Chief Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis to locate an appropriate person to travel to Budapest under diplomatic cover and lead the rescue operation. One member of the committee was Wallenberg's business associate Kálmán Lauer
Kálmán is an ancient Germanic origin Hungarian people, Hungarian surname and male given name. Outside Hungary, the name occurs sometimes in the form Kalman. It was derived from the Germanic name: Koloman, Coloman or Kolman. The Germanic name C ...
.
The committee's first choice to lead the mission was Count Folke Bernadotte
Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (2 January 1895 – 17 September 1948) was a Swedish nobleman and diplomat. In World War II, he negotiated the release of about 450 Danish Jews and 30,550 non-Jewish prisoners of many nations from the Nazi ...
, the vice-chairman of the Swedish Red Cross
The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...
and a member of the Swedish Royal Family. When Bernadotte's proposed appointment was rejected by the Hungarians, Lauer suggested Wallenberg as a potential replacement. Olsen was introduced to Wallenberg by Lauer in June 1944 and came away from the meeting impressed and, shortly thereafter, appointed Wallenberg to lead the mission.[ Olsen's selection of Wallenberg met with objections from some US officials who doubted his reliability, in light of existing commercial relationships between businesses owned by the Wallenberg family and the German government. These differences were eventually overcome and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs agreed to the American request to assign Wallenberg to its ]legation
A legation was a diplomatic representative office of lower rank than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an ambassador, a legation was headed by a minister. Ambassadors outranked ministers and had precedence at official events. Legation ...
in Budapest as part of an arrangement in which Wallenberg's appointment was granted in exchange for a lessening of American diplomatic pressure on neutral Sweden to curtail the nation's free-trade
Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist political parties general ...
policies toward Germany.
Mission to Budapest
When Wallenberg reached the Swedish legation in Budapest on 9 July 1944, the intense Nazi campaign to deport the Jews of Hungary to Auschwitz had already been underway for several months. The transports from Hungary were halted with few exceptions by Miklós Horthy two days earlier in large part because he was warned by Roosevelt, Churchill, the King of Sweden and even the Pope after the very vocal Swiss grass roots protests against the mass murder in Auschwitz. Between May and early July 1944, Eichmann and his associates deported more than 400,000 Jews by freight train. All but 15,000 were sent directly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in southern Poland. By the time of Wallenberg's arrival, there were only around 230,000 Jews remaining in Hungary. With fellow Swedish diplomat Per Anger, and Miklos "Moshe" Krausz, they issued "protective passports" (German: ''Schutz-Pass''), which identified the bearers as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation and thus prevented their deportation. Although not legal, these documents looked official and were generally accepted by German and Hungarian authorities, who sometimes were also bribed.[ The Swedish legation in Budapest also succeeded in negotiating with the German authorities so that the bearers of the protective passes would be treated as Swedish citizens and be exempt from having to wear the ]yellow badge
The yellow badge, also known as the yellow patch, the Jewish badge, or the yellow star (, ), was an accessory that Jews were required to wear in certain non-Jewish societies throughout history. A Jew's ethno-religious identity, which would be d ...
required for Jews.[ When the German government said the travel passes were invalid, Wallenberg appealed for help from Baroness Elisabeth Kemény, wife of Baron Gábor Kemény, Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs in Budapest. She convinced her husband to have 9,000 passes honoured.
With the money mostly raised for the War Refugee Board by American Jews, Wallenberg rented 32 buildings in Budapest and declared them to be extraterritorial, protected by ]diplomatic immunity
Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which certain foreign government officials are recognized as having legal immunity from the jurisdiction of another country. . He put up signs such as "The Swedish Library" and "The Swedish Research Institute" on their doors and hung oversized Swedish flags on the front of the buildings to bolster the deception. The buildings eventually housed almost 10,000 people.[
Sandor Ardai, one of the drivers working for Wallenberg, recounted what Wallenberg did when he intercepted a trainload of Jews about to leave for Auschwitz:
At the height of the program, more than 350 people were involved in the rescue of Jews in Budapest. Sister Sára Salkaházi was caught sheltering Jewish women and was killed by members of the ]Arrow Cross Party
The Arrow Cross Party (, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National Unity. They were in power from 15 October 1944 to ...
