Book news: The soft power of royal heirs

In August last year I participated in a conference on the soft power of royal heirs at the University of St Andrews, and now Palgrave Macmillan has gathered the lectures given at this conference in a book titled Royal Heirs and the Uses of Soft Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe, edited by Frank Lorenz Müller and Heidi Mehrkens and published earlier this month. I write about how the Bernadottes during the Swedish-Norwegian union of crowns tried to create a Norwegian identity for the heirs, particularly by the power of presence, education and the office of Viceroy, while Maria-Christina Marchi deals with Italy, Kristina Widestedt with Sweden, Erik Goldstein with the United States, Milinda Banerjee with the Bengal, Janet Ridley, Imke Polland and Edward Owens, with Britain, Alma Hannig with Austria-Hungary, Richard Meyer Forsting with Spain, Miriam Schneider with Greece, Jeroen Koch with the Netherlands and Frederik Frank Sterkenburgh with Prussia, and Frank Lorenz Müller, Monika Wienfort and Heidi Mehrkens provide more general overviews of the topic.

My latest article: The legend of Franz Joseph

November has just begun but the November issue of Majesty (Vol. 37, No. 11) has already been on sale for a week and a half. As this month marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary, my article in this issue deals with the last but one Habsburg, his final years, his death, his legend and the irony that he remains the most popular Habsburg ruler today although his 68-year-reign was in many ways a failure.

First great-grandchild for King Albert II

The former Belgian monarch King Albert II, who abdicated in 2013, and his wife Queen Paola became great-grandparents for the first time yesterday, when their grandson Prince Amedeo and his wife Elisabetta "Lilli" became the parents of a girl, who saw the light of day at St Peter's Hospital in Brussels at 3.30 a.m. She was 52 centimetres long and weighed 3.3 kg. Prince Amedeo is the eldest son of Princess Astrid and was, until his uncle Philippe's late marriage in 1999, often thought to be a future Belgian monarch but is now sixth in line to the Belgian throne.
He did not seek royal consent ahead of his marriage to Elisabetta Maria Rosboch von Wolkenstein in July 2014, but later received it retroactively. King Philippe's decision to restrict the title Prince(ss) of Belgium to children and grandchildren of the monarch and heir apparent means that the newborn will not be a Princess of Belgium. However, she may use those titles Prince Amedeo has got from his father, a grandson of the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor, i.e. Archduchess of Austria-Este and Princess of Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and Modena.
Postscript: It was announced the next day that the newborn's name will be Anna Astrid, the names of her two grandmothers.

Walburga Habsburg Douglas loses Parliament seat

A week after the Swedish general election all the votes have now been counted and the distribution of Parliament seats between parties and candidates finalised. Some of my readers may be interested in knowing that Walburga Habsburg Douglas, the former Archduchess of Austria-Hungary and daughter of that country's last crown prince, Otto von Habsburg, was not re-elected to the Swedish Parliament.
Walburga Habsburg Douglas was first elected to Parliament for the Conservative party in 2006 and was re-elected in 2010. In this year's election she was demoted to the eighth position on her party's list for the county of Södermanland, meaning that she would need a lot of personal votes to supersede those ahead of her on the list. However, as the Conservatives won three seats from Södermanland and Walburga Habsburg Douglas received only 117 votes she will be neither an MP nor a substitute (i.e. one of those who step in if an MP is absent or renounces his or her seat). Her parliamentary career thus seems to have come to an end.

Book news: Some books due this autumn

With autumn approaching it seems this year’s book harvest will be a rather rich one. Among the most interesting titles expected in the coming months is Dynastiet Glücksburg - En danmarkshistorie (“The Glücksburg Dynasty: A History of Denmark”) by the historian Jes Fabricius Møller, a political history of the current Danish royal house which is due to be published by Gad at the end of September. The history of the Danish monarchy will also be covered in a new work on the tombs of Danish kings, Danske kongegrave, which is also due this autumn.
The King of Sweden is celebrating his fortieth anniversary on the throne in September, which is the occasion for the book Mina 40 år för Sverige (“My Forty Year for Sweden”), which consists of some 300 photos from the past four decades to which the King has added his comments.
Queen Silvia is probably not looking forward to the publication later this month of Erik Åsard’s book Drottningens hemlighet (“The Queen’s Secret”), which again addresses the issue of her father’s membership of the German Nazi party and his actions during the Second World War.
That war will also be at the centre of the sixth volume of Tor Bomann-Larsen’s biography of King Haakon VII of Norway, which will be published in mid-October and which will take the story from June to September 1940. The events of that crucial year will obviously also be addressed in Halvdan Koht - Veien mot framtiden (“Halvdan Koht: The Road to the Future”), the historian Åsmund Svendsen’s biography of the eminent historian Halvdan Koht, who served as foreign minister in Johan Nygaardsvold’s government and consequently had to accept some of the blame for Norway’s being poorly prepared for the German invasion on 9 April 1940.
The upcoming centenary of the outbreak of the First World War has already led to a number of books. One which seems particularly promising is The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War by the historian Margaret MacMillan, who is perhaps best known for her book on the Paris peace conference of 1919. That book will be out at the middle of October. The military historian Max Hastings will give his version of those events in Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, to be published in September.
The First World War was unleashed by the assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian thrones, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg. Their story is told by Greg King and Sue Woolmans in The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder that Changed the World, which is due to be published in September.
The lead-up to the Second World War sets the stage for Peter Conradi’s Hot Dogs and Cocktails: When FDR Met King George VI at Hyde Park on Hudson, which relates the story of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Britain’s visit to the United States and its president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1939. Peter Conradi, a journalist at Sunday Times, is best known as the author of The King’s Speech, the book behind the Academy Award-winning film, but has also written The Great Survivors: How Monarchy Made it into the Twenty-First Century, an interesting book (so far published in English, French, Swedish and Dutch) on the European monarchies of today.
The long-awaited second volume of Philip G. Dwyer’s biography of Emperor Napoléon I of France, Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power, 1799-1815, will be published in early November.
This week will see the publication of a new biography of Mary Queen of Scots, Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots, by Linda Porter, who has earlier written acclaimed biographies of Queen Mary I of England and Katherine Parr, the last of Henry VIII’s six queens.
Also out this week is Axel & Margaretha: A Royal Couple, written by the Danish journalist Randi Buchwaldt and published by Rosvall Royal Books. This richly illustrated book tells the story of Prince Axel and Princess Margaretha of Denmark, who played more significant parts in the lives of the Scandinavian royal families than their fairly remote genealogical positions would suggest.
The life of Queen Christina after her abdication in 1654 is the topic of Drottning utan land - Kristina i Rom by the historian Erik Petersson, which will be published in September. The book, which is the 28-year-old author’s fourth, is the sequel to his earlier book on Queen Christina’s reign, Maktspelerskan (2011).
November will see the publication of a biography of Princess Louise of Britain, Duchess of Argyll, the somewhat unconventional daughter of Queen Victoria of Britain. The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria’s Rebellious Daughter is written by Lucinda Hawksley.

