Hofrat Dr. Rudolf Anton Ruthensteiner

Rudolf Anton Ruthensteiner was born in Ungenach in the district of Vöcklabruck in Upper Austria as the legitimate son of the teacher Rudolf Ruthensteiner and his wife Karoline, née Ragerer, the fifth of six children. After elementary school in Ungenach, he attended the Jesuit boarding school 'Aloisianum' at Freinberg in Linz. When the episcopal grammar school 'Petrinum' was founded in Urfahr near Linz in 1897, the Aloisianum ceased to operate and he transferred to the Petrinum for a year. In order to save the boarding school costs, he completed the 7th and 8th grade at the public grammar school in Ried, where he passed his school-leaving examination in 1900.

In the same year, Rudolf Ruthensteiner enrolled in law at the University of Vienna. In the winter semester of 1901, he continued his studies at the University of Prague and joined the student fraternity Ferdinandea Prague. In the winter semester of 1902, he changed his place of study to Graz and joined the student association Carolina Graz. In 1906, he was awarded a doctorate in law and completed his court clerkship in Linz. In the same year, he joined the state service as a legal trainee and was assigned to the Upper Austrian State Mortgage Institution [today: HYPO Oberösterreich]. In 1907, he married Leopoldine Petschnek and subsequently became the father of two daughters and three sons.

On March 12, 1938, the devout Catholic and staunch Austrian witnessed the demise of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. One day after the occupation of Austria, Rudolf Ruthensteiner was relieved of his duties without pay and forced to retire. He is replaced by a member of the NSDAP.

The Ruthensteiner family's city villa in Linz at Knabenseminarstraße 24 is claimed by the new National Socialist deputy mayor for his own residential purposes and the family has to move out of their house. He and his wife initially moved to his sister's in Salzburg, and in the spring of 1939 to his son Walter's farm in Ruprechtshofen. He supplements his income with handicrafts such as batik work, but also works on the farm. His son Rudolf Ruthensteiner was arrested in 1943 for 'deterioration of the military strength of the German people'.

From 1942, he increasingly suffered from heart problems with angina pectoris and finally succumbed to this ailment in 1944 at the age of 63, finding his final resting place at the Linz-Urfahr parish cemetery.