.
Tibor Baranski was a 22-year-old religious student who was recruited by Papal Nuncio
An apostolic nuncio (; also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international organization. A nuncio is a ...
Monsignor Angelo Rotta to help save Jews. Baranski, who posed as a Vatican representative, saved about 3,000 Jews. He collaborated with diplomats, including Wallenberg. He met with and talked with Wallenberg on the phone several times. Baranski described Wallenberg's motivation as "divinely human love." "We knew in a second we shared the same opinion … the same recklessness, the same determination, all through," said Baránszki.
Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz also issued protective passports from the Swiss embassy in the spring of 1944; and Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca posed as a Spanish diplomat and issued forged visas. Portuguese diplomats Sampaio Garrido and Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho rented houses and apartments to shelter and protect refugees from deportation and murder and issued safe conducts to approximately 1,000 Hungarian Jews. Berber Smit (Barbara Hogg), the daughter of Lolle Smit (1892–1961), director of N.V. Philips Budapest and a Dutch spy working for the British MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
, later claimed to have been his girlfriend, also assisted Wallenberg, as did her son. However, she was temporarily engaged to Wallenberg's colleague Lars Berg, and later married a Scottish officer; which has not dispelled claims that Wallenberg was homosexual.
Wallenberg started sleeping in a different house each night, to guard against being captured or killed by Arrow Cross Party members or by Adolf Eichmann's men. Two days before the Soviet Army occupied Budapest, Wallenberg negotiated with Eichmann and with Major-General Gerhard Schmidthuber, the supreme commander of German forces in Hungary. Wallenberg bribed Arrow Cross Party member Pál Szalai to deliver a note in which Wallenberg persuaded the occupying Germans to prevent a Fascist plan to blow up the Budapest ghetto and murder an estimated 70,000 Jews. The note also persuaded the Germans to cancel a final effort to organize a death march
A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war, other captives, or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinct from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convention requires tha ...
of the remaining Jews in Budapest by threatening to have them prosecuted for war crimes once the war was over.[
According to Giorgio Perlasca, who posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944 and saved 5,218 ]Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
, Pál Szalai lied to save his life during his criminal trial, and the history of the saving is different. Wallenberg (who was already dead at the time of Szalai's deposition) saved hundreds of people but was not directly involved in the plan to save the ghetto. While Perlasca was posing as the Spanish consul-general, he learned of the intention to burn down the ghetto. Shocked and incredulous, he asked for a direct hearing with the Hungarian interior minister Gábor Vajna, in the basement of the Budapest City Hall where he had his headquarters, and threatened legal and economic measures against the "3000 Hungarian citizens" (in fact, a much smaller number) declared by Perlasca as residents of Spain, and similar treatment to Hungarian residents in two Latin American republics, to force the minister to withdraw the project. This actually happened in the following days.
People saved by Wallenberg include biochemist Lars Ernster, who was housed in the Swedish embassy, and Tom Lantos
Thomas Peter Lantos (born Tamás Péter Lantos; February 1, 1928 – February 11, 2008) was a Hungarian-born American politician who served as a United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative from California from 1981 until his deat ...
, later a member of the United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...
, who lived in one of the Swedish protective houses.
The Swedish consulate building still exists as of 2025, on the hill behind the Hotel Gellért, with a reference to Wallenberg at the front.
Disappearance
On 29 October 1944, elements of the 2nd Ukrainian Front
The 2nd Ukrainian Front () was a front of the Red Army during the Second World War.
History
On October 20, 1943, the Steppe Front was renamed the 2nd Ukrainian Front.
In mid-May 1944 Malinovsky took over the 2nd Ukrainian Front.
During t ...
under Marshal Rodion Malinovsky
Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky (; ; – 31 March 1967) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union. He served as Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1967, during which he oversaw the strengthening of the Sov ...
launched an offensive against Budapest. By late December, the city had been encircled by Soviet forces. Despite this, the German commander of Budapest, SS Lieutenant General Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, refused all offers to surrender, setting in motion a protracted and bloody siege of Budapest
The siege of Budapest or battle of Budapest was the 50-day-long encirclement by Soviet and Romanian forces of the Hungarian capital of Budapest, near the end of World War II. Part of the broader Budapest Offensive, the siege began when Budapes ...