At the road’s end: Archduke Felix of Austria-Hungary (1916-2011)

Hardly two months after the death of his brother Otto it has been reported that Archduke Felix of Austria-Hungary, the last surviving child of Emperor Karl I and Empress Zita, died in Mexico yesterday at the age of 95.
Born at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna on 31 May 1916, His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Felix Friedrich August Maria vom Siege Franz Joseph Peter Karl Anton Robert Otto Pius Michael Benedikt Sebastian Ignatius Marcus d'Aviano was the third son born of the marriage of the then Archduke Karl and Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma. His great-great-uncle Franz Joseph I was still on the throne (and had been so for 68 years), but passed away in November of that year, making Felix’s parents Emperor and Empress. Two years later the Austro-Hungarian empire and centuries of Habsburg rule were at an end.
Archduke Felix thus grew up in exile, but was allowed to re-enter Austria in 1937, when he joined the Theresian Military Academy. However, the advent of the Anschluss made him leave Austria and he eventually ended up in the USA.
In civil life Archduke Felix became a marketing consultant and lived in various countries until eventually settling in Mexico. After the war his refusal to renounce his imperial pretentions meant that he, unlike his eldest brother, was banned from entering Austria. He was allowed in for his mother’s funeral in 1989 and paid an illegal visit in 1996, but eventually reached an agreement with the Republic which involved his declaring his allegiance to the Republic without specifically renouncing his claims. He was not well enough to make the long journey to attend his eldest brother’s spectacular funeral in Vienna two months ago.
In 1952 he married Princess and Duchess Anna-Eugénie of Arenberg, with whom he had four daughters and three sons. Archduchess Anna-Eugénie died in 1997.

DVD of Otto von Habsburg’s funeral

On Monday Austrian television ORF will release a DVD containing parts of their excellent broadcast from the funeral of Otto von Habsburg, the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, in Vienna on 18 July.
A DVD of a funeral may perhaps sound a bit morbid at first, but this will also be a historical documentation of the last time the Austro-Hungarian imperial ceremonial was enacted.
The DVD may be ordered from their webshop (external link).

A republic buries a crown prince

Yesterday the funeral of Otto von Habsburg, the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, took place in Vienna and for one day it seemed as if the Habsburg empire had returned. Indeed there were only a few things which gave away the fact that Austria is in fact a republic and the deceased was buried as if he were still Crown Prince.
This might seem quite ironic given how uneasy the relations between the republic and the former dynasty have often been, but they have been easened in recent years and the country’s history and heritage are of course highly evident in its capital. The republic also joined in paying the former Crown Prince almost every possible honour on the day of his funeral.
The funeral mass took place in the mighty St Stephan’s Cathedral, where the chief mourners were Archduke Karl, the deceased’s eldest son and now head of the house, his wife Francesca (from whom he is separated), their children Ferdinand Zvonimir, Eleonore and Gloria, Archduke Georg, the deceased’s youngest son, his wife Eilika and their children, Otto von Habsburg’s sisters-in-law Yolande and Anna Gabriele, and his five daughters Andrea, Monika, Michaela, Gabriela and Walburga.
His surviving brother, 95-year-old Archduke Felix, was not strong enough to travel from his home Mexico, but the Habsburgs were nevertheless out in force - indeed it was hard to tell who there were more of, priests or Habsburgs.
President Heinz Fischer and his wife Margit showed their respect by bowing to the coffin as they arrived. Also present were the present Chancellor and other members of the government as well as previous chancellors.
From the reigning royal houses came King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, Sovereign Prince Hans Adam II and Princess Marie of Liechtenstein, Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg, Princess Cristina of Spain, Princess Astrid and Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Princess Michael of the United Kingdom, and Prince Hassan and Princess Sarvath of Jordan.
They were joined by several members of non-reigning royal families: the ex-King of Romania, the ex-King of the Bulgarians, the Prince of Naples, the Margrave and Margravine of Baden, Prince Georg Friedrich of Prussia and Princess Sophie of Isenburg, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, the Duke of Braganza, the Duke and Duchess of Parma, Prince Jaime of Bourbon-Parma, Princess Maria Teresa of Bourbon-Parma, and probably some more who I missed.
Among the foreign dignitaries present were also President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, Speaker Jerzy Buszek of the European Parliament, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of Macedonia, and the Czech Foreign Minister, Prince Karel of Schwarzenberg.
The requiem was celebrated by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna (himself a minor “royal”, belonging to the mediatised house of Schönborn), who also represented Pope Benedict XVI.
As one must expect in Vienna there was a lot of well-performed music during the service, most of it composed by Michael Haydn, and there was a moving moment as the imperial standard was lowered at the head of the coffin and the congregation sang the first verse of Joseph Haydn’s imperial hymn:

