Generalinspektor Hofrat Dr. Rudolf Manda

Photo by Rudolf Manda — Rudolf Mandl
Image: BPDion Wien

Personalia

Born:

October 14, 1882, Rudnik

Died:

March 16, 1958, Vienna

Profession:

Civil servant

Persecution:

Imprisonment 11.03.1938 - 02.04.1938,
Dachau concentration camp 02.04.1938 - 24.12.1938

KZ Number:

13827

Curriculum Vitae

Rudolf Manda was born in Rudnik in Upper Silesia [today: Rudnik in Poland] as the legitimate son of the teacher Edmund Manda and his wife Maria, née Matuszek. After elementary school, he attended the grammar school in Teschen [today: Cieszyn in Poland] where he graduated in 1901. In 1902 he enrolled in law at the University of Vienna. Between October 1, 1906 and September 31, 1907, he interrupted his studies for a one-year volunteer year in the military, where he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the reserves. On July 22, 1908, he finally received his doctorate in law.

Rudolf Manda joined the Vienna Police Directorate on August 25, 1908. In 1914, he was transferred to the security guard, where he worked as a training commander and officer in charge of armaments and equipment. In 1927, he was responsible for rearming the security guard and equipping it with armored cars. In 1933 Rudolf Manda was promoted to central inspector and in 1934 to general inspector of the Vienna Security Guard. In this function, he took an active stance against illegal National Socialists and illegal National Socialist organizations. During a meeting of high-ranking police officers in Rome, he met Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler. He writes a travel report of this police meeting, with critical comments on the Reichsführer. This report was leaked to Heinrich Himmler, which later contributed to Rudolf Manda's arrest.

[...]
As general inspector of the Vienna Security Guard, I campaigned against the ideas and goals of National Socialism in word and deed, especially from the time the NSDAP was banned in Austria until my arrest on July 11, 1938, and played a decisive and decisive role in numerous executive actions against Nazi acts of terror that were carried out with weapons (e.g. the Nazi putsch on July 25, 1934).
The fact that I in particular, in my exposed position in the Austrian state executive, acted with particular vigor in this regard is probably clearest from the fact that of the thousands of employees in the same anti-Nazi spirit, I and a small group of police officers were singled out, arrested and deported to concentration camps.
[...]

Rudolf Manda on February 5, 1946

On the night of the German Wehrmacht's invasion of Austria, from March 11 to March 12, 1938, Rudolf Manda was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to the Dachau concentration camp on April 2, 1938 on the so-called 'Prominent Transport'. After Auguste Manda personally intervened with Heirich Himmler, Rudolf Manda was released from the concentration camp on December 24, 1938 and returned to Vienna. However, he remained under constant observation by the Gestapo.

In Vienna, Rudolf Manda witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic in April and May 1945. At the beginning of July 1945, he was rehabilitated and reinstated. He became head of the administrative department of the Vienna police and was promoted to head of the office of Vienna's police president Josef Holaubek on June 15, 1948.

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