. At the height of the fighting, on 17 January 1945, Wallenberg was called to General Malinovsky's headquarters in Debrecen
Debrecen ( ; ; ; ) is Hungary's cities of Hungary, second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain Regions of Hungary, region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the large ...
to answer allegations that he was engaged in espionage.[ According to the wife of Géza Soós, a ringleader of the Hungarian resistance who worked with Wallenberg, he used the opportunity to try to transport copies of the Auschwitz Report to the interim Hungarian government in Debrecen. Wallenberg's last recorded words were, "I'm going to Malinovsky's ... whether as a guest or prisoner I do not know yet."
Documents recovered in 1993 from previously secret Soviet military archives and published in the Swedish newspaper '']Svenska Dagbladet
(, "The Swedish Daily News"), abbreviated SvD, is a daily List of Swedish newspapers, newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden.
History and profile
The first issue of appeared on 18 December 1884. During the beginning of the 1900s the pap ...
'' show that an order for Wallenberg's arrest was issued by Deputy Commissar for Defence (and future Soviet Premier
The Premier of the Soviet Union () was the head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). From 1923 to 1946, the name of the office was Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, and from 1946 to 1991 its name was ...
) Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (; – 24 February 1975) was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1958. He also served as Minister of Defense (Soviet Union), Minister of Defense, following service in the Red Army during World War II.
...
and transmitted to Malinovsky's headquarters on the day of Wallenberg's disappearance. In 2003, a review of Soviet wartime correspondences indicated that Vilmos Böhm, a Hungarian politician who was also a Soviet intelligence agent, may have provided Wallenberg's name to SMERSH
SMERSH () was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin. The form ...
as a person to detain for possible involvement in espionage.
Information about Wallenberg after his detention is mostly speculative; there were many who claimed to have met him during his imprisonment. Wallenberg was transported by train from Debrecen, through Romania, to Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
. The Soviet authorities may have moved him to Moscow in the hope of exchanging him for defectors in Sweden. Vladimir Dekanozov notified the Swedish government on 16 January 1945 that Wallenberg was under the protection of Soviet authorities. On 21 January 1945, Wallenberg was transferred to Lubyanka prison and held in cell 123 with fellow prisoner Gustav Richter, who had been a police attaché at the German embassy in Romania. Richter testified in Sweden in 1955 that Wallenberg was interrogated once for about an hour and a half, in early February 1945. On 1 March 1945, Richter was moved from his cell and never saw Wallenberg again.
On 8 March 1945, Soviet-controlled Hungarian radio announced that Wallenberg and his driver had been murdered on their way to Debrecen, suggesting that they had been killed by the Arrow Cross Party or the Gestapo
The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
. Sweden's foreign minister, Östen Undén, and its ambassador to the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, Staffan Söderblom, wrongly assumed that they were dead.[ In April 1945, W. Averell Harriman, then of the ]US State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...
, offered the Swedish government help in inquiring about Wallenberg's fate, but the offer was declined.[ Söderblom met with ]Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (; – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician, diplomat, and revolutionary who was a leading figure in the government of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s, as one of Joseph Stalin's closest allies. ...
and Stalin in Moscow on 15 June 1946. Söderblom, still believing Wallenberg to be dead, ignored talk of an exchange for Russian defectors in Sweden.
Death
On 6 February 1957, the Soviet government released a document dated 17 July 1947 that stated: "I report that the prisoner Wallenberg who is well-known to you, died suddenly in his cell this night, probably as a result of a heart attack or heart failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome caused by an impairment in the heart's ability to Cardiac cycle, fill with and pump blood.
Although symptoms vary based on which side of the heart is affected, HF ...