Gott erhalte, Gott beschütze
Unsern Kaiser, unser Land!
Mächtig durch des Glaubens Stütze,
Führt er uns mit weiser Hand!
Laßt uns seiner Väter Krone
Schirmen wider jeden Feind!
|: Innig bleibt mit Habsburgs Throne
Österreichs Geschick vereint! :|

The Queen of Sweden and the Sovereign Prince of Liechtenstein were among those who joined in singing the “Kaiserhymne”, while the President of Austria kept his mouth firmly shut.
The most impressive part of the day was however the funeral procession from St Stephan’s Cathedral to the Capuchin Church, which went by way of Am Graben, through the Hofburg, the Ringstrasse to the Opera and then to Neuer Markt. While the processional route was 2.4 kilometres long, the actual procession was itself 1,200 metres long and it was a spectacle which will probably never be seen again, with its colourful uniforms and banners from all over the former empire. The (republican) Austrian guard led the procession and ahead of the coffin walked the knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece, followed by Otto von Habsburg’s grandson Severin Meister carrying his grandfather’s order.
The funeral guests followed and I particularly liked that so many of the younger relatives let their young children take part in the procession. If they have a sense of history they will in the future be proud that they were once part of the funeral procession of the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, who had himself, in 1916, walked in the funeral procession of Emperor Franz Joseph, who came to the throne in 1848.
The glories of Vienna, bathed in sun, provided for a spectacular setting for what seemed like an extra performance of the Habsburg empire 93 years after it came to an end. Another moving moment occured as the coffin crossed Heroes’ Square in front of the Hofburg and a 21-gun salute was fired.
In Neuer Markt (the New Market) the procession formed up in front of the Capuchin Church to watch the so-called knocking ceremony, which easily appears to be an ancient imperial ritual but was in fact introduced as late as 1989 for the funeral of ex-Empress Zita. It was supposedly Otto von Habsburg’s own idea, as he wanted all the titles once held by his mother to be read out.
Ulrich-Walter Lipp, acting as master of ceremonies, knocked three times on the door to the church. At the first knock Father Gottfried, the Capuchin monk who is custodian of the Imperial Vault, called out: “Wer begehrt Einlass?” (“Who requests entry?”)
Mr Lipp responded by giving all the imperial titles once held by the deceased, perhaps yelling a bit too loudly for the occasion: “Otto von Österreich, einst Kronprinz von Österreich-Ungarn, königlicher Prinz von Ungarn und Böhmen, von Dalmatien, Kroatien, Slawonien, Galizien, Lodomerien und Illyrien, Großherzog von Toskana und Krakau, Herzog von Lothringen, von Salzburg, Steyr, Kärnten, Krain und der Bukowina, Großfürst von Siebenbürgen, Markgraf von Mähren, Herzog von Ober- und Niederschlesien, von Modena, Parma, Piacenza und Guastalla, von Auschwitz und Zator, von Teschen, Friaul, Ragusa und Zara, gefürsteter Graf von Habsburg und Tirol, von Kyburg, Görz und Gradisca, Fürst von Trient und Brixen, Markgraf von Ober- und Niederlausitz und in Istrien, Graf von Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg etc., Herr von Triest, von Cattaro und auf der Windischen Mark, Großwojwode der Wojwodschaft Serbien etc., etc.” “Wir kennen ihn nicht” (“We know him not”), the monk replied.
Then Mr Lipp knocked a second time and the monk called again: “Wer begehrt Einlass?” “Dr. Otto von Habsburg, Präsident und Ehrenpräsident der Paneuropa-Union, Mitglied und Alterspräsident des Europäischen Parlamentes, Ehrendoktor zahlreicher Universitäten und Ehrenbürger vieler Gemeinden in Mitteleuropa, Mitglied ehrwürdiger Akademien und Institute, Träger hoher und höchster staatlicher und kirchlicher Auszeichnungen, Orden und Ehrungen, die ihm verliehen wurden in Anerkennung seines jahrzehntelangen Kampfes für die Freiheit der Völker, für Recht und Gerechtigkei”.
“Wir kennen ihn nicht”.
A third knock followed. “Wer begehrt Einlass?” “Otto, ein sterblicher, sündiger Mensch” (“Otto, a mortal, sinful human being”). “So komme er herein” (“So come here in”), the custodian replied and the gates to the church were opened.
With that ended the official part of this final imperial pageantry and Otto von Habsburg was laid to rest in a private ceremony.
It was a magnificent send-off for a great man and Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF), which broadcast the whole funeral live, should also be complimented for producing an absolutely perfect broadcast, complete with beautiful images from the Cathedral, knowledgeable commentators (who also mostly knew when to be silent) and an excellent mix of historical and live images during the procession.

