Hitler and the Habsburgs

Hitler and the Habsburgs offers a new perspective on Hitler that contrasts him with one family's bravery, Christian faith, and utter heroism. It is also a book that resonates with the politics of today. We need books like this one to remind us of the black hole of terror into which we can so easily plunge. Sue Woolmans, co-author of The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder That Changed the World

"A detailed and moving picture of how the Habsburgs suffered under the Nazi regime.... This look at a lesser-known aspect of WWII is scrupulously sourced, well-written, and accessible" Publishers Weekly, starred review

Longo's account does good service in tracing the long enmity Hitler felt for the Habsburgs and the extraordinary measures he took to erase the royal family. Kirkus Reviews

"Longo interviewed a number of Habsburg descendants, telling the heartbreaking story of the orphaned royals but also the bravery and courage of conviction it took for them to uphold their beliefs and resist in the face of evil. The author's in-depth research paints a vivid picture of this family, producing a richly detailed portrait that will appeal to readers interested in the origins of both world wars and European royal history." Library Journal

Professor Longo's offer to help has transformed into a book I have very much enjoyed reading, and I am sure you the reader, will as well. Reading the stories of my family always makes me proud, but I also feel somewhat intimidated by their courage, their strength and the admirable way they just went on living their lives as if tomorrow the sun would always shine again, all would be forgotten and everything would be all right. It is awe inspiring! Many have lived such admirable lives. They have become role models and sometimes even heroes. Their stories must be told if only because, after all they have been through, they deserve it. . . . It also gave another perspective into a misrepresented historic figure. Princess Sophie de Potesta Hohenberg, Great-granddaughter of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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Auteur

James Longo is Professor of Education and Education Department Chair at Washington & Jefferson College. He is a former Fulbright Scholar, Distinguished Chair of the Gender and Women's Study Program at Alpen-Adrian University in Austria, and has lectured throughout Europe and America. His 2008 book, Isabel Orleans-Braganza: The Brazilian Princess Who Freed the Slaves was nominated for the Yale University Gilda Lehman Frederick Douglass Book Prize for the "most outstanding non-fiction book in English on the subject of slavery and abolition." He lives in Washington, Pennsylvania.

Texte du rabat

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 backFive 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.