Dr. Robert Danneberg

Robert Danneberg was born in Vienna as the second child of Jakob Danneberg and his wife Sofie. His father came from the Jewish community in Budapest and emigrated from there to Vienna, where he founded an advertising agency and edited the caricature magazine Pschütt-Karikaturen. After elementary school, Robert Danneberg attended the Akademisches Gymnasium and graduated with distinction in 1903. He then enrolled in law at the University of Vienna, where he received his doctorate in 1908. He then completed his year in court.

In 1903, Robert Danneberg joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) and the Young Workers' Association. Between 1906 and 1918, he was editor of the monthly magazine Jugendlicher Arbeiter. He subsequently held various positions in the SDAP until 1918. In 1918, he became a municipal councillor and later a member of the Vienna provincial parliament. From 1920 to 1932, he was President of the Vienna Provincial Parliament. Between 1932 and 1934, he was Finance Councillor of the City of Vienna. At the same time, he was a member of the National Council from 1919 to 1934.

On February 9, 1934, Robert Danneberg supported the appeal of the Christian Social Leopold Kunschak in the Vienna City Council to pool all democratic forces to fight National Socialism. This appeal went unheeded. As part of the socialist uprising, Robert Danneberg was arrested on February 12, 1934 by police officers of the authoritarian corporative state under the chancellor dictatorship of Dr. Engelbert Dollfuß and released on October 9, 1934. He then became actively involved in the underground SDAP and cultivated contacts with the Revolutionary Socialists. . In 1935, the proceedings initiated in 1934 for high treason were dropped.

In the run-up to the invasion of Austria by the German Wehrmacht, Robert Danneberg refused to leave the country. In the night from March 11 to March 12, 1938, he finally tried to flee to the Czech Republic, but was turned back at the border. On his return to Vienna, he was arrested by the Gestapo at Nordbahnhof station. Robert Danneberg was deported to the Dachau concentration camp on April 2, 1938 on the so-called Prominent Transport. On September 23, 1938, he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he remained until October 17, 1942. The National Socialists then deported him to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was probably murdered on December 12, 1942. His ashes are missing.