Watching Otto von Habsburg’s funeral online

Tomorrow (or rather today as we have just passed midnight) Otto von Habsburg will be buried in Vienna. Austrian TV (ORF 2) will broadcast most of the day and it should be possible to watch it all streamed live online at this link: http://tvthek.orf.at/live (external link) - hope it works! If not these links might be alternatives: http://www.euronews.net/news/streaming-live/ (external link) or http://www.3sat.de/programm/?viewlong&d=20110716#1310 (external link).
The live broadcast at ORF 2 will start at 1.10 p.m. (CEST) and be preceeded by related documentaries. The actual funeral mass in St Stephan’s Cathedral will however only begin at 3 p.m. and last for two hours.
Afterwards the funeral procession will go to the Capuchin Church by way of Am Graben, Kohlmarkt, Michaelerplatz, Heldenplatz (i.e. through the Hofburg), Burgtor, Ringstraße, Operngasse, Albertinaplatz, Tegetthoffstraße to Neuen Markt. The procession is scheduled to reach the church around 7 p.m., where the famous ceremony of three knocks on the door will be carried out for the last time before admittance to the Imperial Vault.

My latest article: Obituary of Otto von Habsburg

In the new edition of the weekly newspaper Morgenbladet (no 27, 15-22 July 2011), out today, you may read my obituary of Otto von Habsburg (1912-2011). In addition to being the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, a longtime Member of the European Parliament, a staunch opponent of Nazism and tireless champion of a united Europe, Otto von Habsburg was also a prolific writer and in Norway his articles were published in Morgenbladet, which at that time was a conservative daily newspaper.

King and Queen of Sweden to attend Otto von Habsburg’s funeral

According to a spokesperson for President Heinz Fischer of Austria the King and Queen of Sweden have made known their intention to attend the funeral of Otto von Habsburg in Vienna on Saturday.
Among the other dignitaries who have announced their presence so far are, according to media reports, the Austrian President and Chancellor as well as several members of the Austrian government, the Sovereign Prince and Princess of Liechtenstein (of course), the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Princess Michael of the United Kingdom, the President of Georgia, the ex-King of Romania and the Speaker of the European Parliament.
While Otto von Habsburg was born in an era when there, according to King Olav, existed some sort of divide between the Catholic and Protestant monarchies of Europe, ties between the Habsburgs and the Bernadottes were rather close. Queen Josephina of Sweden and Norway was a first cousin of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth, making the late ex-Crown Prince Otto a fourth cousin of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden.
King Gustaf V and Queen Victoria, by birth Princess of Baden, paid a state visit to Emperor Franz Joseph shortly after their accession to the Swedish throne in 1907. Otto von Habsburg himself visited Sweden a couple of times when still a young man and at one stage Princess Ingrid (later Queen of Denmark) was considered a possible wife for him.
In recent years Otto von Habsburg’s ties with Sweden were mainly through his daughter Walburga, who married the Swedish Count Archibald Douglas, settled at a manor in Sörmland and became an MP. During his visits to Sweden Otto von Habsburg met privately with King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia on several occasions and they were among the guests at his 90th birthday celebrations in Vienna in 2002.
Otto von Habsburg was also a fourth cousin of Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, but although they knew each other during their shared exile in the USA during World War II, they lost contact after the war. Austrian media reports that the King of Norway has sent his condolences to the Habsburg family, but that neither the Norwegian nor the Danish royal family will be represented at the funeral.
The funeral in Vienna will be carried out almost as if Otto von Habsburg was still Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary and the Viennese newspapers now report on closure of tram lines and streets during the funeral procession from the Cathedral of St Stephan to the Capuchin Church. There has been some criticism of the fact that the Guard of the republican army will be on parade. I can understand the argument that Otto von Habsburg held no official position in the Austrian republic, but on the other hand there is nothing banning a republic from honouring the country’s great men and women even if they were once members of the same country’s royal family.
Today the coffins of Otto von Habsburg and his wife Regina, who was temporarily buried in her family vault in Heldburg following her death last year, have been reunited in Mariazell, where a requiem mass will be held in the basilica at 2 p.m.
From there the journey continues to Vienna, one of Europe’s most beautiful capitals. Otto and Regina von Habsburg will lie in state in the Capuchin Church on Thursday and Friday (from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day) ahead of the funeral mass in the Cathedral of St Stephan on Saturday at 3 p.m.
It has now also been settled that the ceremony of knocking three times on the door of the Imperial Vault will be carried out. At the first knock Father Gottfried, the Capuchin monk who is custodian of the Imperial Vault, will call out “Wer begehrt Einlass?” (“Who requests entry?”)
The master of ceremonies, Ulrich-Walter Lipp, will respond by giving all the imperial titles once held by the deceased: “Otto von Österreich, einst Kronprinz von Österreich-Ungarn, königlicher Prinz von Ungarn und Böhmen, von Dalmatien, Kroatien, Slawonien, Galizien, Lodomerien und Illyrien, Großherzog von Toskana und Krakau, Herzog von Lothringen, von Salzburg, Steyr, Kärnten, Krain und der Bukowina, Großfürst von Siebenbürgen, Markgraf von Mähren, Herzog von Ober- und Niederschlesien, von Modena, Parma, Piacenza und Guastalla, von Auschwitz und Zator, von Teschen, Friaul, Ragusa und Zara, gefürsteter Graf von Habsburg und Tirol, von Kyburg, Görz und Gradisca, Fürst von Trient und Brixen, Markgraf von Ober- und Niederlausitz und in Istrien, Graf von Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg etc., Herr von Triest, von Cattaro und auf der Windischen Mark, Großwojwode der Wojwodschaft Serbien etc., etc.”
“Wir kennen ihn nicht” (“We know him not”), the monk will reply and the master of ceremonies will knock a second time. “Wer begehrt Einlass?” This time the master of ceremonies will reply with the civilian honours acquired by the former Crown Prince during his long post-imperial life:
“Dr. Otto von Habsburg, Präsident und Ehrenpräsident der Paneuropa-Union, Mitglied und Alterspräsident des Europäischen Parlamentes, Ehrendoktor zahlreicher Universitäten und Ehrenbürger vieler Gemeinden in Mitteleuropa, Mitglied ehrwürdiger Akademien und Institute, Träger hoher und höchster staatlicher und kirchlicher Auszeichnungen, Orden und Ehrungen, die ihm verliehen wurden in Anerkennung seines jahrzehntelangen Kampfes für die Freiheit der Völker, für Recht und Gerechtigkei”.
“Wir kennen ihn nicht”.
Then the third knock. “Wer begehrt Einlass?” “Otto, ein sterblicher, sündiger Mensch” (“Otto, a mortal, sinful human being”). “So komme er herein” (“So come here in”), the custodian will answer and the gate will be opened.
When Otto and Regina von Habsburg have been laid to rest, there will only be one available spot left in the Imperial Vault. Apparently this is reserved for Archduchess Yolande, the widow of Otto von Habsburg’s younger brother Karl Ludwig, who was laid to rest there in 2007.

