Hitler and the Habsburgs

by James Longo

  The ethnic and political fault lines in Czechoslovakia were being replicated across Europe. Berlin, Vienna, and most of the continent was being divided into separate Russian, American, British, and French occupation zones. Destinations for refugees were often arbitrary and final. Eight hundred thousand Czechs were sent to eastern Germany in a zone occupied by the Russian army. They never returned. Halfway around the world in a speech at a small Missouri college, Winston Churchill decried what he called an “Iron Curtain” descending across Europe. Parts of Austria, including Artstetten, and most of eastern Europe, fell behind the Soviet zone of military and political occupation.

  Artstetten soon became a popular tourist attraction for military officers, party officials, and even ordinary soldiers from the Soviet Union curious to see the former home of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Elisabeth was pressed into service as their tour guide. She told stories about the Archduke’s affection for Russia, his desire for peace, and shared family tales about the castle’s surviving paintings.

  One portrait was never shown. It hung unobtrusively in the dark corner of a seldom-used hallway. The painting was of Alexandra, Russia’s last Empress, wife of Nicholas II His Imperial Majesty the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russians. During Franz Ferdinand’s 1902 visit to St. Petersburg, Nicholas showed him several paintings of the Czarina and asked which he preferred. As a parting gift, Nicholas presented the portrait to him.

  A Russian officer wandered down the hallway and noticed the dust-covered painting. He asked about its history. Elisabeth dismissed it as an obscure Habsburg Archduchess, but he frowned and gruffly said, “This is not an Archduchess! A Russian officer recognizes a portrait of a Russian Empress!” Then he smiled an ironic smile. Knowing the Czarina, her entire family, and much of the country’s aristocracy had been murdered during the Bolshevik Revolution, the Duchess promptly moved the picture to the attic. It did not see the light of day for ten years—the length of the Soviet occupation of Austria.

  Russian officers and soldiers sometimes came to Artstetten for another reason: to play with the Hohenberg children. They enjoyed carrying the youngest children on their shoulders, learning German words, and teaching them Russian phrases. Many talked of being homesick for their own children.

  Despite the friendly interactions, their Soviet occupiers seemed unable to alleviate the hunger, malnutrition, and starvation Churchill accurately predicted would follow the war. Destroyed farms, harsh winters, summer droughts, and crop failures caused food production to fall to levels not seen since the summer before Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. Some claimed it was another of Hitler’s parting gifts.

  Hunger was a constant companion at Artstetten. Elisabeth Hohenberg tried to set an example by not complaining about how little there was to eat, or the lack of variety in what appeared on their table. Only years later did she reveal her true feelings. When certain foods were served, she would smile, and politely but firmly say, “No, thank you. I never want to take another bite of that again!” For the rest of her life, she never deviated from her “do not eat” list of postwar hardship cuisine.

  One day a knock at Artstetten’s door solved a Dachau mystery. The visitor was the Gypsy boy, now a young man, whom Max had hid in a tool box from his pursuing Nazi guard. The man brought his family and offered a gift to thank Max for saving his life. After a few brief words, the man and his family quickly disappeared, but the large goose left behind provided the Hohenbergs the best meal they had eaten since before the war.

  The Austrian consul in Karlsbad finally arranged for Sophie and her family to be released into Maximilian’s custody. To her surprise, her brother had become mayor of the village of Artstetten. The Russians appointed him to the position since he was one of the few Austrians who had not collaborated with the Nazis. In time, he would be reelected by the people themselves, but Russian military and civil authorities remained in firm control. Sophie and Fritz used the opportunity of living under the Soviet army of occupation to enlist help in locating Erwein. Many promises were made, but their son was only one prisoner in a country holding millions. Even Stalin was unsure of the identity, location, and number of prisoners held in his slave labor camps.

  Leopold Figl, who had been imprisoned with Max and Ernst at Dachau, became Chancellor of Austria. He tried to use his influence to locate and free Erwein, but even he could not penetrate the bureaucratic maze of Joseph Stalin’s prisons. No one knew for certain whether Erwein was alive or dead. Sophie and Fritz prayed, wrote letters, and spoke with anyone who might provide information. Nothing seemed to help, but they refused to give up hope.

