Hitler and the Habsburgs

The Fuhrer's Vendetta Against the Austrian Royals

By: James Longo

Narrated by: David Colacci

Five youthful years in Vienna. It was then and there that Adolf Hitler's obsession with the Habsburg Imperial family became the catalyst for his vendetta against a vanished empire, a dead archduke, and his royal orphans. That hatred drove Hitler's rise to power and led directly to the tragedy of the Second World War and the Holocaust.

The royal orphans of Archduke Franz Ferdinand - offspring of an upstairs-downstairs marriage that scandalized the tradition-bound Habsburg Empire - came to personify to Adolf Hitler, and others, all that was wrong about modernity, the 20th century, and the Habsburg's multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were outsiders in the greatest family of royal insiders in Europe, which put them on a collision course with Adolf Hitler.

As he rose to power, Hitler's hatred toward the Habsburgs and their diverse empire fixated on Franz Ferdinand's sons, who became outspoken critics and opponents of the Nazi party and its racist ideology. When Germany seized Austria in 1938, they were the first two Austrians arrested by the Gestapo, deported to Germany, and sent to Dachau. Within hours they went from palace to prison. The women in the family, including the Archduke's only daughter Princess Sophie Hohenberg, declared their own war on Hitler.

©2018 James M. Longo (P)2018 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Hitler and the Habsburgs offers a new perspective on Hitler that contrasts him with one family's bravery, Christian faith, and utter heroism... We need books like this one to remind us of the black hole of terror into which we can so easily plunge." (Sue Woolmans, co-author of The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914)

another layer in the onion of European politics re

vealed. well worth reading. Sophia, the daughter of ditches Sophie, was the ultimate hero of the saga.

The Hapsbergs

The humility, endurance, faith and love of this family. New appreciation of all that they endured.

Very good history of Eastern Europe

This book does a great job of creating a certain perspective of the first half of the 20th century. Had the Habsburgs stayed in power, this is the view that we would have been taught in school. Wonderful angle.

Excellent Insight Into the Hapsburgs/Hohenburgs

This story is an amazing one. The family of the Archduke were at the center of the storm that was the 20th Century. We still feel the reverberations of what this family suffered today. I don’t believe one can understand WWI or WWII without a firm understanding of the Hapsburgs and what their empire meant.

Great story of a fascinating period

The author does a great job throughout. I especially enjoyed the way he tells the story of the descendants of Franz Ferdinand while at the same time narrating the story of Hitler.