Luise Pompe, who passed away in Vienna, Austria, on 11 November 2022, has been officially recognized by LongeviQuest as the oldest person in the nation’s history. At 114 years and 29 days old, she remains the only person in Austria to have reached the ages of both 113 and 114.
Pompe was born in Chernivtsi (then Czernowitz), Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine, on 13 October 1908. As a young girl, she took piano lessons from the piano teacher Hedda Ballon (1893–1979), who was known far beyond Austria’s borders. Playing the piano was her life-long passion. A newspaper report from 1932 mentioned that she was already working as a teacher at that time.
On her 110th birthday in 2018. (Source: 24StundenPflege)
Pompe remained unmarried and childless throughout her life. She worked for many years as a senior librarian at the Austrian National Library and also gave piano lessons for a few years. Around 1965, she worked as a librarian and lived in an apartment in Vienna’s 2nd district, Leopoldstadt. She retired on 31 December 1970, at the age of 62.
Following the passing of Anna Wiesmayr on 23 September 2019, she became Austria’s oldest resident, at the age of 110 years, 345 days.
On 10 April 2021, at the age of 112 years, 179 days, she became Austria’s oldest person ever, after surpassing the final age of Maria Mika (1882–1994).
On 16 July 2022, after Josefine Ollmann‘s death, she became the last European born in 1908. At the time of her passing, she was the third-oldest living person in Europe, after Lucile Randon (France) and María Branyas Morera (Spain).
