The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1985 (12. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1985-01-01 / 1. szám
GALÉRIA HUNGARICA THE STRANGE “MAYERLING” CASE — by — Paul Pulitzer On January 30, 1889, the bodies of Crown Prince Rudolph, the only son of the Emperor Francis Joseph and Empress-Queen Elizabeth (the beloved Queen of Hungary) and heir to the Habsburgian throne of Austria-Hungary, and Marie Vetsera, a baroness of Greek lineage, were found in the royal hunting lodge at Mayerling. Both were found shot to death. The positioning of the bodies indicated suicide. That the ill-fated lovers did commit suicide, was the verdict reached by the Court and the law enforcement authorities. This closed the case for about 96 years....until recently. Prince Rudolph. The “suicide” was thoroughly investigated by the Austrian authorities and their voluminous casefile was submitted to the grieving Emperor who, in order to assure his son an ecclesiastical burial, it now claimed, ordered a coverup and confiscated the thick dossier. The destructive consequence of this royal act of deception was that Francis Joseph’s deeply shocked and mourning, Austro-Hungarian Empire was deluged with wild rumors. The most enduring among these suppositions was that, because the Emperor had castigated Rudolph for flaunting his extramarital affair with the beautiful Greek baroness and had ordered it stopped, the couple were driven to commit suicide rather than give each other up for reasons of state. No public attention, of course, was ever directed towards the ladder marks found beneath an open window of the hunting lodge, or towards the careful manner in which the bodies were positioned. Perhaps, this explains why it was January, 1985 that Rudolph’s most authoritative biographer, Oscar von Mitis, said after examining the admissible evidence and testimony that he was "puzzled” as to the motives that inspired the hideous crime.” To be sure, there is quite a difference between a “hideous crime” and a “suicide”. Nevertheless, for about 96 years, the official explanation generally accepted for the “hideous crime” at Mayerling was that it was triggered by a suicide pact between the two lovers. This conclusion is now being seriously questioned by an investigative reporter. Erich Feigl has recently published a book in which he claims that Crown Prince Rudolf and the Baroness Maire Vetsera were assassinated because they knew too much! The corroborative basis for his conclusions, Feigl asserts, was his personal interview with Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, the widow of Charles Francis Joseph, who inherited the Habsburgian throne in 1916, but abdicated it in 1918. Princess Zita, who was living quietly in a Swiss convent and was in her 90’s when tracked down and interviewed by him, Feigl cliams, told him that, when her husband assumed the Habsburg title, the aged Emperor Francis Joseph entrusted him with the Mayerling casefule and asked him not to make its contents public until 1939. Charles Francis Joseph, however, opened the file in 1916 in the presence of Zita. It was filled with blank paper! Someone had stolen the original documents! Princess Zita also told him, Feigl claims, that Crown Prince Rudolph had been conned into a plot to undermine the Austrian alliance with Germany in favor of an Austro-French rapprochement. When Rudolph, who loved and respected has father in spite of their personal and political disagreements, found out that the conspirators’ intentions were to destroy Francis Joseph by this means, he threatened The beautiful Empress Elizabeth. Franz Joseph I, the Emperor-King. to expose their plot. Fearful of retaliation by Germany, as well as by Austria, if word of their diplomatic machinations ever revealed, according to Feigl, that Georges Clemenceau, the “Tiger of France” who was also one of the architects of the dismemberment of Hungary after World War I (Treaty of Trianon), and Cornelius Herze, a wealthy French businessman, were responsible for the murders committed at Mayerling! Erich Feigl’s revelations may seem farfetched. However, a French link to Crown Prince Rudolph is traceable. Rudolf wrote for and helped to finance two newspapers published in Vienna by Moritz Szeps (the Neues Wiener Ragblatt and the Wiener Tagblatt). Szeps, a Francophile, had close connections with French political leaders and used his newspapers to further their interests. What’s more, his daughter married into the Clemenceau family! Now, if Erich Feigl could manage to track down the whereabouts of the Maria Katherina Kiss de Itteba (Katherina Schratt) Papers, he could probably solve the 96-year-old mystery behind the “suicides” at Mayerling. For Katherina Schratt, who was the mistress of the Emperor Francis Joseph, had in her possession a “storehouse of memories” that disappeared upon her death in 1940! // this reading is your first acquaintance with “THE EIGHTH TRIBE”, u>e hope you find it informative and enjoyable and that in time you will become one of our regular subscribers. HUNGARIAN COOK BOOix in English-Attractive Covers S3.50 - including Postage Bethlen Press, Inc. P.O. Box 637, Ligonier, PA 15658 Page 13