  One family reunion that did take place was when Ernst, Maisie, and their two sons returned to Artstetten. There were few tears, but much laughter. Ernst’s wit remained strong despite his five years of imprisonment. He looked twice his age and his health never fully recovered, but he found the energy to mock his frail body and tease everyone around him.

  Maisie privately grieved for the lost time that could never be recovered, but the family relished being together. Sixty years after the Hohenberg reunion, Maximilian and Elisabeth’s youngest son, Gerhard, remembered:

  Time together was a gift and they did not waste it complaining. They were genuinely fond of one another, survived the war, and still had each other. They were from a generation that did not complain. From time to time they would mention what had been, or what they once had, but without anger or bitterness. I can never remember them looking back unless they used humor to poke fun at themselves or their fellow Austrians.

  A favorite Hohenberg joke concerned the patriots and phantoms of the Anschluss. For years the greatest source of pride for many Austrians was that they had witnessed Hitler’s triumphal entrance into Vienna. People outdid themselves bragging that they cheered the Führer’s car as it passed or heard him speak from the balcony of the Hofburg Palace. They waxed eloquently about where they stood, the parts of his speech that moved them to tears, and the magic of seeing, hearing, and being a part of that historic day.

  Then, no one was there.

  When the war turned against Hitler, no one admitted to being in Vienna that day. No one had heard the speech. No one knew anything about it. After a pause, Max or Ernst would dryly add, “It must have been a city of phantoms.” The punch line was accompanied by genuine laughter.

  They knew exactly where they were the day Hitler was rapturously cheered by over a quarter million screaming Austrians. Ernst was being arrested by the Gestapo in the apartment of his father-in-law. Max was behind the locked doors and rattling windows of his hiding place trying to say good-bye to Elisabeth and their children. None of them could hear his words as cheers from the city’s Heroes Square shook Vienna, and all of Europe. Within an hour, Max had joined his brother in jail. The stories were told without bitterness. Max’s son Georg later reminisced that when the family came together the reunions resembled the sights, sounds, and laughter of a Viennese cabaret:

  They kept their sense of humor and their faith. There is no doubt they believed in a higher power and that helped them survive. Even in the darkest times, they could laugh. Since they laughed, their children laughed. That was the best medicine. That was a great gift from heaven. They had seen enough vengeance in their lives and wanted none of it. The Lord said vengeance is mine. They held to that belief. They taught us there is only one judge above all of us, above the Nazis, and we were not that judge.

  Vendettas were left to others. In the fall of 1945, the victors of the Second World War met at Nuremberg to put the losers of the war on trial. The names of many of the defendants were familiar to the Hohenbergs. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who ordered Max and Ernst’s arrest hours following the Anschluss, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner who first imprisoned, then later helped free Ernst, were found guilty of crimes against humanity. Both men were hanged.

  Baldur von Schirach and Albert Speer, the only two Nazis leaders to condemn Hitler from the witness stand, were each sentenced to twenty years i
n prison. Schirach, leader of the Hitler Youth movement at the age of twenty-four, was denounced at Nuremberg as the poisoner of a generation of children. As Reich Governor of Greater Vienna, he deported 65,000 Viennese Jews to Auschwitz. He admitted during the trial, “I put my morals to the side, when out of misplaced faith in the Führer, I took part in this action. I did it. I cannot undo it. … It was the most all-encompassing and diabolical genocide ever committed by man… Adolf Hitler gave the order… Hitler and Himmler together started this crime against humanity which will remain a blot on our history for centuries.” During his two decades of imprisonment, Schirach served less than one day a piece for the 65,000 Jews he sent to Auschwitz. His tombstone reads, “I was one of you.”

  Heinrich Himmler, the coward who refused to meet Sophie face-to-face, whose letter to Maisie confirmed Ernst and Max’s imprisonment at Dachau, and whose signature six years later informed her that Ernst would be released, committed suicide within hours of his arrest. Elisabeth Hohenberg’s nemesis at the Hotel Imperial, Hermann Goering, remained arrogant and unrepentant. He denounced Schirach and Speer as traitors, and he denied any knowledge of the Holocaust. Goering was condemned to death for conspiring to initiate the war and for crimes against humanity. Hours before he was to be hanged, he also took his own life. His body was cremated at Dachau, carried in a trash can to a local river, and unceremoniously dumped there.

