¶ Well, maybe not: Otto von Hapsburg, who has died two years shy of his centenary, and briefly the Austro-Hungarian crown prince, is survived by a younger brother, Felix — as well as a clutch of offpsring that includes two great-grandchildren (lucky man!). But when Dr von Hapsburg finally abdicated his claim to the vanished throne, in 1961, it was not assumed by anyone else. The erstwhile prince devoted his life to pursuing a high-minded and less personally invested version of his imperial family’s ambitious but generally benign project of unifying all of Europe. As Holy Roman Emperors, and then as the rulers of the reduced but still vast Dual Monarchy, the Hapsburgs were a steadfast counterweight to the deadly sectarian and nationalistic trends that, finally prevailing in the mid-Twentieth Century, taught Europeans the importance of a common union.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011 at 8:00 pm.