What to see: The Imperial Vault, Vienna

On Saturday Otto von Habsburg will be laid to rest in the Imperial Vault beneath the Capuchin Church in the New Market (Neuer Markt) in Vienna, thus literally joining his forebears.
It was in 1599 that the first Capuchin monks came to Vienna and only eighteen years later Empress Anna, consort of Empress Matthias, granted the Capuchins a church in the New Market and stipulated that she should be buried in its crypt. The Empress died a year later and was followed by her husband three months later. However, it was only in 1633 that work on the church had progressed to the extent that the imperial coffins could be transferred there.
Emperor Ferdinand III soon had to have the crypt enlarged and several expansions have followed throughout the centuries to give room for the coffins of generations of Habsburgs. Joseph II had it closed and walled up, but reopening it was one of the first acts of his brother Leopold II.
The Imperial Vault now consists of nine crypts and nearly 150 people are buried there. Only one of them is not a Habsburg relative: Countess Caroline von Fuchs-Mollard (1675-1754), who was the governess of Maria Theresia, on whose express wish she was interred with the imperial family.
The oldest of the crypts is the Founders or Angel Crypt, which contains the coffins of Emperor Matthias and Empress Anna. It is followed by the Leopold Crypt, built by Leopold I; the Karl Crypt, built by Karl VI; the Maria Theresia Crypt, built by Franz I Stephan and Maria Theresia; the Franz Crypt, built by Franz II/I; the Ferdinand and Tuscany Crypts, built by Ferdinand I; the New Crypt (built 1960-1962); and finally the Franz Joseph Crypt and the adjacent Crypt Chapel (built 1908-1909).
Emperor Matthias (1557-1619) was as mentioned the first Habsburg ruler to be buried there. He has been followed by Ferdinand III (1608-1657), Joseph I (1678-1711), Leopold I (1640-1705), Karl VI (1685-1740), Franz I Stephan (1708-1765), Maria Theresia (1717-1780), Joseph II (1741-1790), Leopold II (1747-1792), Franz II/I (1768-1835), Ferdinand I (1793-1875) and Franz Joseph I (1830-1916). The remains of the last Habsburg emperor, Karl I (1887-1922), are still in Madeira, where he died in exile following the downfall of the Empire. There is, however, a bust to his memory in the Crypt Chapel.
Another notable absentee is Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 unleashed World War I. He and his morganatic wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, is buried in the crypt of Artstetten Palace, but the vault has a plaque commemorating, as it says, “the first victims of World War I 1914-1918”.
The most sumptuous of the memorials is perhaps the double sarcophagus of Franz I Stephan and Maria Theresia (third photo), commissioned from Balthazar Ferdinand Moll long before their deaths. The sarcophagus has reliefs showing great moments of their reigns and their love for each other is symbolised by how their sculptures look each other in the eye.
The last Holy Roman Emperor and first Emperor of Austria, Franz II/I (first and fourth photos) lie in the middle of the Franz Crypt, surrounded by the coffins of his four wives. His grandson the Duke of Reichstad, aka Napoléon II, was also buried there until he was transferred to Paris in 1940.
In the adjacent New Crypt is the coffin of Empress Marie-Louise of the French (fifth photo), the faithless second consort of Napoléon I and mother of Napoléon II. Just across from her is her unfortunate nephew Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, who was executed in 1867 (sixth photo).
Visitors tend to be drawn to the Franz Joseph Crypt (second photo), where several floral tributes are normally to be found at the sarcophagi of Emperor Franz Joseph I, whose 68-year-reign spanned the times from Metternich to World War I, the restless Empress Elisabeth, who was assassinated in 1898, and Crown Prince Rudolph, who committed suicide at Mayerling in 1889.
Burials in the Imperial Vault did not cease altogether with the fall of the Astro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 (Archduke Karl, the current head of the house, actually proposed to his wife during a visit to the vault, asking her how she would like one day to be buried there!).
While the last Emperor, Karl I, is still buried where he died in 1922, his widow Zita was taken to Vienna and buried in the Imperial Vault when she died in the momentous year 1989. Her coffin is to be found in the Crypt Chapel, where her son Otto, the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, will be laid to rest by her side on Saturday, nearly 95 years after he walked between his parents in the funeral procession of his great-great-uncle Franz Joseph in November 1916.
Perhaps this will be the last time that the ceremony of three knocks on the door to the vault will be carried out. This was how it was done for ex-Empress Zita in 1989:
At the first knock at the door, the Capuchin custodian would ask: “Who requests entry?” The master of ceremonies would announce: “Her Majesty Zita, by the Grace of God Empress of Austria, crowned Queen of Hungary, Queen of Bohemia, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slovenia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria, Queen of Jerusalem etc., Archduchess of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Cracow, Lady of Lorraine and Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Krajina and Bukowina, Grand Duchess of Transylvania, Margravine of Moravia, Duchess of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz and Zator, of Teschen, Friaul, Ragusa and Zara, knighted Countess of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Görz and Gradiska, Lady of Trent and Brixen, Margravine of Upper and Lower Lausitz and in Istria, Lady of Hohenembs, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg etc., Countess of Trieste, of Catarro and on the Windish March, Great Voyvod and Voyvodship of Serbia etc., etc.”. “We know her not”, the custodian would reply.
A second knock. “Who requests entry?” “Zita, Her Majesty the Empress and Queen”. “We know her not”.
A third knock. “Who requests entry?” the custodian would call again and the master of ceremonies would reply: “Zita, a mortal, sinful human being”. “So come here in”, the Capuchin would say and open the gate.