. Pursuant to the instructions given by you that I personally have Wallenberg under my care, I request approval to make an autopsy
An autopsy (also referred to as post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of deat ...
with a view to establishing cause of death.... I have personally notified the minister and it has been ordered that the body be cremated
Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse through Combustion, burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, and ...
without autopsy." The document was signed by Smoltsov, then the head of the Lubyanka prison infirmary, and addressed to Viktor Abakumov
Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov (; 24 April 1908 – 19 December 1954) was a high-level Soviet security official who from 1943 to 1946 was the head of SMERSH in the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, and from 1946 to 1951 of the Minister of St ...
, the Soviet minister of state security. In 1989, Wallenberg's personal belongings were returned to his family, including his passport and cigarette case. Soviet officials said they found the materials when they were upgrading the shelves in a store room.
In 1991, Vyacheslav Nikonov
Vyacheslav Alekseyevich Nikonov (; born 5 June 1956) is a Russian political scientist.
Early life
Nikonov is a grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov, prominent Bolshevik and Soviet foreign minister under Joseph Stalin, whom he was named after, a ...
was charged by the Russian government with investigating Wallenberg's fate. He concluded that Wallenberg died in 1947, executed while a prisoner in Lubyanka. He may have been a victim of the C-2 poison ( carbylamine-choline-chloride) tested at the poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services.
In Moscow in 2000, Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev announced that Wallenberg had been executed in 1947 in Lubyanka prison. He claimed that Vladimir Kryuchkov
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov (; 29 February 1924 – 23 November 2007) was a Soviet lawyer, diplomat, and head of the KGB, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Initially working in the Soviet justice system a ...
, the former Soviet secret police
image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression.
Secre ...
chief, told him about the shooting in a private conversation. The statement did not explain why Wallenberg was killed or why the government had lied about it. General Pavel Sudoplatov claimed that Wallenberg died after being poisoned by Grigory Mairanovsky
Grigory Moiseevich Mairanovsky (, 1899, Batumi – 1964) was a Soviet biochemist and poison developer.
Career
Mairanovsky was born to a Jewish family in Batumi in 1899.
Mairanovsky was the head of several secret laboratories in the Bach Ins ...
, an NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
chemist and torturer. In 2000, Russian prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov signed a verdict posthumously rehabilitating Wallenberg and his driver, Langfelder, as "victims of political repression
Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby ...
". Files pertinent to Wallenberg were turned over to the chief rabbi
A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...
of Russia by the Russian government in September 2007. The items were slated to be housed at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center
The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center opened in Moscow in November 2012. Construction of the museum is estimated to have cost $50 million.
Features
This museum, dedicated to the complex history of Russian Jewry, uses personal testimony, archi ...
in Moscow, which opened in 2012.
In August 2016, new information about Wallenberg's death came to light when the diary of KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
head Ivan Serov
Ivan Alexandrovich Serov (; 13 August 1905 – 1 July 1990) was a Soviet intelligence officer who served as Chairman of the KGB from March 1954 to December 1958 and Director of the GRU from December 1958 to February 1963. Serov was NKVD Commis ...
surfaced after Serov's granddaughter found the diary hidden in a wall of her house. "I have no doubts that Wallenberg was liquidated in 1947," Serov wrote.
Disputes about his death
Several former prisoners have claimed to have seen Wallenberg after his reported death in 1947. In February 1949, former German Colonel Theodor von Dufving, a prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
, provided statements concerning Wallenberg. In the transit camp of Kirov, while being moved to Vorkuta
Vorkuta (; ; Nenets languages, Nenets for "the abundance of bears", "bear corner") is a coal-mining types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin a ...
, Dufving encountered a prisoner dressed in civilian clothes with his own special guard. The prisoner claimed that he was a Swedish diplomat and said he was there "through a great error".
Nazi hunter
A Nazi hunter is an individual who tracks down and gathers information on alleged former Nazis, or SS members, and Nazi collaborators who were involved in the Holocaust, typically for use at trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against hum ...
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal (31 December 190820 September 2005) was an Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. He studied architecture, and was living in Lwów at the outbreak of World War II. He survived the Janowska concentration camp (la ...
searched for Wallenberg and collected several testimonies. For example, British businessman Greville Wynne
Greville Maynard Wynne (19 March 1919 – 28 February 1990) was a British engineer and businessman recruited by Secret Intelligence Service, MI6 because of his frequent travel to Eastern Europe. He acted as a courier to transport top-secret ...
