The "other" victims speak up, angering some.
Hapsburgs Ask Austria to Return Estates Seized by Nazis
nytimes.com
May 10, 2003
By PETER S. GREEN
PRAGUE, May 9 — The heirs to the Hapsburg dynasty, whose forebears ruled central Europe for over 600 years in an empire that once stretched from the borders of Russia to Spain, have asked the Austrian government to return forests, homes and a palace seized by the Nazis on the eve of World War II.
But their use of a law intended primarily to aid Jewish victims of the Holocaust has angered some in Vienna's Jewish community.
Christian von Hapsburg-Lothringen, a nephew of Otto von Hapsburg, the former pretender to the defunct Hapsburg throne, says the family wants back the more than $200 million worth of forests as well as four apartment buildings and the Laxenburg Palace near Vienna.
The family was awarded the properties as compensation in 1918 when Emperor Charles I was forced to abdicate under the armistice agreement that ended World War I, which had been precipitated by the assassination of a Hapsburg archduke.
The Hapsburgs have enlisted the aid of a former American diplomat, Stuart Eizenstat, who negotiated the 1999 accords that won Austria's Jews and others compensation for their suffering during the Holocaust.
Mr. Eizenstat, now a lawyer in Washington, said the Hapsburg family was seeking the return of about 60,000 acres of forest and, if it did not get back the buildings, either similar buildings in state hands or a total of $2 million from a special fund set up to compensate victims of the Nazis, including Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies and Hitler's political opponents.
The Hapsburgs' rule ended in 1918 when the family was forced to abdicate at the end of World War I. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, over which the Hapsburgs presided, was broken up and the family was awarded the land and buildings as a form of state pension. But when the Nazis occupied Austria in March 1938, the property was confiscated.
There is little doubt that the Hapsburgs lost their property because they opposed the Nazis. Otto von Hapsburg spoke out in Austria against Hitler and warned of dire consequences for Austria in the event of Anschluss, the incorporation of Austria into Germany.
Three of Otto's cousins enlisted in the United States Army and fought against the Nazis in World War II. A fourth cousin, Robert von Hapsburg, flew with the Royal Air Force against the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, in 1940. In exile in France, Otto and Carl-Ludwig von Hapsburg helped persuade a diplomat from neutral Portugal to issue visas to thousands of Jews fleeing the Nazi advance, also in 1940.
"I was absolutely astounded by their story," said Mr. Eizenstat, speaking by telephone from Vienna. Mr. Eizenstat said that in 1999, Carl-Ludwig and Felix von Hapsburg were recognized by an Austrian court as victims of the Nazis, and were paid a symbolic sum of about $5,000 each, which, he said, they promptly donated to Jewish charity.
For decades, Austria refused to acknowledge that it was an active part of Hitler's Germany. Only in the 1990's did it finally agree to compensate most of the victims of the Holocaust and the Nazi era.
The Hapsburgs' claim has angered some representatives of Vienna's Jewish community, including Charles Moerdler, a New York lawyer for the Vienna community, who fear that it will serve as a further excuse for Austria to delay compensation payments from a $210 million fund for Nazi victims, whose creation was negotiated by Mr. Eizenstat.
On Thursday, the Vienna Jewish Community announced that it would have to end its religious and educational programs unless the Austrian fund began to pay the compensation.
Mr. Eizenstat said the Hapsburgs' claim would not affect claims by Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
"We are not competing here with Jewish victims for compensation," Mr. Eizenstat said. "We purposely made the law so that it was not just for Jews but for all victims of national socialism." |
