Bruno Kreisky Foundation

for Human Rights

Ambassador Dr. Herbert Amry (Austria)

Assassinated, posthumously awarded

March 21, 1939, Vienna - July 11, 1985, Athens
Born on February 21, 1939 Vienna- Died in July 11, 1985 Athens, Greece.

Dr. Herbert Amry was an Austrian diplomat, chief cabinet in the Federal Chancellery, and a recognized expert on the Middle East. He was also the foreign minister Bruno Kreisky’s secretary from 1963 to 1966. Afterwards Amry worked in the Austrian embassies in New Delhi and Bangkok. Subsequently, he was the head of the Legal Service Department of the Foreign Ministry, General Consul in Istanbul, and an Austrian diplomat in the capital of Lebanon, Beirut. In the early eighties Amry headed the security department of the foreign minister and became chief cabinet of Federal Chancellor Kreisky. His crucial service between 1983-1985 during the successful Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange shows Amry’s commitment to peace and the protection of human rights.

In 1985 as an Austrian diplomat in Athens, Herbert Amry tried to expose the illegal transport of weapons to Iran. The official information he found was ignored for a long time by both the foreign and domestic ministries. When it was eventually unearthed and after Dr Herbert Amry’s mysterious death in Athen on July 12th 1985, it became known publicly as the Noricum Scandal. Long after Amry’s death the Noricum Scandal was the subject of a parliamentary investigation committee, and resulting legal proceedings.