, who was imprisoned in the Lubyanka prison in 1962 for his connection to KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
defector Oleg Penkovsky
Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky (; 23 April 1919 – 16 May 1963), codenamed Hero (by the CIA) and Yoga (by MI6) was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Penkovsky informed the United States and the U ...
, stated that he had talked to, but could not see the face of, a man who claimed to be a Swedish diplomat. Efim (or Yefim) Moshinsky claims to have seen Wallenberg on Wrangel Island
Wrangel Island (, ; , , ) is an island of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is the List of islands by area, 92nd-largest island in the world and roughly the size of Crete. Located in the Arctic Ocean between the Chukchi Sea and East Si ...
in 1962. An eyewitness asserted that she had seen Wallenberg in the 1960s in a Soviet prison where she worked.
During a private conversation about the conditions of detention in Soviet prisons at a Communist Party reception in the mid-1970s, a KGB general is reported to have said that "conditions could not be that harsh, given that in Lubyanka prison there is some foreign prisoner who had been there now for almost three decades."
The last reported sightings of Wallenberg were by two independent witnesses who said they had evidence that he was in prison in November 1987. John Farkas was a resistance fighter during World War II and was the last man claiming to have seen Wallenberg alive. Farkas' son has stated that there have been sightings of Wallenberg "up into the 1980s in Soviet prisons and psychiatric hospital
A psychiatric hospital, also known as a mental health hospital, a behavioral health hospital, or an asylum is a specialized medical facility that focuses on the treatment of severe Mental disorder, mental disorders. These institutions cater t ...
s."
Attempts to find Wallenberg
In the late 1970s, Annette Lantos, one of the people rescued by Wallenberg, established the International Free Wallenberg Committee to pressure the Soviet Union into providing answers about his disappearance. She later tried to enlist US President Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...
to seek further information by sending in a postcard to the ''Ask President Carter'' radio show and by working with Simon Wiesenthal and Jack Anderson to tell Wallenberg's story through a ''Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' column.
Noticing these efforts and angry that Sweden had not gone far enough in their efforts to find Wallenberg, Nina Lagergren, Wallenberg's half-sister, traveled to the United States to campaign with Lantos. The efforts of Lantos and Lagergren eventually led to the creation of the Free Wallenberg Committee in Congress, led by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose goal was to determine what happened to Wallenberg. Lantos' husband and fellow Holocaust survivor, Tom, later continued the congressional push for answers regarding Wallenberg after being elected to the House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
in 1980.
Honorary citizenship
One of Tom Lantos' first acts as a representative in Congress was to recognize Wallenberg as an honorary American citizen. After being told by President Carter that the Soviet Union would not answer questions to America about a non-American citizen, Lantos worked with Senator Moynihan to pass a bill recognizing Wallenberg as such. The effort grew as ''60 Minutes
''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style o ...
'' aired a piece on Wallenberg while the resolution was moving through Congress. Newly elected President Ronald Reagan watched the program and joined Lantos and Moynihan in pushing for the resolution to pass. It eventually passed by a 396–2 vote and was quickly signed into law by Reagan, making Wallenberg the second person in history (Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
being the first) to be made an honorary American citizen by an act of Congress
An act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called Public and private bills, private laws), or to the general public (Public and private bills, public laws). For a Bill (law) ...
.
With his citizenship now granted, the Wallenberg family successfully sued the Soviet Union in 1984 in an American Federal District Court over his disappearance for $39 million, or $1 million per year that Wallenberg's fate has been unknown. However, the Soviet Union ignored the suit and did not pay any of the damages awarded by the judge. They also did not offer any information into his disappearance.
