Ferdinand Karl von Österreich

Archduke Ferdinand Karl Ludwig Joseph Johann Maria of Austria was born in Vienna on December 27, 1868. He was an Austrian archduke, a royal prince of Hungary and Bohemia, and a major general in the Imperial and Royal Army. His elder brother was Franz Ferdinand, the later heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. Through his brother Otto Franz, Ferdinand Karl was also the uncle of Emperor Karl, the monarchy’s last ruler. Ferdinand Karl was the third child of Archduke Karl Ludwig and his second wife, Maria Annunziata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. His father was the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph. His mother died in 1871, when Ferdinand Karl was three years old. He was subsequently raised with great affection by his stepmother, Archduchess Maria Theresa. He spent much of his childhood at the Reichenau estate and Artstetten Castle. His siblings included Franz Ferdinand, Otto Franz, and Margarete Sophie; his father’s third marriage also produced the Archduchesses Maria Annunziata and Elisabeth Amalia. As was customary for a Habsburg archduke, Ferdinand Karl received the Order of the Golden Fleece at the age of eighteen. On April 25, 1884, he entered an uhlan regiment as a lieutenant. After three years of military training, he transferred at his own request to a technical regiment, since he had a particular interest in the technical sciences. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1889. In the following years, he continued his military career in various units. He served in Tyrol with the Kaiserjäger, rose to the ranks of major and lieutenant colonel, and became a colonel in 1898. In 1899, he took command of a Kaiserjäger regiment and was also appointed honorary proprietor of an infantry regiment. His position within the imperial family also gave him diplomatic significance. During his military career, he received numerous foreign orders, including decorations from Saxony, Württemberg, Bavaria, Serbia, Spain, Persia, Japan, Prussia, Russia, and the Order of Malta. In 1902, he was appointed commander of an infantry regiment in Prague and promoted to major general. During the 1890s, the prospects for the Habsburg succession changed. Crown Prince Rudolf, Franz Joseph’s only son, died at Mayerling in 1889. After the death of Ferdinand Karl’s father in 1896, his eldest brother Franz Ferdinand became heir to the throne. Franz Ferdinand had initially suffered from tuberculosis but unexpectedly recovered. In 1900, his marriage to Sophie Chotek, a countess, was considered morganatic. He therefore had to renounce the succession rights of his future children. Since the second brother, Otto Franz, was also regarded as an unsuitable potential ruler, Ferdinand Karl was for a time viewed as a possible candidate for the throne. In reality, however, the succession was to develop differently. Ferdinand Karl’s own relationship with the commoner Berta Czuber plunged his life into a serious crisis. She was the daughter of Emanuel Czuber, a professor of mathematics at the Technical University in Vienna. Ferdinand Karl probably met her at an engineers’ ball, of which he regularly served as patron. Alongside the theater, technical subjects were among his principal interests. Their acquaintance developed into a love affair which, because of the imperial family’s strict rules of rank, initially had to remain secret. At the end of 1903, Ferdinand Karl asked Emperor Franz Joseph for permission to marry Berta Czuber. He was even prepared to give up his military position, leave Vienna, or accept a civilian post as director of a court theater in exchange. The emperor avoided making a decision. Franz Ferdinand, who had received no support from his brothers for his own morganatic marriage, now pressed for Ferdinand Karl to be treated with particular severity. On October 14, 1904, the major general was dismissed from the army with immediate effect on the emperor’s orders. Health reasons were given as the official explanation. He was also advised to stay away from Vienna. Permission to marry was still refused. Ferdinand Karl then withdrew with Berta Czuber to his estate in Tyrol. The couple lived in seclusion at Rottenstein Castle near Obermais, close to Merano. On August 15, 1909, they secretly married in Chur, Switzerland. Emperor Franz Joseph did not learn of the marriage until 1911, although it had taken place in defiance of his express prohibition. In August of that year, he stripped Ferdinand Karl of all his Habsburg titles and rights, declared his orders and decorations invalid, and excluded both him and any possible descendants from the succession. He was also forbidden to live in Vienna. Franz Joseph partially softened the consequences of the exile by granting him a modest annual allowance from the private funds of the imperial family. Ferdinand Karl subsequently adopted the civilian name Ferdinand Burg. His father had already used this name as an alias while traveling. His marriage to Berta remained childless. When Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo in June 1914, the excluded archduke received special permission to travel to Vienna for the funeral of his brother and sister-in-law. There he appeared broken and aged, while members of the imperial family conspicuously paid little attention to him. A few months later, on March 10, 1915, Ferdinand Burg died in Munich at the age of forty-seven. His wife survived him by more than six decades and died in 1979 at the age of one hundred. Both were buried in the crypt of the pilgrimage church of Maria Trost near Untermais, close to Merano.