Crown Prince Rudolf and the Mystery of Mayerling
On August 21, 1858, the first Habsburg crown prince in 65 years, Rudolf of Austria-Hungary, was born at Laxenburg Palace. His parents were none other than Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth, known as Sisi, who had also spent their honeymoon at Laxenburg Palace. The surprising death of Crown Prince Rudolf on January 30, 1898, at the Mayerling hunting lodge near Vienna still raises questions today and has gone down in history as the Mayerling myth. Until the age of six, Crown Prince Rudolf of Habsburg enjoyed a strict military education under Major General Leopold Count Gondrecourt. The latter used sadistic educational methods to turn the weak young man into a stately man. Rudolf had to drill for hours, was awakened in the middle of the night by pistol shots, tortured with cold water cures, and left alone at night in the Lainzer Tiergarten, knowing that hungry wild boars were lurking there. However, his mother put an end to this strict upbringing. Empress Sisi brought liberal teachers to the court. Among them was the German zoologist Alfred Brehm, with whom Rudolf undertook research trips to observe birds. Rudolf von Habsburg was an intelligent man with revolutionary ideas and republican thoughts, which he published in memoranda or in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt under the pseudonym Moritz Szeps. He cultivated many friendships with Jewish intellectuals, which did not sit well with many people in the monarchy at a time when anti-Semitism was rampant. Rudolf is even said to have had an affair with a Jewish woman whom he met in 1878 on his inaugural trip from Vienna to Prague for military service. However, the woman was banished from the Habsburg monarchy and subsequently died. According to Rudolf’s granddaughter Stephanie Windisch-Graetz, she was his one and only great love. At the age of 27, Crown Prince Rudolf married the 16-year-old Belgian princess Stephanie in 1881. Two years later, their daughter Elisabeth Petznek was born, who would remain their only child. Crown Prince Rudolf had contracted syphilis during one of his many extramarital affairs. He had passed this infection on to his wife, rendering her infertile. Disgusted by her husband, Stephanie sought comfort in the Polish Count Artur Potocki. From 1886 onwards, drugs such as morphine and alcohol also dominated the daily life of the Crown Prince, whose favorite lady was the high-class prostitute Mizzi Caspar. He bought her a prestigious house in Heumühlgasse in Vienna’s 4th district, Wieden. He showered her with jewelry and money and even wanted to commit double suicide with her. But Mizzi Caspar politely declined and reported this to the police, whereupon he turned his attention to the 17-year-old Hungarian baroness Mary Vetsera. In January 1898, he traveled with her to his private hunting lodge in Mayerling. There, he and his lover were found dead on the morning of January 30, 1898. He had first shot his lover and then himself in the head with his pistol. But the crown prince’s suicide and the murder of his lover had to be covered up. Therefore, a medical report was issued stating that the crown prince was of unsound mind at the time of the crime. Otherwise, as a suicide, he would not have been allowed a church burial. Mary Vetsera’s body was secretly taken from the hunting lodge and buried in the cemetery of Heiligenkreuz. Rumors were deliberately spread that the crown prince had been murdered by enemies in order to conceal the suicide. Crown Prince Rudolf was buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna. In the same year, his mother Sisi was assassinated.
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