Friday, October 23, 2009

Unenemployed German sues for Saxon king for title

October 23, 1929

Victor von Horvath, a 40-year-old German clerk, who has been living on the dole for the past five months, has filed action in a Dresden court today against the the former King Friedrich August of Saxony, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. Von Horvath seeks recognition "of his claims to the title of the royal house of Wettin as prince of Saxony." Von Horvath has also filed suit against the former king's brothers, Princes Johann Georg and Max, and sisters, Princess Mathilde and Archduchess Maria Josepha.

He said he would have claimed the throne if the November 1918 revolution had not abolished the Saxon throne. His suit was denied, however, because Herr von Horvath "is penniless and the authorities refuse to grant him pauper dispensation for the court fees."

Von Horvath's claims that his father, Geza, who was born in 1854, was the legitimate son of King Albert and Queen Carola, a Swedish princess. It has been assumed that this marriage was childless.
The Saxon house law has a clause, which was inserted "a century ago,"that the "first crown prince would have to be educated as a Protestant, whereas the family was Roman Catholic."

The royal family did not want a Protestant head of the house, so that "Victor's father's birth was concealed and the baby smuggled out to be taken care of by an old Hungarian nurse."

The nurse allegedly brought up the young man, and shortly before her death, she revealed to him the truth about the swindle. It is a "fact that since the insertion of this clause no crown prince has existed in Saxony, the crown always passing on to some one other than the eldest son."
Geza von Horvath committed suicide in 1921.

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