Czech court rejects claim to Franz Ferdinand d'Este heritage

Hohenberg, among others, demands the return of Konopiste chateau, central Bohemia, seat of the family of Archduke Franz Ferdinand D'Este, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, who was with his wife murdered in Sarajevo in 1914. The assassination precipitated WWI.

The Hohenberg property in the Czech Lands was nationalised in the 1920s, following the establishment of the first Czechoslovak Republic as one of the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy ruled by the House of Habsburgs.

However, Sophie Hohenberg raised objections to the property confiscations in a declaratory action submitted in 2006.

She argues that her relatives did not belong to the ruling dynasty as her great-grandfather Franz Ferdinand d'Este had to give up the succession rights to the throne for his descendants over his "morganatic" marriage with Czech countess Zofie (Sophie) Chotek since she was not a member of one of the reigning or formerly reigning dynasties of Europe.

Their children, Ernst, Maxmilian and Sophie, thus had not rights to the throne.

Hohenberg is Maxmilian's heir.

The courts in Benesov and Prague along with the Supreme Court swept the declaratory action from the table. They justified the decision by the fact that Hohenberg did not clearly specify what property she exactly required.

She namely listed the land and real estate on he basis of data from the 1920s.

The US confirmed the previous courts' arguments.

Her defence counsel Jaroslav Broz told CTK earlier he is prepared to submit the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

He claims that the descendants of Franz Ferdinand d'Este were orphans and Austrian citizens, and the confiscation of their property was at variance with international law.

Author: ČTK
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