Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Austria delays Habsburg return

July 5, 1935

Austrian Foreign Minister Egon Berger-Waldenegg today "sharply denied rumors" that former Empress Zita and her son, Archduke Otto, would visit Austria soon.

According to the Associated Press dispatch, the Foreign Minister denied "as nonsense reports from Brussels, where the exiled royal family lives," that Zita and her children "were planning to spend the summer" in their homeland.

"The head of the house of Habsburg positively will not come to Austria this summer,"  said Berger-Waldenegg.

In recent days, the Austrian cabinet and council of state have "approved return of the family's vast properties," and the measure needs only the approval "of the diet and the president to become law."  This is expected to happen by next week.

A Habsburg family council was reported to be underway at Steenockerzel castle in Belgium, where royalists "assert that young Archduke Otto soon would be back on the Austrian throne."  

Prince Felix, the consort of Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, was among those "attending the rumored council" at the the castle where Empress Zita and her children have been living in exile.  Prince Felix is a brother of Empress Zita.

One legitimist close to Archduke Otto told the Associated Press that Prince Ernst von Starhemberg remains opposed to "an immediate restoration," as he desires to "act as regent during an intermediary period" which is seen as a bar to the Otto's "early coronation."

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