Raoul Wallenberg; J. Powell

THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON LIBERTY RaoulWallenberg, GreatAngel of Rescue by Jim Powell H ow can a single individual fight tyranny? What can be done for liberty against overwhelming odds? There are few stories as stirring as that of Raoul Wallenberg. He defied the evil forces of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, two of history's worst mass murderers. He confronted racists, torturers, assassins, and even Hitler's chief executioner, Adolf Eichmann, while saving almost 100,000 lives. More astounding, he saved lives inside enemy territory, since escape was impossible. He was armed only with a pistol, which he never used. Working in Nazi-controlled Hungary, Wal lenberg liberated thousands of Jews from boxcars bound for the gas chambers. He pulled Jews out of the death marches. He saved Jews from being shot and dumped into the Danube. He singlehandedly thwarted Nazi plans to massacre 70,000Jews remaining in the Budapest Central Ghetto.

After the Red Army captured Budapest, Wallenberg was taken away by Stalin's dreaded NKVD secret police. Apparently they tortured him and tried to turn him into a Soviet spy, but he remained defiant. Wallenberg, greatest libertarian hero of the twentieth century, vanished into the wretched Soviet gulag and continues to be an agonizMr. Powellis editorofLaissezFaireBooks and a senior fellowat the Cato Institute.He has writtenfor the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, American Heritage, and more than three dozen other publications.Copyright© 1996 by Jim Powell. ing mystery today. But for people around the world, he is the Angel of Rescue, and the mere mention of his name brings tears. Wallenberg certainly didn't look like the stuffthat heroes are made of. He was medium height with brown eyes, a large nose, small chin, and receding curly brown hair. Tibor Baranski, an associate, described Wallenberg as "a thin man, rather shy, and virtually fearless. He dressed elegantly and was always clean-shaven."

Bjorn Burckhardt, who had met Wallen berg in South Africa, described him this way: "Raoul did not do things in a normal manner. His way of thinking was so winding and involuted. But his intellect impressed every one. And he could outtalk anyone. Perhaps his greatest asset was his charm, which influ enced people to respect him." Wallenberg, recalled Swedish diplomat Per Anger, "was not a superman type. We met in Stockholm some years before he came on his mission to Budapest in 1944, and we became very good friends. I learned to know Raoul more as an intellectual. ... He spoke with a soft voice and sometimes looked like a dreamer. ... It did not take long, however, till you discovered that he had a remarkable inner strength, a core of fighting spirit. Fur thermore' he was a clever negotiator and organizer, unconventional, and extraordinar ily inventive. I became convinced that no one was better qualified for the assignment to Budapest than Raoul."

757 758 THE FREEMAN • NOVEMBER 1996 Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg was born Au gust 4, 1912, in his maternal grandparents' summer home on Kapptsta, an island near Stockholm. He descended from a long line of Lutheran capitalists who built banks, fac tories, ships, and railroads-some 50 busi nesses altogether. His father Raoul Wallen berg, Sr., a 23-year-old naval officer, died of abdominal cancer three months before young Raoul was born. His mother, Maj Wising, was the great-granddaughter of a Jewish jew eler. Raoul's paternal grandfather, Gustaf Wal lenberg, Swedish ambassador to Turkey, be came his mentor. Gustaf was an individualist, an entrepreneur, and a free trader who be lieved people should be bound together by peaceful commercial relations rather than military alliances. Gustaf arranged for Raoul to broaden his vision by spending summers in France and Germany, and he learned French and Ger man as well as English. To better understand America, Raoul enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he earned an architec ture degree in 1935. Then Gustaf arranged for the young man to serve as an intern with the Wallenberg family bank in Capetown, South Africa, where Raoul discovered that banking wasn't for him. After six months, he became an intern with a Dutch business in Haifa, Palestine. He heard European refu gees tell horrifying stories of Nazi barbarism.