At the road’s end: Otto von Habsburg (1912-2011), former Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, MEP and champion of united Europe

As previously mentioned Otto von Habsburg died in his home in Pöcking in Bavaria, Germany on 4 July, aged 98. Several commentators have already doled out the tired cliché that this is “the end of an era”, which is obviously nonsense. Rather, Otto von Habsburg was the last survivor of an era which ended a very long time ago.
Born on 20 November 1912, he was the eldest of the eight children born to the then Archduke Karl of Austria and his wife Zita, Princess of Bourbon-Parma, who had married the previous year. This was in the twilight years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in old age Otto would have vague memories of his great-great-uncle Emperor Franz Joseph, who had acceded to the Habsburg thrones as far back as the tumultuous year 1848, when Metternich fled and Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his young nephew.
The suicide of Franz Joseph’s only son, Crown Prince Rudolph, in 1889, had made his nephew and Otto’s great-uncle Franz Ferdinand heir presumptive to the throne. One could perhaps say that Otto was the last person alive whose life had been personally influenced by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914, a crime which unleashed World War One and made Otto’s father first in line to the throne.
Karl succeeded to the thrones when Emperor Franz Joseph died in November 1916 and many will have seen the photos showing the four-year-old Crown Prince Otto, dressed in white, walking behind the hearse of the old Emperor through the streets of Vienna. At least with hindsight the images speak of a doomed empire.
A month later the little Crown Prince also attended his parents’ coronation as King and Queen of Hungary. The above painting, by Guyla Éder, shows him emerging from the coronation carriage.
Centuries of Habsburg rule over Central Europe came to an end two years later. On 11 November 1918 Karl I, the nineteenth Habsburg Emperor, renounced his participation in state affairs (but did not actually abdicate) and subsequently went into exile in Switzerland. Having failed in two attempts to regain the Hungarian crown, the ex-Emperor was exiled to Madeira, where he died in 1922, aged only 35. His widow survived him for 67 years, dying at the age of almost 97 in the momentous year of 1989.
His father’s death made Otto pretender to the thrones and, in the eyes of those with a penchant for denying realities, “Emperor”. If the monarchy had indeed endured to this day, Otto would have had what might well have been the longest reign in history – 89 years. Instead he would spend his life redefining the role of the multinational House of Habsburg.
At least he got a good education, studying in Louvain and Berlin, and would eventually become a prolific writer, whose oeuvre included biographies of some of his ancestors. While in Berlin in 1931-1932 he was twice invited to meet Adolf Hitler, not yet Chancellor of Germany, giving as his reason that he had already read Mein Kampf and thus knew what Hitler was about.
Archduke Otto was a staunch opponent of Hitler’s plans to annex Austria to Germany and in the lead-up to the Anschluss he would even suggest to the pro-monarchist Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg that he should take over as leader of the Austrian government, an offer which was eventually declined.
In 1940 the Habsburgs fled from their home in Belgium as Germany invaded the country and eventually made their way to the USA on the invitation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While in the USA Otto dedicated himself to advocating the cause of Austria, which, despite the huge enthusiasm with which its people had greeted the annexation into Germany, ought to be considered the first victim of Nazi aggression, Otto argued.
Crown Princess Märtha of Norway was among the other exiled royals who had found shelter in the USA, and Otto von Habsburg would later tell me how he appreciated and respected her for the work she put in not only for her own country, but for the case of Europe in general.
Otto returned to Europe in 1944, but the end of World War II did not pave the way for him to play any role in either of the former Habsburg nations. In order to pay off the huge debts he had incurred through his wartime work, Otto von Habsburg spent the following years lecturing and writing.
He married Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen, with whom he had seven children, in 1951 and three years later the family settled in Pöcking, which became their permanent home. His children would eventually reflect the multinational heritage of the Habsburgs; among them Karl has been an MEP for Austria, while Georg is a Hungarian ambassador-at-large, Walburga a member of the Swedish Parliament and Gabriela Georgia’s ambassador to Germany.
European unity and reconciliation was the cause closest to Otto von Habsburg’s heart and in 1972 he became President of the Pan-European Union. From 1979 to 1999 he represented the German Christian Democrats in the European Parliament. Thus he succeeded in finding a new way for the voice of the Habsburgs to continue to be heard on the European stage.
The man who had once been Crown Prince of much of Central Europe lived to see what must be considered the two major steps in the process of reunifying Europe: the collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989-1991 and several Eastern European countries joining the EU in 2004.
In 1989 he and Hungarian reformed Communist Imre Pozsgay co-hosted a so-called Pan-European Picnic at Sopron on the border between Hungary and Austria. On the request of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Otto von Habsburg and Imre Pozsgay themselves stayed away from their event, but Otto’s daughter Walburga represented him and cut a symbolic hole in the fence on the border, thus allowing 660 GDR citizens to make their way from Hungary to Austria. Within a month, Hungary opened its border permamently.
Otto himself was banned from Austria until 1961 and was only allowed to enter the country after he had renounced his dynastic claims. His first visit to the country was greeted with protests, but in a gesture of reconciliation he shook the hand of Chancellor Bruno Kreisky in 1972. His 90th birthday in 2002 and his 95th birthday in 2007 were both celebrated at the Hofburg in Vienna, something which for a long time would have been impossible.
Having left the European Parliament in 1999, Otto von Habsburg remained active and enjoyed excellent health well into his tenth decade. He suffered a bad fall two years ago and was naturally also much affected by the death of his wife of nearly sixty years in February 2010. In 2007 he renounced his position as head of the House of Habsburg in favour of his eldest son Karl.
His funeral will be almost pan-European like himself. Since Tuesday he is lying in state in the Church of St Ulrich in Pöcking. Tomorrow afternoon the coffin will be taken to the Church of St Pius, also in Pöcking, for the first requiem mass and thereafter to Munich, where another requiem mass will be celebrated in the Court Church of the Theatines on Monday. On Tuesday the coffins of Otto von Habsburg and his late wife will be reunited for yet another requiem mass in Mariazell in Austria before they will lie in state in the Capuchin Church in Vienna on Thursday and Friday.
Next Saturday Cardinal Christoph Schönborn will celebrate the funeral mass in the Cathedral of St Stefan in Vienna. The coffins of Otto on Habsburg and his wife will thereafter be taken to the Capuchin Church, where only the family (some 100 people all in all) will attend the interment in the Imperial Vault, where generations of Habsburgs have been buried throughout the centuries. Otto von Habsburg will rest between the coffins of his wife and his mother. On the day after the funeral his heart will be laid to rest in a monastery in Pannonhalma and a requiem mass celebrated in Budapest.

