Baron Ferdinand Manndorff

Baron Ferdinand Manndorf was born on November 22, 1922, in the small town of Raabs an der Thaya in Lower Austria into a 12th-century noble family. After graduation, he studied law, but in 1942 he had to retire. Details of his military service are not known, only that he first served in the 7th Squadron of the 39th Armored Regiment, from where he was transferred to the 33rd Armored Training Division, and in 1944 to the Feldherrnhalle Armored Regiment, where he became an auxiliary officer of one of the division commanders. After the war he gained a reputation in Austria as a journalist and politician of the Austrian People's Party, and between 1980 and 1989 he was also a member of the Austrian Parliament. Shortly before his death, in a laudation, the following was said about his military experiences. "As a soldier and a young officer, you survived almost everything you shouldn't have survived. The Russians are literally going to shoot your hair off your head with a series of machine guns. You're ordered into a pit to be shot there — you climb out of it without injury. Dressed as an assistant nurse, kitchen boy and Hungarian gendarme, you escape the enemy several times in the Budapest quarries. Then, when you are finally locked up in the prisoner of war camp in Szeged, in March 1945 you will walk out in front of the Russian guards and make your way all the way to Hinterbrühl. The Russian military has just moved into your birthplace."