Efforts outside America
Raoul Wallenberg's half-brother, Guy von Dardel, a well-known physicist, retired from CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...
and dedicated the rest of his life to finding out his half-brother's fate. He traveled to the Soviet Union about fifty times for discussions and research, including an examination of the Vladimir prison records. Over the years, von Dardel compiled a 50,000-page archive of interviews, journal articles, letters, and other documents related to his quest. In 1991, Dardel initiated a Swedish-Russian working group to search eleven separate military and government archives from the former Soviet Union for information about Wallenberg's fate, but the group was not able to find useful information. Many, including von Dardel and his daughters, Louise and Marie, do not accept the various versions of Wallenberg's death. They continue to request that the archives in Russia, Sweden, and Hungary become available to impartial researchers.
Present-day attempts
In 2012, Russian lieutenant general
Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was norma ...
Vasily Khristoforov, head of the registration branch of the Russian Federal Security Service
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation �СБ, ФСБ России (FSB) is the principal security agency of Russia and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB; its immediate predecessor was the Federal Counterint ...
, said that the Wallenberg case was still open. He also dismissed any allegation of a continuing cover-up, saying that "this is another state and a different special service" from the Soviet Union and the services in charge of holding Wallenberg.
Declared dead ''in absentia''
On 29 March 2016, an announcement was made by the Swedish Tax Agency
The Swedish Tax Agency () is a government agencies in Sweden, government agency in Sweden responsible for national tax collection and administering the Population registration in Sweden, population registration.
The agency was formed on 1 January ...
that a petition to have Wallenberg declared dead ''in absentia'' was submitted. It stated that if he did not report to the Tax Agency before 14 October 2016, he would be legally declared dead.
Wallenberg was declared dead legally in October 2016, as announced through the petition. Consistent with the approach used in other cases where the circumstances of death were not known, the Swedish tax agency recorded the date of his death as 31 July 1952, five years after he went missing.
Intelligence connections
In May 1996, the Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA) released thousands of previously classified documents regarding Raoul Wallenberg, in response to requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents, along with an investigation conducted by the news magazine '' U.S. News & World Report'', seemingly confirmed the long-held suspicion that Wallenberg had served as an American intelligence asset during his time in Hungary. Wallenberg's name appeared on a roster found in the National Archives
National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention.
Conceptual development
From the Middle Ages i ...
which listed the names of operatives associated with the CIA's wartime predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...
(OSS). The documents also included a 1954 memo from an anonymous CIA source that identified a Hungarian-exile living in Stockholm who, according to the author: "assisted in inserting Wallenberg into Hungary during WWII as an agent of OSS". Another declassified memorandum written in 1990 by the curator of the CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection, William Henhoeffer, characterized the conclusion that Wallenberg was working for the OSS while in Budapest as being "essentially correct".
Of more significance was a communique transmitted by the OSS Secret Intelligence Branch in Bari
Bari ( ; ; ; ) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia Regions of Italy, region, on the Adriatic Sea in southern Italy. It is the first most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy. It is a port and ...
, Italy on 7 November 1944. This message apparently acknowledged that Wallenberg was acting as a liaison
Liaison or Liaisons may refer to:
General usage
* Affair, an unfaithful sexual relationship
* Collaboration
* Co-operation
* Liaison, an egg-based thickening used in cooking
Arts and entertainment
* Liaisons (''Desperate Housewives''), a 2007 ...
between the OSS and '' Magyar Fuggetlensegi Mozgalom'' (the Hungarian Independence Movement or MFM), an underground anti-Nazi resistance organization operating in Budapest. The OSS message noted Wallenberg's contacts with Géza Soós, a high-ranking MFM member. The communique further explained that Soós "may only be contacted" through the Swedish legation in Budapest, which was Wallenberg's workplace and also served as the operational center for his attempts to aid the Hungarian Jews
The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived ...
. The same message's assertion that Wallenberg "will know if he (Soós) is not in Budapest" is also curious, in that by November 1944 Soós was in hiding and knowledge of his whereabouts would have been available only to persons closely involved with the MFM. This conclusion is given further weight by additional evidence suggesting that secret communications between the MFM and US intelligence were being transmitted to Washington by the Stockholm office of Iver C. Olsen, the American OSS operative who initially recruited Wallenberg to go to Budapest in June 1944.
