Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 52. (2007)
AGSTNER, Rudolf: Austria(-Hungary) and her diplomatic and consular missions in Mexico and Guatemala
Rudolf Agstner On April 29, 1970, the embassy in Mexico City was instructed to rather delay the question of establishing a branch office there and in any case to refrain from renting office space of apartment or hiring of staff [...]• A definite decision will depend from the further development of the situation in Guatemala [...].124 As a consequence, Ehrlich-Adam remained in Mexico City, and later was detailed to the Austrian Permanent Mission to the UN for the duration of the XXVth session of the General Assembly. In December of 1970 he returned to Guatemala for a few days to bid farewell; he left for Vienna on January 14, 1971. Having failed in this attempt to open an Austrian embassy in Guatemala, whose existence had already been notified to the Guatemalan authorities at the end of March 1970, a new solution had to be devised. In September of 1970 the Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Federal Economic Chamber arranged to have commercial delegate Franz Rieger notified to the Guatemalan authorities as “commercial attaché” of an - inexistent - Austrian embassy in Guatemala City. Hans Kaufmann succeeded Franz Rieger, the first “commercial attaché”, in 1973. Under his tenure office rooms were bought in 1981 in the name of “the Government of the Republic of Austria”, although Kaufinann represented the Federal Economic Chamber. From 1982 to 1989, Dr. Rudolf Wiederwald held the post of commercial delegate i.e. commercial attaché of the embassy. In 1993 it became evident that the Federal Economic Chamber wanted to close the commercial delegation in Guatemala City, which was run since 1989 by Mag. Bruno Freytag. This measure would have brought an end to the official presence of Austria in Guatemala. In 1993, a new attempt was started to establish a real Austrian embassy in Guatemala, and as in 1970, the matter was not brought before the Council of Ministers for approval. Dr. Thomas Hajnoczi was appointed head of the new embassy in the capacity of chargé d’affaires a.i. on August 18, 1993. Mag. Bruno Freytag, the commercial delegate and commercial attaché, terminated his activities on August 31, 1993. The following day, Mag. Christine Moosbrugger, chancellor of the new embassy, arrived in Guatemala City and took charge of the embassy, situated in the premises of the former commercial delegation, which had been bought by the Austrian Foreign Ministry. On November 5, 1993, the Austrian Embassy Guatemala City began her consular functions. The new charge d’affaires a.i., then deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, had to stay in New York until the end of the session of the General Assembly and arrived in Guatemala on January 4, 1994 only. For personal reasons he rather soon requested to be recalled to Vienna and left Guatemala on September 3, 1995 after a stay of barely 8 months. The second attempt to establish an Austrian embassy in Guatemala took place under better auspices than the first. Before the departure of Dr. Hajnoczi, Foreign Austrian Foreign Ministry archive, Foreign Ministry 85.726-11/70 of April 29, 1970 to Embassy Mexico City. 314
