Ranshofen-Wertheimer, Egon

Egon was born into a Catholic family of landowners of Jewish descent (after the Anschluss, his family fled from Austria). During the First World War, he became interested in Marxism , studied in Vienna , Zurich , Berlin , Munich and Heidelberg . At the University of Heidelberg he became close to the circle of socialists, in the following years he moved to the position of social democrats. From 1921 to 1924 he worked as a newspaper editor in Hamburg , and from 1931 he became a foreign correspondent for the social democratic newspaper Vorwärts in London . In London, his first book, Portrait of the British Labor Party , was written, which immediately became a bestseller. At the same time, his friendship and collaboration began with the journalist and economist from Salzburg Leopold Kor.

From 1930 to 1949 - diplomatic service in Geneva .

In 1940 - emigration to the USA . In America, Ranshofen-Wertheimer taught at the American University of Washington and collaborated on the Carnegie Peace Foundation . In 1945–46 he worked at the UN international consulate.

During the war, he appeared in the press (in The New York Times and other publications) with articles supporting the US government in its opposition to Nazism and exposing the latter. From 1946 to 1955 he worked in various UN commissions. After retiring in 1956, he was a consultant to the Austrian mission at the UN for a long time.

In his work, The International Secretariat - a Great Experiment in International Administration, Egon Ranshofen-Wertheimer formulated the UN fundamental principles.

After the occupation of Austria by the forces of the anti-Hitler coalition, Egon Ranshofen-Wertheimer and Leopold Kor did a lot to revive the independent Austrian state on a new basis and facilitated the early admission of the young Austrian republic to the UN ( 1955 ).