Rudolph Philipp, and Eduard Paul Hille

When the Vishinsky Memorandum was issued in 1947, denying that Raoul Wallenberg was to be found on Soviet territory, Rudolph Philipp questioned the veracity of this claim. Like SAPO chief Otto Danielsson, he began collecting evidence that would counter the Soviet position – only not as a Swedish official but as an Austrian author. His findings were later published in the book Raoul Wallenberg: Diplomat, Kampe, Samarit (Fredborgs, 1948). The first Raoul Wallenberg Committee in Sweden – under Philipp, Belander and others, pressed for renewed formal pressure on the Soviet government by the Swedes – but were unsuccessful in their attempts.

According to Christoph Gann’s book Raoul Wallenberg: So viele Menschen retten wie moglich, Edward Sandeberg, a Swedish journalist held in the USSR, testified when he returned to Sweden in 1946 that he had heard that a diplomat by the name of Wallenberg was in Soviet prisons. As Swedish P.M. Unden was not interested in stirring up the case at that time, no real action was taken. In 1948, Per Anger asked Sandeberg to give a complete statement about his Gulag experiences and the information he had received on Wallenberg. Only later, however, did Sandeberg remember the name of the German prisoner from whom he had heard Wallenberg mentioned – namely Hille who had been a cellmate of Langfelder and who was released along with Wallenberg’s cellmate, Gustav Richter, and others in 1953 – 1954 under the Khruschev-Adenauer treaty.

Hille who had been repatratied to East Germany met Phillip in Berlin in 1954. Phillip then heard the story directly of how Wallenberg and Langfelder, rather than dying in Hungary, had been brought to Moscow by an NKVD major. Philipp in turn helped Hille to attain asylum in West Germany with a former woman prisoner who later became his wife. He later published his interviews with Hille, only at the time used a psedonymn for his protection.

Hille, who had been a Nazi journalist at the time of his capture, showed remarkable recall in the details which he offered Philipp and others who interviewed them. This combined with other testimonies from the “primary witnesses” – cellmates Richter, Kitschman, Huber and wall-tapping corrrespondents such as Bergmann and Wallenstein – led to renewed Swedish pressure and eventually the Gromyko Memorandum which reversed the Vishinsky claim, replacing it with allegations that Wallenberg died in 1947.