Rudolf of Habsburg, symbol of an era

The intelligent, liberal-minded and sensitive Crown Prince Rudolf (1858 - 1889) was regarded as the Favourite of the nations of the Habsburg Empire. In many respects, his life can be read as exemplary for the period between 1848 and the outbreak of the First World War. The struggle between new political ideas and the traditional, the enthusiasm for science, art and culture as well as customs and morals, which also characterised society and everyday life in Innsbruck, are reflected in the figure of Emperor Franz Josef I's son. The vast majority of Innsbruckers did not have the material means or the status of Habsburgs, but the fashions and trends under which they lived were the same.

The Danube Monarchy had changed since Franz Joseph I took office. In 1866, after Königgrätz, Austria had left the Deutschen Bund was eliminated. The so-called Compromise with Hungary took place in 1867. The Italian territories, with the exception of Trentino and the port of Trieste, were lost. The endeavours of the individual ethnic groups for national independence did not stop at Tyrol, as the Trentino region between Salurn and Riva on Lake Garda also included an Italian-speaking part of the country. In the Tyrolean provincial parliament, Italian-speaking members of parliament, so-called Irredentistsmore rights and autonomy for what was then South Tyrol. In Innsbruck, there were repeated tensions and clashes between Italian and German-speaking students. The WallschenThis term for Italians persists to this day in Tyrol and they were considered dishonourable, unreliable and lazy.

Rudolf was considered to be very well-read and educated. He was interested in a wide range of subjects, in keeping with the spirit of the educated middle classes. In addition to Greek and Latin, he also spoke French, Hungarian, Czech and Croatian. As a private citizen, he devoted himself to writing press articles, science and travelling through the countries of the monarchy. He organised the publication of of the Kronprinzenwerka natural science encyclopaedia. Volume 13 was published in 1893 and dealt with the crown land of Tyrol.

He was also politically open to new ideas. Rudolf wrote liberal articles in the "Neue Wiener Tagblatt" under a pseudonym. Among other things, he wanted to promote land and land reforms by taxing large landowners more heavily and granting the individual nationalities of the Habsburg Empire more rights. He was particularly unpopular in the conservative, rural Tyrol. Among the liberal-minded people of Innsbruck, on the other hand, he was seen as a hope for a renewal of the monarchy in the sense of a modern, federal state. Although the Rudolf Fountain on Boznerplatz in Innsbruck does not commemorate the crown prince, he was present at its inauguration.

Despite, or perhaps because of his aristocratic background, Rudolf's private life was turbulent, but not atypical of the time, in which parents and teachers were less approachable educators and more distant figures of respect. Children were brought up strictly. Neither teachers nor parents shied away from corporal punishment, even if there were limits, laws and rules for the use of domestic violence. Militarism and a focus on future gainful employment prevented the kind of childhood and youth we know today. Rudolf's early years, when he had to undergo a military education under General Gondrecourt at the request of Emperor Franz Josef, were also less than luxurious. It was only after his mother Elisabeth intervened that harassment such as water cures, drill in the rain and snow and being woken up with pistol shots were removed from the six-year-old crown prince's daily programme.

Like many of his contemporaries, Rudolf found himself in an unhappy, arranged marriage as an adult. The 19th century was not the age of love marriages. Aristocrats and members of the upper middle classes married out of arrogance and with the aim of preserving the dynasty. Servants, maids, farmhands and maidservants were forbidden to marry for a long time. In the upper classes, wives were nothing more than jewellery for their husbands and the head of the household. Husbands indulged in sexual affairs with maids, mistresses and prostitutes. Only when the often older husband had died could widows enjoy a life outside this role.

Throughout his life, Rudolf was not averse to the fairer sex outside of marriage. In the last months of his life, Rudolf had an affair with Mary Vetsera, a girl from the rich Hungarian aristocracy who was considered particularly beautiful and was only 17 years old. At this time, he was already suffering from depression, gonorrhoea, alcoholism and morphine addiction. On 30 January 1889, Rudolf met Vetsera after spending the previous night with his long-term lover, the prostitute Maria "Mizzi" Kaspar, had spent the night. Under circumstances that have never been fully clarified, he first killed the young woman and then himself with a shot to the head. The suicide was never recognised by the Habsburg family. Zita (1892 - 1989), the widow of the last Emperor Karl, still spoke of an assassination attempt in the 1980s. 

The discussion surrounding the burial of the heir to the throne and his mistress revealed the Christian morals and double standards of the Habsburg Empire. Suicide was considered a grave sin and actually prevented a Christian burial. Vetsera was buried inconspicuously in a small grave by the cemetery wall in Heiligenkreuz near Mayerling, while Rudolf was given a state funeral after imperial intervention with the Pope and was laid to rest in the Capuchin crypt, probably the most famous burial place of the Habsburgs in Vienna.