Georg von Habsburg, Erbe von Österreich

Georg von Habsburg, also known as Georg von Österreich or Jiří Habsburský, was an Austrian duke and margrave of Moravia from the Albertine line of the House of Habsburg. He was born in Vienna on February 16, 1435, and died there on the same day, only about three hours after his birth. His father was Duke Albert V of Austria and Margrave of Moravia, who later played an important role in the Empire and the Habsburg hereditary lands as King Albert II. Georg’s mother was Elisabeth of Luxembourg, a Hungarian, Bohemian, and German princess as well as a daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor. She was the only daughter of Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of Hungary and Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, and his second wife, Barbara of Cilli. Georg’s birth had great political significance for his family and for European succession. As a long-awaited male heir, he automatically became heir to the Austrian throne through his father. At the same time, through his mother, he was regarded as a potential heir to the Hungarian crown. His grandfather Sigismund had no surviving legitimate son from his second marriage. He therefore planned to have a future male grandchild raised in Hungary and prepared as the eventual heir to the Hungarian crown. This intention had already been stipulated in his daughter Elisabeth’s marriage contract in 1421. By the standards of the time, Elisabeth remained childless for an unusually long period. She became pregnant only ten years after her marriage. On April 12, 1432, at the age of 22, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Anna. Anna could not inherit in Austria and also stood behind her mother in the Hungarian line of succession. The birth of a son was therefore awaited by Elisabeth, Sigismund, and Albert with different but equally far-reaching hopes. Georg was unable to fulfill these expectations, however, because he died immediately after his birth. During Albert’s lifetime, he had only one son, Georg; his second son, Ladislaus, was born only after his father’s death. Georg was therefore Albert’s firstborn son, but his brief life left him without any independent political influence. The surviving accounts do not agree entirely on his year of birth. One divergent version places his birth as early as 1431 and has him dying in 1435 in his fourth year. This dating is considered erroneous. The description of him as a child who died very young, together with Sigismund’s dynastic plans, instead supports the conclusion that Georg was in fact born only in 1435 and lived for just a few hours. If he had survived for several years, one would also expect evidence of a longer upbringing or residence in Hungary in the Hungarian sources. The infant was buried in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. His life thus lasted only a single day, but his birth carried considerable dynastic importance. As the son of Albert and Elisabeth, Georg briefly embodied the intersection of Austrian, Hungarian, and Bohemian claims to succession and stood at the center of the hopes of his Habsburg and Luxembourg families.