This particular disclosure gave rise to speculation that, in addition to his attempts to rescue the Hungarian Jews, Wallenberg may have also been engaged in a separate effort intended to undermine Hungary's pro-Nazi government on behalf of the OSS. If true, this would seem to add some credence to the potential explanation that it was his association with Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
intelligence that led to Wallenberg being targeted by Soviet authorities in January 1945.
Several other humanitarians who had helped refugees during World War II accordingly disappeared behind the Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were countries connected to the So ...
in the period 1949–50, several years after Wallenberg's disappearance. OSS ties may have been of interest to the Soviets, but are not a complete explanation because some of those detained, i.e. Hermann Field and Herta Field, had not worked for the OSS. All of these humanitarians, however, like Wallenberg, had interacted with many anti-fascist and socialist refugees during the War, and this experience was used in the Stalin regime's factional politics and show trials.
Family
In 2009, reporter Joshua Prager wrote an article in the ''Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' profiling the long-term toll that Raoul Wallenberg's disappearance had on his family. His mother Maj and his stepfather Fredrik von Dardel spent the rest of their lives searching for their son. They both died by suicide, overdosing on pills two days apart in 1979. Their daughter, Nina Lagergren, Raoul's half-sister, attributed their suicide to their despair about never finding their son. Lagergren and Raoul's half-brother Guy von Dardel established organizations and worked to find their brother or confirmation of his death. At the request of their parents, they were to assume he was alive until the year 2000.
During the war, the Wallenberg bank, Stockholms Enskilda Bank, collaborated with the German government. United States Secretary of the Treasury
The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...
Henry Morgenthau Jr. considered Jacob Wallenberg strongly pro-German, and in 1945, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
subjected the Bank to a blockade from engaging in business in the United States that was only lifted in 1947. Author Alan Lelchuk who interviewed, amongst others, Wallenberg's KGB interrogator, wrote a novel that imagines the more powerful of the family may have chosen not to use their influence to locate Raoul as it could have drawn attention to their misdeeds, and they may have considered him an embarrassment, not only for being a man of morality, but his possible homosexuality.
Legacy
Honours
A considerable number of honours, memorials and statues have been dedicated to the memory of Wallenberg. Among them, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, a non-governmental organization which researches Holocaust rescuers and advocates for their recognition, was named in his honor.
Wallenberg myth
In a 2004 paper, Hungarian historian and Holocaust survivor Randolph L. Braham discussed the mythologizing of Wallenberg's rescue activities. Braham notes that Wallenberg's rescue activities did not start in earnest until the Arrow Cross coup in October 1944, and reached their greatest proportions during the siege. He found that through personal heroism and diplomatic support, Wallenberg managed to save about 7,000 to 9,000 Jews. However, during the Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, his death was exploited in Western anti-Soviet propaganda; in order to make the "Soviet crime" seem worse, his rescue operations were greatly exaggerated. Wallenberg was incorrectly identified as the savior of all Jews in Budapest, or at least 100,000 of them, in official statements as well as many popular books and documentaries. As a result, the rescue efforts of other agents in Budapest have been marginalized or ignored.
Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer
Yehuda Bauer (; 6 April 1926 – 18 October 2024) was a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the The Holocaust, Holocaust. He was a professor of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew Univer ...
, who puts the number of lives saved by Wallenberg at 4,500, states Lutz and other neutral emissaries saved more Jews, but Wallenberg was the only one who frequently confronted the Nazis and their Arrow Cross accomplices. Although "fact and fiction mixed" in the testimony of Jewish survivors about Wallenberg after the war, Bauer writes, Wallenberg's "fame was certainly justified by his extraordinary exploits". Bauer also points out that the focus on heroic actions taken by Wallenberg and other non-Jewish rescuers obscures the heroism of Jews who also carried out rescue actions in Budapest in the final months and were forgotten after liberation. According to Bauer, Wallenberg had a modest personality and would have rejected fictionalized anecdotes and exaggerated totals.
