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Monday, May 4, 2009

Hohenberg Prince reported dead in concentration camp




May 4, 1939

It was reported today in Vienna that Prince Ernst of Hohenberg, 32, the younger son of the late Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated at Sarajevo in 1914, has died in a concentration camp near Weimar.

Prince  Ernst got into trouble with Nazis in Vienna in January 1938 when he "smashed with an umbrella an illuminated swastika on the building of the German National Railway." The Prince was arrested and taken to a police station, where he showed his papers. He then went to the German legation to offer his apologies to the then German ambassador to Austria, Fritz von Papen. Three months later, Austria was absorbed into the German empire, and Prince Ernst was arrested and sent to a German concentration camp.

The New York Times notes that the reports are unconfirmed.

2 comments:

  1. thanks for posting this...quite interesting to read such an article. Fortunately, the newspaper were wrong: am I right that he had not died in concentration camp? I believe he died in 1954 or so...

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  2. Notice that the NYTimes said that the report was "unconfirmed."

    ReplyDelete