Otto von Habsburg

Otto von Habsburg was born on November 20, 1912, in Reichenau an der Rax as the eldest son of the future Austrian Emperor Charles I and his wife, Zita. After his father’s accession to the throne in 1916, he became the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary. At just four years old, he made his first public appearances at Emperor Franz Joseph I’s funeral in Vienna and at his father’s coronation as King of Hungary. Prepared for a future role as ruler, he was given an extensive Habsburg titulature. With the end of the Dual Monarchy after the First World War, however, his life changed fundamentally. Until early 1919, Otto lived with his parents at Eckartsau Castle in Lower Austria. The family then went into exile in Switzerland. After two failed attempts to restore the monarchy in Hungary, Charles I was banished by the victorious powers to Madeira. Zita followed him and brought the children there at the beginning of 1922. At the age of nine, Otto witnessed his father’s death, who, according to his own statement, died “as an emperor and a Christian.” The family subsequently moved to Lequeitio in the Basque Country, where the Spanish king Alfonso XIII provided for their livelihood. Even after the fall of the monarchy, Zita raised Otto as a Catholic monarch and continued to uphold the family’s dynastic claims. Otto was taught several languages and became familiar with the different traditions of the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In addition to German, he mastered Hungarian, Croatian, English, Spanish, French, and Latin. In 1929, the family settled in Belgium. On November 20, 1930, Otto came of age; his mother’s guardianship consequently ended, and he became head of the House of Habsburg as well as sovereign of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Otto studied political and social sciences at the Catholic University of Leuven. While preparing his dissertation on Austrian agricultural issues, he also spent time at the University of Berlin. In 1935, he completed his studies in Leuven with distinction, earning a doctorate in social and political sciences. He had already begun campaigning for European unity in the 1930s. In 1936, he joined the Paneuropean Union, founded by Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. At first, Otto combined his European political work with Christian-monarchist ideas; later, opposition to National Socialism and communism became central to his political outlook. Before Austria’s annexation to Hitler’s Germany in 1938, Otto tried to persuade Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg to organize determined military resistance. He was even prepared to assume the chancellorship himself in order to defend Austria. Schuschnigg rejected the proposal. After German troops invaded, Otto was wanted for high treason. Hitler ordered the confiscation of the family’s private assets and the property administered by Otto; numerous members of the legitimist movement were arrested, executed, or murdered in concentration camps. In 1940, Otto fled through France, Spain, and Portugal to the United States. His mother and siblings also went into exile. During the war, he established contacts with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He worked for the restoration of Austrian independence, sought to create a political representation for Austria in exile, and supported plans for a federal reorganization of Central Europe. Some initiatives, including an exile government and an Austrian battalion, failed. According to biographies and documentaries, he also helped arrange visas for political refugees who were able to flee overseas via Spain and Portugal. After the war, Otto initially returned to Europe but was not permitted to enter Austria permanently. The Second Republic retained the Habsburg Law, which made the return of former members of the imperial family conditional on renouncing membership in the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and all claims to rule. Otto initially refused to do so. From 1954, he lived with his family in Pöcking on Lake Starnberg, where he resided in Villa Austria until his death. In 1951, he married Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen in Nancy. The couple had seven children, including Karl Habsburg-Lorraine, who later became head of the family. In 1961, Otto finally signed a declaration of loyalty in which he renounced his claims to rule and affirmed that he was a loyal citizen of the Republic of Austria. The Austrian government initially refused to recognize the declaration. This led to the so-called Habsburg Crisis, which brought fierce disputes between the Austrian People’s Party and the Social Democratic Party, demonstrations, and constitutional controversies. In 1963, the Administrative Court declared the statement sufficient, but Otto did not receive an unrestricted Austrian passport until after the People’s Party’s electoral victory in 1966. His first visit to Austria in October of that year triggered renewed protests and a major strike. Relations with Austrian social democracy improved after the historic handshake between Otto and Chancellor Bruno Kreisky in 1972. Otto acquired German citizenship in 1978. In the 1979 European election, he entered the European Parliament for the Christian Social Union, where he served until 1999. Among other positions, he was foreign-policy spokesman for the European People’s Party group, chairman of several parliamentary bodies, and twice the Parliament’s oldest member by age. At the same time, he led the Paneuropean Union: he served as its president from 1973 to 2004 and then as honorary president. His role in the Paneuropean Picnic on August 19, 1989, at the Hungarian-Austrian border received particular recognition. The symbolic opening of the border fence enabled hundreds of East German citizens to flee to Austria and was later regarded as an important moment on the path to the fall of the Iron Curtain. Otto von Habsburg remained active as a writer and commentator into old age, publishing numerous books on European politics, history, and social order. Some of his statements also provoked intense criticism. Objections concerned, among other things, his association with the right-wing weekly Junge Freiheit, a controversial statement about Jewish influence in U.S. politics, his positive assessment of the authoritarian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, and his speech marking the seventieth anniversary of the annexation in 2008. In that speech, he portrayed Austria particularly strongly as a victim of Hitler, while critics pointed to the responsibility of Austrians for crimes committed under National Socialism. Otto von Habsburg died in Pöcking on July 4, 2011, at the age of 98. After a large funeral ceremony in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, he was buried in the Capuchin Crypt, the traditional burial place of the Habsburgs. His wife, Regina, was later buried beside him, while his heart was laid to rest at the Hungarian Abbey of Pannonhalma. Otto remained a contradictory historical figure: he saw himself as the guardian of a vanished monarchic tradition, yet also became a committed advocate of European unity and received numerous awards and honors for his political work.