Hitler and the Habsburgs

No cover — James McMurtry Longo: Hitler and the Habsburgs (2018)

315 pages

English language

Published Feb. 2, 2018

ISBN:: 978-1-63576-476-5
OCLC Number:: 1043880813

(1 review)

A stunning work of narrative history revealing how and why Adolf Hitler targeted the children of the assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, making the Archduke's sons the first two Austrians deported to the Dachau concentration camp, and how the family fought back. Five youthful years in Vienna. It was then and there that Adolf Hitler's obsession with the Habsburg Imperial family became the catalyst for his vendetta against a vanished empire, a dead archduke, and his royal orphans. That hatred drove Hitler's rise to power and led directly to the tragedy of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The royal orphans of Archduke Franz Ferdinand--offspring of an upstairs-downstairs marriage that scandalized the tradition-bound Habsburg Empire--came to personify to Adolf Hitler, and others, all that was wrong about modernity, the twentieth century, and the Habsburg's multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were outsiders in the greatest family of royal insiders in Europe, …

A stunning work of narrative history revealing how and why Adolf Hitler targeted the children of the assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, making the Archduke's sons the first two Austrians deported to the Dachau concentration camp, and how the family fought back. Five youthful years in Vienna. It was then and there that Adolf Hitler's obsession with the Habsburg Imperial family became the catalyst for his vendetta against a vanished empire, a dead archduke, and his royal orphans. That hatred drove Hitler's rise to power and led directly to the tragedy of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The royal orphans of Archduke Franz Ferdinand--offspring of an upstairs-downstairs marriage that scandalized the tradition-bound Habsburg Empire--came to personify to Adolf Hitler, and others, all that was wrong about modernity, the twentieth century, and the Habsburg's multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were outsiders in the greatest family of royal insiders in Europe, which put them on a collision course with Adolf Hitler. As he rose to power Hitler's hatred toward the Habsburgs and their diverse empire fixated on Franz Ferdinand's sons, who became outspoken critics and opponents of the Nazi party and its racist ideology. When Germany seized Austria in 1938, they were the first two Austrians arrested by the Gestapo, deported to Germany, and sent to Dachau. Within hours they went from palace to prison. The women in the family, including the Archduke's only daughter Princess Sophie Hohenberg, declared their own war on Hitler. Their tenacity and personal courage in the face of betrayal, treachery, torture, and starvation sustained the family during the war and in the traumatic years that followed. Through a decade of research and interviews with the descendants of the royal Habsburgs, scholar James Longo explores the roots of Hitler's determination to destroy the family of the dead Archduke. And he uncovers the family members' courageous fight against the Führer.

1 edition

Stuart Woodward reviewed Hitler and the Habsburgs by James McMurtry Longo

Review of 'Hitler and the Habsburgs' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I don’t think the UK educational system really teaches you much about the Austro-Hungarian Empire and as such, I doubt whether many people can link the assasination of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo to the First World War.

This book explains how the Second World War was driven by a vendetta of Hitler against Habsburgs. On the annexation of his native Austria Hitler gave a rare speech in Vienna where he recounted his time of homelessness, many years before, shovelling snow and looking through the window of the same hotel vowing to be inside one day. With the annexation of Austria, the sons of the Habsburgs were among the first to be sought out and arrested and taken to Dachau concentration camp as the some of the first political prisoners of the Nazis. This book looks at the parallel lives of Hasburg children and Hitler and how the fit into …

I don’t think the UK educational system really teaches you much about the Austro-Hungarian Empire and as such, I doubt whether many people can link the assasination of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo to the First World War.

This book explains how the Second World War was driven by a vendetta of Hitler against Habsburgs. On the annexation of his native Austria Hitler gave a rare speech in Vienna where he recounted his time of homelessness, many years before, shovelling snow and looking through the window of the same hotel vowing to be inside one day. With the annexation of Austria, the sons of the Habsburgs were among the first to be sought out and arrested and taken to Dachau concentration camp as the some of the first political prisoners of the Nazis. This book looks at the parallel lives of Hasburg children and Hitler and how the fit into the history of the period.

It also highlights Hitler’s hatred for Austrian ruling classes that emanated from him not being able to gain acceptance into art school and his failure as an artist, his distain of the multicultural society in which he lived and his desire for a greater Germany populated only by Germans. Another insight is that Hitler’s desire for war was to replay the First World War again so that Germany would be victorious. Well, things didn’t go exactly to plan and Germany was in ruins in the end.

This book is another confirmation for me that only by reading around a subject from many points of view you get a better understanding of history. Don’t be content with one interpretation of events.

Subjects

Family
History

Places

Austria