Generalmajor Ministerialrat Maximilian Wilhelm August Ronge

Photo by Maximilian Ronge — Maximilian Ronge
Image: Alchetron - Free Social Encyclopedia

Personalia

Born:

November 9, 1874, Vienna

Died:

September 10, 1953, Vienna

Profession:

Soldier and civil servant

Persecution:

Imprisonment 13.03.1938 - 02.04.1938,
Dachau concentration camp 02.04.1938 - 13.08.1938

KZ Number:

13861

Memberships

Curriculum Vitae

Maximilian Ronge was born in Vienna as the legitimate son of the military accountant Liborius Ronge and Maria, née Zech. After five years of elementary school in Vienna-Ober-St. Veit, he attended the Staatsrealschule Sechshaus bei Wien, where he graduated in 1893. He then graduated from the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt and was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1896. Until 1899, he was assigned as a lieutenant to the 2nd Regiment of the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger, which was stationed in Vienna and Rovereto. From 1899 to 1901, he attended the war college in Vienna and served in the troops in Graz, Ljubljana and Nisko (Galicia) until his transfer to the military secret service ("Evidenzburo"). He married Elsa and had a daughter with her.

In 1907, Maximilian Ronge was transferred to the Evidenzburo, the intelligence department of the Imperial and Royal General Staff. General Staff, of the Imperial and Royal Army, where he was a pupil of Colonel Alfred Redl. When Colonel Alfred Redl was exposed as a double agent in 1913 and induced to commit suicide, Maximilian Ronge, together with August Urbański von Ostrymiecz, Franz Höfer von Feldsturm and the military judge Wenzel Vorlicek, was a member of the commission which, on the orders of the Chief of Staff of the Imperial and Royal Army, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, quietly cleared up the case of Colonel Redl.

From 1914, Maximilian Ronge was assigned to the intelligence department of the Imperial and Royal Army High Command. Army High Command, where he investigated and fought against 'hostile' and 'revolutionary' opponents of the Dual Monarchy during the First World War. In 1917, he was promoted to colonel and became head of the intelligence department of the army high command and the Evidenzbüro. In 1918, Maximilian Ronge witnessed the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the dismantling of the dual monarchy and the expulsion of the Habsburgs.

After the founding of the First Republic, he became deputy head of the Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees Office in Vienna. A staunch legitimist, he had close contacts with Otto von Habsburg

On March 12, 1938, the opponent of National Socialism witnessed the demise of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. On March 13, 1938, he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported on April 2, 1938, on the so-called 'Prominent Transport' to the Dachau concentration camp. Through the mediation of Wilhelm Canaris, the German head of counterintelligence, Maximilian Ronge was released on August 13, 1938. According to the 'Nuremberg Race Laws', which now also apply in occupied Austria, his wife Elsa Ronge is a 'Mischling I. The head of the secret service of the old Austria had taken a pronounced anti-Nazi stance in the interwar period, which led to his arrest by the Gestapo just one day after the Anschluss, on March 13, 1938. Ronge, the old Austrian civil servant, left his apartment in Gersthof in full dress uniform, complete with bicorne hat, spur ankle boots, sabre and glacé gloves. Some of his medals adorned his uniform coat; those that no longer had room he took with him in small boxes. Over thirty in total.

_{The press from January 18, 2013}

Photo of Major General Maximilian Ronge in custody in the police detention center on Roßauer Lände — Major General Maximilian Ronge in custody in the police detention center on Roßauer Lände
Image: DÖW

On his return to Vienna, he works on 'war studies' at the Vienna War Archives. In April and May 1945, Maximilian Ronge witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic. Although he was already 71 years old, he immediately made contact with the American liberators and advised them on setting up a new secret service in Austria. He joins the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). From 1948, these plans became more and more concrete.

Before the founding of the new Army Intelligence Office and the withdrawal of the liberation forces in 1955, Maximilan Ronge died at the age of 78. He finds his final resting place at the cemetery in Vienna-Gersthof.

Skip map