Otto arrives in NY to study democracy

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March 4, 1940

Archduke Otto of Austria,  the pretender to the non-existent throne of Austria, arrived Baltimore today on the Pan American Clipper. He wants to study "United States democracy as a model for a post-war Central European Federation of States."

The Associated Press and other media were present for his arrival in Baltimore, Maryland. Otto told reporters that such a federation "will be automatic after the war. There is no question but the Germans will lose the war. The moral factors alone makes the Allied victory certain."

Otto, who traveled incognito as the Duke de Bar, was met at the airport by his younger brother, Archduke Felix. Archduke Otto hoped that his "proposed European federation," would include Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria and other small nations, which would want to join a "United States of the Danube Basin."

The archduke, who received his visa to travel to the USA in Lisbon a week ago, then boarded a plane for New York. He and his party will stay at the Hotel Ritz-Carlton. He will be in the United States for about three weeks, because of the unsettled conditions in Europe.