Archduke Leopold Ferdinand of Austria

Archduke Leopold Ferdinand
Spouse Wilhelmine Adamovicz
Maria Ritter
Klara Pawlowski
Full name
Leopold Ferdinand Salvator Marie Joseph Johann Baptist Zenobius Rupprecht Ludwig Karl Jacob Vivian
Father Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Mother Alice of Bourbon-Parma
Born 2 December 1868(1868-12-02)
Salzburg
Died 4 July 1935(1935-07-04) (aged 66)
Berlin

Archduke Leopold Ferdinand of Austria (2 December 1868 – 4 July 1935) was the eldest son of Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Alice of Bourbon-Parma.

Contents

Early life

In 1892 and 1893 Leopold accompanied Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on a sea voyage through the Suez Canal and on to India and Australia. The relationship between the two Archdukes was extremely bad and their permanent attempts to outdo and humiliate the other one led the Kaiser Franz Joseph to order Leopold Ferdinand to return to Austria immediately. He left the ship in Sydney and went back to Europe.[1] He was dismissed from the Austro-Hungarian Navy and entered an infantry regiment at Brno. Eventually he was appointed colonel of the 81st Regiment FZM Baron von Waldstätten.[2]

Leopold fell in love with a prostitute, Wilhelmine Adamovicz, whom he met for the first time in Augarten - a park in Vienna (some other sources claim their first meeting took place in Olmütz). His parents offered him 100,000 florins on condition that he leave his mistress. He refused to do so and instead decided the renounce the crown in order to be able to marry her.

Renunciation of title

On 29 December 1902 it was announced that the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria had agreed to a request by Leopold to renounce his rank as an archduke.[3] His name was removed from the roll of the Order of the Golden Fleece and from the army list. He took the name Leopold Wölfling after a peak in the Ore Mountains. He was forbidden from entering Austrian lands and became a Swiss citizen. He was given a gift of 200,000 florins as well as a further 30,000 florins as income from his parents.

After World War I Wölfling's allowance from his family stopped. He returned to Austria and opened a delicatessen store in Vienna where he sold salami and olive oil.[4] He also tried his hand as a tourist guide in the royal castle and palaces in Vienna and was very well received by his audiences. Unfortunately, the interest his person awoke in Austrian capital proved to be too much for the ex-Archduke and he fled the city again. After that he lived in Berlin, Germany. Here he worked few menial jobs: provided a live commentary to a silent film about the Habsburgs, acted in a cabaret and wrote memoirs.

Wölfling married three times:

Published books:

Wölfling died on July, 4th 1935 in Berlin.[5] His grave is preserved in the Protestant Friedhof III der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde (Cemetery No. III of the congregations of Jerusalem's Church and New Church) in Berlin-Kreuzberg, south of Hallesches Tor.[6]

Titles and styles

Ancestry

References

  1. ^ Nicholas Horthy, Memoirs ( London: Hutchinson, 1956), 70-71.
  2. ^ Almanach de Gotha, 1902 (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1902), 10.
  3. ^ Wiener Zeitung ( 29 December 1902), page 1.
  4. ^ "Unser Anton", Time Magazine ( 9 December 1929).
  5. ^ "Ex-Archduke's Death In Poverty", The Times ( 5 July 1935): 13.
  6. ^ Royalty Travel Guide, Berlin, Kirchhof vor dem Halleschen Tor

External links