Austrian Emperor’s heir laid to rest

Archduke Otto, who passed away on 4 July aged 98, was a long-serving member of the European Parliament.

During the war, which he spent in France and then America, the archduke was a staunch anti-Nazi, although he was not able to return to Austria until as late as 1966, having renounced his claims to the throne.

Poland’s Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, was amongst the many international dignitaries present at the funeral in Vienna on Saturday.

Earlier, Buzek had made a glowing tribute to his former colleague, mourning “the death of a friend” and “the death of a champion of European integration.”

Buzek expressed that von Habsburg had “resisted Nazism with the same determination he opposed the Communist regimes of the Eastern bloc.”

The Polish president of the European Parliament added that his erstwhile colleague had “kept the flame of hope for the reunification of Europe alive when many others had given up.”

Otto von Habsburg was just four years old when he watched his father Karl be crowned emperor in Budapest.

However, the ceremony took place in December 1916, in the midst of the First World War, a cataclysm from which Austro-Hungary and its ally Germany would emerge as losers.

The empire collapsed and Otto would spend the vast majority of his life in exile. He renounced his claims to the Austrian throne in 1961 – a decision he regretted – thus paving the way for him to be allowed to visit his homeland.

The archduke ultimately settled in Bavaria, Germany, becoming an MEP in 1979, and serving for many years as President of the International Pan European Union.
Otto von Habsburg was laid to rest on Saturday in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna. In accordance with his wishes, his heart was interred the following day at the Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma in north west Hungary.

The archduke was succeeded as head of the house of Habsburg by his 50-year-old son Karl. (nh/jb)