In popular culture
Film
A number of films have been made of Wallenberg's life, including the 1985 made-for-television movie '' Wallenberg: A Hero's Story'' (1985), starring Richard Chamberlain, the 1990 Swedish production '' Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg'', featuring Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan John Skarsgård (, ; born 13 June 1951) is a Swedish actor. He is known for his collaborations with director Lars von Trier, appearing in ''Breaking the Waves'' (1996), ''Dancer in the Dark'' (2000), '' Dogville'' (2003), ''Melancholia' ...
, and various documentaries, such as ''Raoul Wallenberg: Buried Alive'' (1984), the AFI Award-winning ''Raoul Wallenberg, Between The Lines'' (1985) and ''Searching for Wallenberg'' (2003). He also appears in the Spanish television series '' El ángel de Budapest'' and is played by Iván Fenyő - the series features relatives and the Winnipeg lawyer still piloting inquiries into his case, and was released in Canada and broadcast on the Bravo! network.
Art
Wallenberg is featured prominently in the work of painter and Holocaust survivor Alice Lok Cahana
Alice Lok Cahana (February 7, 1929 – November 28, 2017) was a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. Lok Cahana was a teenage inmate in the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Guben and Bergen-Belsen camps: her most well-known works are her writings and abstract paint ...
whose father was saved by Wallenberg.
Music
* "Wallenberg" (1982) is a track by ''The (Hypothetical) Prophets'', a band project of Bernard Szajner.
* "Raoul Wallenberg" (1991) is a track on the album '' Rude Awakening'' by Andy Irvine.
Opera
* '' Wallenberg''. Opera premiered at the Opernhaus Dortmund
Opernhaus Dortmund is the opera house of Dortmund, Germany, operated by the Theater Dortmund organisation. A new opera house opened in 1966, replacing an earlier facility which opened in 1904 and was destroyed during World War II. It was built o ...
on 5 May 2001.
** Composer Erkki-Sven Tüür
Erkki-Sven Tüür (; born 16 October 1959) is an Estonian composer.
Life and career
Tüür was born in Kärdla on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa. He studied flute and percussion at the Tallinn Music School from 1976 to 1980 and composition wi ...
, Libretto of Lutz Hübner
* ''Raoul''. Opera premiered at the Theater Bremen on 21 February 2008.
** Composer Gershon Kingsley, Libretto of Michael Kunze
Michael Rolf Kunze (born 9 November 1943, in Prague) is a foremost German musical theater lyricist and librettist.
He is best known for the hit musicals ''Elisabeth (musical), Elisabeth'' (1992), ''Tanz der Vampire'' (1996), ''Mozart!'' (1999), ...
See also
* List of unsolved deaths
This list of unsolved deaths includes notable cases where:
* The cause of death could not be officially determined following an investigation
* The person's identity could not be established after they were found dead
* The cause is known, but th ...
* Folke Bernadotte
Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (2 January 1895 – 17 September 1948) was a Swedish nobleman and diplomat. In World War II, he negotiated the release of about 450 Danish Jews and 30,550 non-Jewish prisoners of many nations from the Nazi ...
* Individuals and groups assisting Jews during the Holocaust
* Chiune Sugihara
* Ho Feng-Shan
Ho Feng-Shan (, September 10, 1901 – September 28, 1997) was a Chinese diplomat and writer for the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China. When he was consul-general in Vienna during World War II, he risked his life and career to ...
* Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
* Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity
Notes
References
Further reading
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* Marton, Kati 1995 ''Wallenberg : missing hero'' (Little, Brown and Company) ISBN 1-55970-276-1
* Levine, Paul A. ''Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Myth, History and Holocaust'' (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2010)
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External links
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States
Wallenberg at Michigan – University of Michigan Heritage Project
Searching for Raoul Wallenberg
Holocaust Rescuers Bibliography with information and links to a variety of books about Raoul Wallenberg
University of Michigan Wallenberg Committee
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallenberg, Raoul
1912 births
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Congressional Gold Medal recipients
Enforced disappearances in the Soviet Union
Jewish Hungarian history
Missing person cases in Hungary
People declared dead in absentia
People from Lidingö Municipality
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Diplomats for Sweden
Swedish expatriates in the United States
Swedish Righteous Among the Nations
Swedish people imprisoned abroad
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Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning alumni
Unsolved deaths
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