  Gustav Krupp, the wealthy ammunitions manufacturer who armed Germany in both world wars, was indicted at Nuremberg as a war criminal, but never tried. Declining mental and physical health, and perhaps his wealth, saved him. Krupp had built Kaiser Wilhelm’s U-boats, helped finance the 1933 election that brought Hitler to power, and used slave labor from concentration camps to build Hitler’s weapons. He died peacefully in his bed at Schloss Blühnbach. The Austrian castle in the Tyrolean Alps had once been owned by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but sold by his family at bargain rates to pay his debts after Sarajevo.

  Many Nazis did not live to see the full fruits of their evil labor, but with the help of Eduard Beneš and his accomplices, Hitler’s dream of ethnic cleansing became a reality. Despite genocide, the Holocaust, and millions of military and civilian casualties, the expulsion of ethnic “Germans” from Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Hungary, and other European countries not only increased Germany’s population, but made it more homogenous. Post World War II, Germans and other Europeans found themselves living in countries less ethnically and religiously diverse than at any time in centuries. Adolf Hitler and his Nazis had succeeded in shattering the Habsburg dream of uniting Europe under the umbrella of a multicultural empire.

  The Hohenbergs, meanwhile, refused to live in the past, but were not yet ready to forget the Habsburg dreams of their father.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ANSWERED AND UNANSWERED PRAYERS

  “This war would have never come unless, under American and modernizing pressure, we had driven the Habsburgs out of Austria and Hungary and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany. By making these vacuums we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl out of its sewer onto the vacant thrones.”

  —WINSTON CHURCHILL

  “I hope it doesn’t sound too pretentious if I raise my voice to speak out.”

  —MAXIMILIAN HOHENBERG

  On their first holiday together since the war, Maximilian and Elisabeth traveled to Rome for an audience with Pope Pius XII. The trip was a spiritual and personal pilgrimage. As Vatican Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli had tried to free the Hohenberg brothers from Dachau. They wanted to thank him. But the Pope took the opportunity to thank them for standing up against the Nazis when even the Catholic Church had not. Max showed Elisabeth the ruins of ancient and modern Rome, including the Palazzo Venezia where he’d had his final meeting with Mussolini. From its shuttled balcony Mussolini declared war against England and France in 1940. Max’s predictions about the Italian dictator’s fate had all come to pass.

  Since the Austrian government seized Nazis’ property following the war, and the Nazis seized all Hohenberg properties before the war, Ernst had to sue to have his family home and estates returned to him. Eventually his lawsuit succeeded, and he reclaimed Radmer and the forests and mountain properties he loved. One-third of the land was turned over to his sister. She, Fritz, and their children moved into a small cottage near the mountain village of Eisenerz, a short distance from Ernst and Maisie’s home. Sophie filled the cottage with family photographs, and filled her days and nights seeking information about Erwein. She believed in her heart that her firstborn son still lived.

  In February of 1948, a communist coup overthrew Czechoslovakia’s government. President Beneš had been outmaneuvered by his communist allies just as earlier he had been outmaneuvered by the Nazis. Two weeks later, Jan Masaryk, the country’s Foreign Minister, was found dead beneath a window of his apartment in Prague Castle. The son of the country’s first president was either a victim of suicide or assassination. Eduard Beneš resigned the presidency and died in quiet retirement. The last sparks of Czechoslovakia’s once-thriving democracy were extinguished.

  That April, Max and Ernst were asked by other concentration camp survivors to return to Dachau for a reunion. Plans were being made to turn the empty camp into a memorial to the Holocaust. To the surprise of their families and friends, the brothers agreed. They felt a kinship, an almost spiritual brotherhood, with their fellow survivors. Ten years after their arrest and imprisonment, they returned to Germany’s first concentration camp. They silently walked the grounds as free men, side by side, alone with their thoughts. When they arrived home, they said nothing about the camp, but it seemed a healing experience for them.

