by James Longo
148. “an indescribable witches Sabbath.”: Weyr, 27–28.
148. Belvedere Palace where Max had been born.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
148. waiting for some word from the Embassy.: Hohenberg, Georg Duke of.
148. placed under house arrest at Belvedere Palace.: Schuschnigg, Schuschnigg, 111.
148. to quickly move against the Hohenbergs.: Hohenberg, Georg Duke of.
149. with only one Ambassador: Britain’s Michael Palairet.: Millard, 149.
149. been baptized Franz Ferdinand Maximilian Hohenberg.: Hohenberg, Georg Duke of.
149. was also Adolf Hitler’s Vienna destination.: Ibid. The manager of the Hotel Imperial would soon be arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo.
149. to a less public location.: Hohenberg, George Duke of.
150. “The universal jubilation was simply beyond belief.”: Riefenstahl, 221.
150. “yet more murderous Second World War.”: Horthy.
150. “mongrel” multicultural Habsburg Empire.: Illies, 18.
150. traveled to the Hotel Imperial to pay his respects.: MacDonogh, 64–65.
151. Nazi-bannered balcony of the Hofburg Palace.: Hohenberg, Georg Duke of.
151. shook the walls and windows where they hid.: Ibid.
151. we will follow! Heil my Führer!: Shirer, 337. In the Schuschnigg Archives at the St. Louis University Library, the former Chancellor kept all the 1938 copies of Austria’s most popular weekly magazine. The covers, photographs, and stories capture the abruptness of the Anschluss. The weeks prior to the Anschluss feature Schuschnigg, patriotic rallies, and children waving the Austrian flag. Arthur Seyss-Inquart was featured the week of the Anschluss. The following week the cover and entire issue focused on Adolf Hitler, his entrance into Vienna, and his speech to three quarters of a million cheering Austrians from the Hofburg Palace balcony.
152. “The Sudeten Germans of Czechoslovakia greet the Führer.”: Albright, 77.
152. “Tell Everyone in Prague Hitler Says Hello.”: Ibid.
152. and the eternal mask of the Jew devil.: Toland, John. Adolf Hitler, 455, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, 1976.
152. “putting up resistance against Berlin.”: Smith.
152. “working out their destinies is not our business.”: Smith, Richard Norton. An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, 258, High Plains Company, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1984.
153. the Habsburg-hating Dr. Leopold Pötsch.: Hauner, 129.
153. “this old gentleman” had not diminished.: Ibid.
153. “an influence on the destinies of the nation?”: Hitler, 159.
153. I remain in the memory of our old friendship.: Hauner, 130–131.
153. must not be allowed to happen.: Ibid. MacDonogh, 124.
154. Bloch died there in 1945 at the age of seventy-three.: Hamann, Brigette. Hitler’s Edeljude. Das Leben des Armenarrztes Eduard Bloch, 427, Piper Verlag, Munich, 2008. Hitler referred to Dr. Bloch as “Edeljude, a noble Jew.”
154. a city with a large German population.: Weber, Thomas. Hitler’s First World War, 344, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010. Fest, Joachim. Hitler, 13, Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, New York, 1974.
154. “and protection as per the Führer’s wishes.”: Hall, Alan. “The Single Jew That Hitler Wanted to Save,” Daily Mail, July 2, 2012.
154. “Get rid of the rubbish.”: MacDonogh, 124.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DUEL
155. through family feuds, assassinations, revolutions, and wars.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
155. and expertise of Maria-Theresa.: Ibid.
156. “with the highest possible authorities.”: Ibid.
156. against her brother-in-law, Emperor Franz Joseph.: Ibid.
156. “a strong majority for the monarchists.”: MacDonogh, 35.
156. Dr. Ernst Kalterbrunner, the Austrian-born Gestapo Chief.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
156. a gorilla was in charge of Austria’s state security.: Kershaw, Alex, 72.
157. thrown out of Vienna’s dreaded Gestapo Headquarters.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
157. “their families and personal character.”: New York Times, “Habsburg Princes Arrested by Austrian Nazis,” 1, March 23, 1938.
157. government ministers continued to be arrested.: New York Times, “University Purge Pushed—Restrictions of Jews Increased,” 3, March 31, 1938. Some Austrian Jews escaped, but seven thousand that did not escape committed suicide according to John Gunther in Inside Europe, p. 110.