Otto von Habsburg has died

Otto von Habsburg, last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, long-time MEP and champion of European unity, died today at his home in Pöcking, Bavaria, Germany. The eldest son of Karl I, the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor, he was born on 20 November 1912 and was thus in his 99th year. I will write more about him when I am back home in a few days.
His funeral will take place in the Stephansdom in Vienna on 16 July, followed by burial in the crypt of the Capuchin Church, where generations of the Habsburgs are buried. The remains of his wife Regina, who died last year and was buried in Germany, will be transferred to Vienna.

New books: 1989 and much else

The 20th anniversary of the 1989 revolutions last year sparked a number of books on the topic. Among them is Nick Thorpe’s ’89: The Unfinished Revolution, published by the new publishing house Reportage Press.
Nick Thorpe is the BBC’s correspondent in Budapest, where he has lived since 1986. He sets out to tell the story of 1989 from a personal perspective and there are some interesting glimpses of life behind the Iron Curtain. But while Victor Sebestyen chose to write a general history of the events leading up to 1989 and Michael Meyer wrote a personal account, it seems Thorpe really cannot make up his mind if this book is a personal account or a history and therefore tries to make it both things at the same time.
The focus is on Hungary and Czechoslovakia, for which the reason seems to be that Thorpe was there during some of the key events. But unlike some of the others who have written books on 1989 he missed several of the most significant events. Occasionally the story is interrupted when he left the scene, such as the war in Bosnia – the account is suddenly broken off when Thorpe himself returns to Hungary because of his wife’s pregnancy.
The parts based on his own experiences are the best, but the mix of first-hand and second-hand accounts is quite unfortunate. Sadly he also manages to get several of the central facts wrong – the Berlin Wall falls a day too early, Germany is reunified a year too late and Gorbachev holds talks with the wrong President Bush.
The events up to and including 1989 fill only about 1/3 of the book, with the rest of it given over to developments in Central Europe and the Balkans during the last twenty years. But this is a confusing mix of a little of this and a little of that – environmental questions, the secret services, the plight of the Roma people, political development in general and much else.
Parts of the book’s proceeds go to a Hungarian organisation advocating home births and there is a whole chapter extolling home births, complete with detailed accounts of the births of some of his children and horror stories about giving birth in hospital, all of which smacks too much of campaign journalism.
The author does not always succeed in making it clear in what ways these topics are linked to the events of 1989, but he states that it all has to do with people’s freedom to make choices about their own lives.
All in all, the book makes a rather confused impression – the author simply tries to pack too many not necessarily interrelated topics into one volume. The fact that there is no table of contents and no index and that the chapters are divided into a myriad of subchapters add to the messy impression.

