Emanuel Treu

Born:	08-08-1915
Faculty:	Law School
Category:	Expelled student

Emanuel TREU, born on August 8^th, 1915 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), son of Josef Treu (1887-19__, rubber stamp producer) and Olga Treu, née Spitzer (1892-1976). He lived in Vienna's 17^th district, Syringgasse 9/3/22. He graduated from high school (Bundesrealgymnasium Wien 8, Albertgasse) in 1933 and started his law studies at the University of Viennna in fall term 1934/35. He was enrolled finally in the spring term 1938 at the Law School in the 4^th and last year of his studies. Only in June 1938 he was allowed to continue his studies in spring term 1938 in the context of the 2%-Numerus clausus of Jewish Students until the end of the term. But finally he was forced to quit his studies for racist reason after the takeover of power of National-Socialism and had to leave the University of Vienna. Emanuel Treu was involved in the Austrian scout movement and was arrested by the Vienna GeStaPo after the "Anschluss" in March 1938. Before being arrested again, he managed to escape to Switzerland, where he was able to continue his law studies at the "Institut des hautes études internationales et du développement" in Geneva and, after his conditions of internment had been eased in 1942, to complete them towards the end of the war. His parents had managed to escape to New York via Genoa at the end of 1939, and he also tried - albeit unsuccessfully - to emigrate to the United States of America. On November 23^rd, 1942, he married the Swiss Marie-Louise-Justine Bader (b. 1914) in Basel. During his time in Switzerland, he also converted to the Protestant faith.
He was also active in the anti-fascist resistance movement and, along with Otto and Fritz Molden, he was an important interface with the Austrian "O5" resistance movement in Switzerland and in direct contact with the "OSS office in Bern" (headed by the later CIA director Allen Dulles). After the end of the war, he returned from Switzerland to Vienna in the spring of 1945, where he became a staff member in the Office for Foreign Affairs (Federal Chancellery) in February 1946. As a non-party secretary to Foreign Minister Dr. Karl Gruber, he was involved in clarifying the "South Tyrol issue" and in 1947 was appointed to the "Political Representation of Austria" in Belgrade with the task of finding out about Austrian prisoners of war in Yugoslavia and getting them released, which he succeeded in doing despite numerous difficulties until 1951. In April 1948 he married Christina Popovic in Yugoslavia, and soon their sons Thomas (1949, later brigadier and sanitary chief in the Austrian army) and Martin (1954, later photographer) were born.

Emanuel Treu was from 1953 Austrian Ambassador in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and from 1955 also still representative of the Austrian Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, and Austrian Envoy of the Embassy in Venezuela. From 1959/60 to 1965 he was again in Geneva and appointed as Austrian Representative to the United Nations/UN in Geneva and also worked for the International Red Cross, the International Labor Organization ILO and the World Health Organization WHO and was also Head of the Austrian Delegation to the European Free Trade Association EFTA in Geneva, founded in 1960, and the official representative of Austria to the Council of EFTA.

From 1968, Ambassador Dr. Emanuel Treu was in charge of the newly established department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs "Office for International Conferences and Organizations" in Vienna and advised the directors of the Vienna-based UN organizations UNIDO and IAEA and was entrusted with the project appraisal and construction of the "UNO-City" in Vienna.
From 1974 he was also a lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna and its director from 1975-1976. He was honoured with numerous awards, including the Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria (1968), the Colombian Order del Mèrito Industrial (1955), the Commander's Cross of the Colombian Order of San Carlos (1957) and the Commander's Cross of the Brazilian Order Cruzeiro do Sul (1959). Ambassador Dr. Emanuel Treu died on August 13^th, 1976 in Vienna.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") IUR 1937-1938; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 490; Rudolf AGSTNER/Gertrude ENDERLE-BURCEL/Michaela FOLLNER (Hg.), Österreichs Spitzendiplomaten zwischen Kaiser und Kreisky - Biographisches Handbuch der Diplomaten des Höherenen Auswärtigen Amtes 1918 bis 1959, Vienna 2009; Elisabeth EULER, Antifaschismus und Widerstand in Österreich anhand der drei Biographien Raoul Bumballa, Emanuel Treu, Albrecht Gaiswinkler und die Rezeption in der 2. Republik, unprinted phil. Diss. Univ. Vienna, Vienna 2014, 112-153; information from his son Prof. Dr. Thomas Treu, Vienna 12/2020.

Herbert Posch