157. Many of the arrested were never seen again.: Sayers, Janet. Mothers of Psychoanalysis: Helen Deutsch, Karen Harney, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, 166, William Norton & Company, New York, 1991.
158. the British Foreign Office might help locate the men.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
158. including Prague, would soon follow.: Hauner, 129.
158. READY TO SUPPORT ANY SCHEME TO KEEP PEACE.: New York Times, “Czechs See Blow to Autonomy: Italy, France and Britain Are Ready to Support Any Scheme to Keep Peace,” 1, March 31, 1938.
158. independence and unification with Germany.: Ibid.
158. “without any danger to their lives.”: Millard, 153. Heinrich Himmler was a physically small, bookish, racist bureaucrat who shared a love of German mythology and a hatred of Jews with Adolf Hitler. In Peter Longerich’s biography Heinrich Himmler: A Life, he wrote Himmler divided people into two categories, humans (all Germans) and sub-humans (everyone else), p. 265.
158. “accord you my most special protection.”: Zámečnik, Stanislav. That was Dachau 1933–1945 (translated by Derek B. Paton), 16, Foundation international de Dachau le cherche midi, Paris, 2004.
159. for them and their children to Switzerland.: Ibid.
159. No one was to help the Hohenbergs.: Ibid.
159. he never spoke to Mrs. Wood again.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
159. not available to speak, did she reluctantly leave.: Ibid.
159. and humiliated by visiting Nazi dignitaries.: Millard, 152.
160. tried to help but were rebuffed.: Gilbert, Gott, 126.
160. “and the English government does nothing?”: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard. Dachau’s commander during the Hohenberg brothers’ internment, Hans Loritz, was removed from his post by Hitler in July 1939 for his brutality. He was arrested after the war and committed suicide in 1946.
160. “nothing we can do for these people.”: Ibid.
160. Czechoslovakia itself was no longer safe.: Ibid.
160. anti-Semitism rocked nearly every village, town, and city.: MacDonogh, 53–57.
160. hope, and fear, to Elisabeth Hohenberg.: Ibid. Goering was instrumental in planning the Anschluss, and the confiscation of Jewish property in Austria. As Reichstag President he declared, “If God had intended men to be equal he would not have created races.” (Goering: Hitler’s Iron Knight, pp. 61–62).
160. she might have smiled.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
162. “send them to the gallows immediately?”: Ibid.
162. Her cool response momentarily silenced him.: Ibid.
162. “Write your letters and all will be well.”: Ibid.
162. in a small corner of her own home.: Ibid.
163. under the positive influence of her father.: Hohenberg, Georg Duke of.
163. dared tell him to turn his radio down.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
163. They never returned.: Hohenberg, Princess Sophie de Potesta.
163. the first Austrian “criminals” sent there.: OuSArchiv Document Id 4094964, / OuSArchiv Document Id 11741977, KZ-Gedenskätte Dachau, 85221 Dachau, Alt, Römerstr, 75.
164. In May, another 120 detainees arrived.: MacDonogh, 118–120.
164. “number of well-known journalists and authors.”: Ibid.
164. “would almost be ashamed to be free.”: Ibid.
164. “Your Imperial Majesties.”: Millard, 152.
164.
about when, where, and how their parents had died.: Dachau correspondence.
164. earned him the red badge of a terrorist.: Ibid.
165. ashes on the paths where Gestapo officers walked.: Millard, 152.
165. a spoon to assist them in their task.: Ibid.
165. “excrement into buckets and cart them away.”: Ibid.
165. brothers’ faces were splattered with excrement.: Ibid.
165. and were the most charming of companions.: Ibid.
166. were not looking down on anyone.: Pauli, 305.
166. and children attacked, beaten, and robbed.: Ibid. Austro-Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl, considered the father of political Zionism, lived most of his life in Vienna. In 1897, he predicted, “The people will let themselves be intimidated by the Viennese rabble and deliver up the Jews. There you see the mob can achieve anything once it rears up. … They will kill us.”
166. The guard aimed his gun but did not fire.: MacDonogh, 268–273.
166. for the strength of their political beliefs.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
167. but small victories made Dachau bearable.: Meysel, Lucian O. Die verhinderte Dynastie: Erherzog Franz Ferdinand und das Haus Hohenberg, 172, Molden, Wien, 2000.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BARGAIN WITH THE DEVIL
168. to negotiate their release with Heinrich Himmler.: Nostitz-Rieneck, Count.