At the road’s end: Archduchess Regina of Austria-Hungary (1925-2010)

Archduchess Regina of Austria-Hungary, the wife of Otto von Habsburg (last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary and former MEP), died peacefully at her home in Pöcking in Germany at 8.40 a.m. today, aged 85. She had suffered from a heart disease for a number of years and also suffered a stroke in 2005.
The Archduchess was born Princess Regina Helene Elisabeth Margarete of Saxe-Meiningen in Würzburg on 6 January 1925. She married the former heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in Nancy on 10 May 1951. They had seven children (among them Swedish MP Walburga Habsburg Douglas), 23 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. She is also survived by her husband, now in his 98th year.
She will lie in state in the Church of Sankt Ulrich in Pöcking from Saturday to Monday, followed by a requiem on Tuesday and burial in the Saxe-Meiningen family vault at the cemetery in Heldburg on Wednesday.

What to see: The Széchenyi Chain Bridge, Budapest

Among the bridges crossing the Danube from Buda to Pest, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, or Széchenyi-lánchid, is perhaps the better-known landmark of the Hungarian capital. The first permanent bridge linking the two then separate cities, it was built between 1839-1849 after an initiative by Count István Széchenyi, who is considered one of the greatest statesmen and reformers in Hungarian history.
The bridge was designed by the Englishman William Tierney Clark and built by the Scot Adam Clark (no relation). With its length of 380 metres it was considered a major feat of engineering at the time. Like all the other bridges across the Danube, the Chain Bridge was destroyed during World War II and faithfully rebuilt after the end of the war. The lions guarding the bridgeheads at either side are by the sculptor János Marschalkó.
Close to the bridge are famous buildings such as the Royal Palace (now the Hungarian National Gallery), seen in the first and third photos; the Parliament (the largest such building on the continent), seen in the second picture; and Gresham Palace (now the Four Seasons Hotel), glimpsed in the fourth photo.

What to see: Shoes on the Danube (Holocaust memorial), Budapest

Perhaps the most moving Holocaust memorial in Europe is that in Budapest. It is also one of the simplest. On the bank of the Danube, not far from Hungary’s impressive Parliament building, stands a long row of sixty pairs of empty, abandoned shoes, cast in bronze. The memorial is a work by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay and was dedicated in 2005. On this spot Jews and other citizens who had tried to help them were shot by militiamen from the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party in 1944 and 1945. As shoes were valuable at the time, the victims had to remove theirs before they were executed and fell into the river. Now the shoes stand there forever and no-one will ever come back for them.

Walburga Habsburg Douglas on her role in 1989

In the latest issue of the Budapest Times (volume 7, issue 33-35, dated 10-30 August 2009) there is a long interview with Walburga Habsburg Douglas, youngest daughter of Otto von Habsburg, the last Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince, in which she talks about the role she played in the 1989 revolution.
On 19 August that year, Walburga Habsburg as secretary-general of the Pan-European Union and her father’s representative, arranged a “Pan-European picnic” in Sopron where she symbolically used a wire cutter to make cuts to the fence separating Austria from Hungary, literally cutting open the Iron Curtain. The event had been planned as a symbolic meeting between Austrians and Hungarians by Walburga, her father, Hungarian human right groups and the opposition Hungarian Democratic Forum. The fact that they were joined by Imre Pozsgay, leader of the reformist communists, turned it into a larger event. He persuaded the Hungarian government to let a gate at the border stay open for four hours and that border guards would pretend not to notice those illegally crossing the frontier.
A large numbers of refugees from East Germany were at this time stuck in Hungary and many of them took the opportunity to escape through Austria to West Germany. An estimated 660 refugees escaped through the “symbolic gate” at Sopron that day, while some 1,400 managed to cross the border elsewhere that day. The event has been considered a trial for the general opening of the Hungarian border on 11 September.
In the interview, Douglas rejects the journalist’s suggestion that she may have been concerned that events might get out of hand and turn ugly: “I am not somebody who is afraid. The evening before we considered whether everything could get out of hand. But then we said: ‘Even if it gets out of hand, the main thing is that the broad direction is right.’ Together with other organisers we simply didn’t have the feeling that anything bad could happen. We intuitively sensed that there was no danger. In that respect we relied not least on our Hungarian co-organisers”.
She also claims that it was only later when she heard of the GDR leader Honecker’s rage that she realised the significance of what they had done: “We didn’t realise that our border opening would ultimately lead to the opening of the Iron Curtain. In the concrete situation my primary aim was to help as many people as people [sic, should be: possible] out of their difficult situation. I didn’t anticipate the possibility of doing politics on the world stage. I was happy that I could help people in need based on the principles of my organisation and not least my inner conviction. When I gradually realised what it could all lead to I was even more enthusiastic. For many years my social involvement had been directed towards finally getting rid of the dreadful Iron Curtain. On 19 August I was not yet fully aware of the significance of the events. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. I simply did what my conscience dictated. I only really realised the significance of the event two days later when by chance I heard a German-language broadcast by Radio Moscow. An interview with SED chairman Honecker was being broadcast in which he spoke incredibly angrily and disparagingly about our picnic. That’s when I realised what a major blow the event was to the East German regime and that it must have really hit home”.
Now married to a Swedish count, Walburga Habsburg Douglas was elected to the Swedish Parliament for the Conservative Party in 2006. Her father, the former Crown Prince, will be 97 this autumn. The interview in its entirety can be read here:
http://www.budapesttimes.hu/content/view/12785/27/