  Other reunions never took place. For Sophie Nostitz-Rieneck, the war had not ended as long as her son remained a prisoner somewhere in the vastness of the Soviet Union. The war finally came to an end when she was notified that Erwein died at his Ukrainian prison camp on September 11, 1949. He was twenty-eight years old and had been alive the entire five years his family had searched for him. The letter informing her of his death gave no details.

  One year later, she received an unexpected visitor. A prisoner of war from the Ukrainian camp where Erwein died was finally released. He made his way to Czechoslovakia, then to Artstetten, and finally to Eisenerz. His bunk bed had been next to Erwein’s and he wanted Sophie to know that, in his last hours, her son’s faith never left him. He had prayed on his rosary until his final breath.

  That gift allowed Sophie to live again. The visitor did not describe the slave labor camp where they had been imprisoned, or the backbreaking work they endured, the brutal guards, or the harsh Ukrainian winters. He just wanted her to know that her son was a good man and did not die alone. Erwein died with his faith and a friend at his side. The soldier’s words brought her comfort and peace. Sophie never again thought of her son’s death without remembering the gift Erwein’s friend had given her.

  Alois, Sophie’s surviving son, married a Waldburg cousin. When they had children of their own, they named their youngest son Erwein Franz, in memory of the brothers Alois lost in Hitler’s wars. He devoted the rest of his life to helping families find the graves of fathers, brothers, and sons killed in the war so they might be reburied closer to home. Alois never found where either of his own brothers were buried; but he was able to bring closure to other grieving families.

  Without having their graves near her, Sophie created her own private packet of memories for each of her lost sons. She began with their first childhood drawings and their schoolwork she had carried with her when she left Czechoslovakia. Every letter they wrote to her was included, ending with her last picture of each of them as draftees in the German army. On Franz’s packet she added the letter that informed her, “Your son died for the Führer and the Fatherland.” They were empty words to her, but being a soldier had been part of his short life. The last piece of paper she put in the packet and tied with a string was a Bible quote, “The Lord Gives a
nd the Lord Takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Sophie had lost two sons, but not her faith. She never doubted they would meet again in a better place.

  Maximilian had two crosses carved above the tombs of their parents at Artstetten. The cross above Franz Ferdinand’s sepulcher was for the Archduke’s first grandson, Erwein Maximilian Franz Nostitz-Rieneck. Above the Duchess of Hohenberg’s sepulcher was placed a cross for Franz Assisi Friedrich Ernst Nostitz-Rieneck.

  In March of 1954, forty-nine-year-old Ernst Hohenberg traveled to Graz, the birthplace of his father, for a reunion with other Dachau survivors. The evening before their meeting he checked into the Steinerhof Hotel in good spirits. That night he suffered a massive heart attack and died. Maximilian was in Vienna with his son Peter when they received the call. He brought Ernst’s body back to Artstetten Castle to be buried near their assassinated parents. The youngest of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Duchess of Hohenberg’s three children was the first to die. Hitler and his Third Reich continued claiming victims.

  Ernst’s death was reported in newspapers and magazines around the world including the New York Times and Time magazine. Under the headline SON OF FRANZ FERDINAND, one of Vienna’s leading newspapers wrote:

  The family was blessed to have him in their lives and that he was able to experience life with his two children. His name and entire life was a symbol of the shock and tragedy of Sarajevo. The bitter years he spent in concentration camps took a toll on his heart that brought about his death before he reached his fiftieth birthday. The intellectual power and gentle tolerance of this nobleman during his time of pain and suffering were never broken.

  All the surviving members of the Hohenberg family traveled to Artstetten to bid him farewell. The funeral Mass was held in the church where the Archduke and his Duchess had been buried forty years earlier. The adjoining sepulchers of the Hohenbergs’ parents were carved with lions, lambs, and doves of peace, the symbols of their love. Four decades and two world wars had passed. Sophie, Maximilian, and Ernst had grown up and married. Children had been born. Children had died. Now Ernst rejoined his parents for the final time at Artstetten.