168. fearful as they were of the long arms of the Nazis.: Ibid.
168. but no time or place was ever found.: Ibid.
169. was Berlin’s most feared address.: Ibid.
169. The Countess of Nostitz-Rieneck did not.: Ibid.
169. Himmler and his immediate subordinates avoided her.: Ibid.
169. to Nazi Germany were drawing to an end.: Ibid.
169. was a work of folly and ignorance.: Fort Myers News-Press, “Allies Give in to Hitler, Sudetens Attack Czechs,” 1, Monday, September 19, 1938.
170. moment, than it did these strange days.: Kennan, George. “Letters of George Kennan,” http:/traces.org/kennansletter.html. The Czech surrender before Hitler’s threats.
170. saved the city from the annihilation suffered by other European cities.
170. “the great window looking out over Austria.”: Gilbert, Martin, and Richard Gott. The Appeasers: The Decline of Democracy from Hitler’s Rise to Chamberlain’s Downfall, 144, Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1963.
170. finger turn back the clock from 1938 to 1914.: Gaddis, John Lewis. George F. Kennan: An American Life, 120, Penguin Books, London, 2012.
170. “such terms as are dictated to a defeated enemy.”: Sheean, Vincent. Not Peace but a Sword, 276, Doubleday, Doran, and Company, New York, 1939.
171. funeral attended by half a million mourners.: Kennan, George. Sketches of my Life, 4–5, Pantheon Books, New York, 1968.
171. “armed banditry.” Publicly he said nothing.: Ibid.
171. “No frontier stations existed.”: Ibid.
171. threatened inhabitants neither refuge nor security.: Martin, Gott, 151.
171. family in Austria became nearly impossible.: Nostitz-Rieneck.
171. but the unwelcome emigrants had nowhere to go.: Kanter, 143.
171. “will get the best results.”: Smith, 247. Ambassador Kennedy resigned his position as Ambassador amid accusations he was a Nazi sympathizer. The accusations were untrue, but he was a fierce isolationist in part because he did not want his sons fighting and dying in a European war. His firstborn son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., died four years later in the war his father opposed. John F. Kennedy turned his observations regarding appeasement into his honors thesis at Harvard. It later became the book Why England Slept. George Kennan described the Ambassador’s son as “an upstart and an ignoramus.” Twenty-five years later, President John F. Kennedy appointed Kennan Ambassador to Yugoslavia.
172. for signing treaties and military alliances.: Hamann, 197. The only palace Hitler painted during his years in Vienna was a watercolor of Belvedere when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his family lived there.
172. would have been different had he lived.: Portland, Duke of (Cavendish-Bentinck), 328.
173. only empty streets and cold silence.: Gaddis, 127.
173. he once again stayed at the Hotel Imperial.: Nagorski, Andrew. Hitlerland—American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power, 258, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2012.
173. “military occupation of Slovakia by a German army.”: Millard, 141.
173. “the new European constellation that is arising.”: Sheheen, Vincent. Not Peace but a Sword, 276, Doubleday, New York, 1939. To this day, the Beneš legacy continues to divide many in the Czech Republic.
173. “good Czechs and good Germans.”: Nostitz-Rieneck, Count.
174. with the theft of her nationality and country.: Ibid. A Catholic priest at one of the churches Sophie Hohenberg visited urged his congregation to “abandon all hope in the virtue of the human race and seek solace in a just, unbending, and stern God.” Quoted in George F. Kennan: An American Life, by John Lewis Gaddis, 122.
174. collaborating with evil or committing heroic suicide.: Ibid.
174. and his family was the alternative.: Nixon, Guy. Finding Your Native American Ancestors, 183, Xlibis Corp., Bloomington, 2012.
174. and their family became prize hostages.: Nostitz-Rieneck, Count.
174. and die in concentration camps.: Albright, 281–282.
175. a “desecrator of Nazi iconography.”: Nostitz-Rieneck, Count.
175. its gates never to be seen again.: Albright, 281–282.
175. ancient families were systematically plundered.: Nostitz-Rieneck, Count.
