Otto von Habsburg never got to be emperor. Born in 1912, he watched as his family’s grasp on political power slipped, and the dynasty that once dominated central Europe and beyond became just another surname that whispered of a greater history. A vocal participant in Europe’s postwar politics, he couldn’t forget the legacy he’d been born into: once, on being asked if he planned to watch an Austria-Hungary football match, he is said to have responded “Perhaps – who are we playing?”
Otto, who spoke seven languages and whose heart was buried in Hungary while the rest of him reposed in Austria, was among the last of a line that can be traced at least to the 10th century, to the first Habsburg we can speak of with any certainty: Kanzelin (or possibly Lanzelin) of Altenburg, a small-time magnate in what today is Switzerland. Martyn Rady’s panoramic history narrates how Kanzelin and his descendants made money, territorial gains and enemies: the monks of a monastery they themselves had founded spread the idea that “the earliest Habsburgs were no more than robber barons”.
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