175. “decadent Franz Ferdinand,” was an early target.: Ibid.
175. Sophie and her brothers were expelled.: Ibid.
176. to entertain distinguished visitors.: Ibid.
176. and private homes of Gestapo officials.: Ibid.
176. Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich.: Ibid.
176. responsible for the genocide of millions of Jews.: Dederichs, Mario R. Heydrich: The Face of Evil, 43, Casemate, Drexel Hill, 2009. Hitler’s hatred of Czechs never left him.
176. “We will Germanize the Czech vermin.”: Ibid.
176. “Torture and killing were his daily occupations.”: Ibid.
176. furniture and treasures stolen from Konopiste.: Bennett, Magnus. “Heir to Stolen Jewish Property Foiled by Czech Restitution Law,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc., 2001.
176. by Edvard Beneš and his government in exile.: Olson, 239–241, Brožovwskˆy, Miroslav, 22. Lina von Osten Heydrich joined the Nazi Party in 1929 (Nazi membership number 1,201,380). She persuaded her future husband, Reinhard, to join the party in 1931 after hearing Adolf Hitler speak. She continued defending her husband until her death in 1985. Nevertheless, she was the author of a book titled Leben mit einem Kriegsverbrecher (Life with a War Criminal), a title that must have come from her publisher or accountant. On March 28, 2011, The Daily Mail reported, “Son of detested Nazi leader sparks outrage after announcing he wants to restore castle where ‘Butcher of Prague’ ruled. His request was denied.”
177. Hitler lamented he was “irreplaceable.”: Hitler, Secret Conversations, 415.
177. arrest, torture, and murder of five thousand Czechs.: Horvitz, Leslie Ann, and Christopher Catherwood. Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide, 200, New York, 2006. Paces, Cynthia. Prague Panoramas National Memory Sacred Space in the Twentieth Century, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, 2009.
177. eulogy at a massive state funeral in Berlin.: Ibid..
177. Czechs tried to survive by being invisible.: Ibid.
177. “complete what I have set out to achieve.”: Hauner, 134.
177. amongst the greatest achievers the world has ever known.: Ibid.
178. “What now?”: Ibid. Hitler’s question may imply he believed he would once again outmaneuver his opponents and achieve
his ends without war.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT
179. conscientious objectors brought from Dachau.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
179. was to be removed with their hands.: Millard, 155.
180. they waited for everyone inside to die.: Ibid.
180. did not learn he was alive for several months.: Hohenberg, Prince Gerhard.
180. fellow prisoners slept around him.: Ibid.
180. He decided to bore them to death.: Ibid.
181. Ernst was to remain at Dachau.: Hohenberg, Georg Duke of.
181. survived his ordeal without Ernst by his side.: Ibid.
181. his family did not recognize him.: Ibid.
181. It was a bittersweet homecoming.: Ibid.
181. mind remained imprisoned with Ernst at Dachau.: Hohenberg, Princess Sophie de Potesta.
181. he was expected to spy on himself.: Ibid.
182. and France all fell to Hitler’s armies.: Weyr, 175.
182. the beginnings of a new “intercontinental order.”: Millard, 142.
182. to escape the invading Nazis.: Habsburg, HRIH Archduke Christian. “Otto von Habsburg, A Long and Courageous Life in the Service to Europe,” St. Mary’s Mother of God Church, Washington, DC, October 22, 2011. The Duke of Windsor, living in French Exile, also made his way to Paris. He had ordered a diamond, sapphire, emerald, and ruby broach from Cartier Jewelers as a gift for the Duchess. He wanted to be sure it was delivered before the city fell to the Germans. Much to his relief, it was.
182. not his willing collaborator.: Ibid.
182. “I am to have that dream fulfilled today.”: Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich (translated by Richard and Clara Winston), 172, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1970. Hitler seemed to only be able to have one “friend” during each period of his life. The architect Speer fulfilled that relationship for Hitler until 1945.
183. “We aren’t done yet.”: Ibid. Hitler had earlier confided to Leni Riefenstahl, “I’d give anything to see Paris just once. But I’ll probably never be granted that in my lifetime,” 210, Memoirs.
183. when the wars were over.: Ibid.
183. in movie newsreels across occupied Europe.: Savich, Carl. “Sarajevo 1941,” October 24, 2014, http://serianna.com.