He was a good friend of Ludwig von Mises’s and also the Mises Insitute, so I hope you can understand this rather unconventional posting. Here is the Dies Irae from the Requiem Mass that all of Europe is talking about.
Requiem in c-moll
Missa pro defuncto Archiepiscopo Sigismondo
Michael Haydn (1737 — 1806)
Domchor & Domorchester St. Stephan
Hans Haselböck, Orgel
Leitung: Domkapellmeister Markus Landerer
Sopran: Tünde Szabóki
Alt: Alice Rath
Tenor: Gernot Heinrich
Bass: Günter Haumer
Orgel beim Requiem: Anne Marie Dragosits
AFTER A requiem at Vienna’s St Stephen’s Cathedral, the funeral party entered Vienna’s Capuchin Friary (Kapuzinerkirche) after the following “knocking” ceremony.
FIRST KNOCK
Capuchin Friar : “Who desires admission?”
Leader of funeral party: “Otto of Austria, former Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Bukowina; Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Osweicim and Zator, of Teschen, Friaul, Dubrovnik and Zadar; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trento and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and Istria: Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenburg; Lord of Trieste, Kotor and Windic March; Grand Voivod of the Voivodship of Serbia”
Friar : “We do not know him!”
SECOND KNOCK
Friar : “Who desires admission?”
Leader : “Dr Otto von Habsburg; President and Honorary President of the Pan-European Union; Member and Father of the House of the European Parliament; Holder of honorary doctorates from countless universities and freeman of many communities in Central Europe; Member of numerous noble academies and institutes; Bearer of high and highest awards, decorations and honours of church and state made to him in recognition of his decade-long struggle for the freedom of peoples, for right and justice.”
Friar: “We do not know him!”
THIRD KNOCK
Friar : “Who desires admission?”
Leader : “Otto — a mortal, sinful man!”
Friar: “Let him be admitted.
{ 9 comments }
I’m sort of a history buff, so I can really appreciate the significance of this requiem. I almost started crying when I thought about some of the history of the Hapsburg family. The Austro-Hungarian Empire used to be right up there with the German Empire on the European continent back well over a century ago. And to think that all it took a was a Serbian malcontent to upset it all. Of course, the Hapsburg union had a lot of internal problems that made the downfall perhaps inevitable.
Seeing the old-fashioned military uniforms worn by some in the requiem brought back powerful atavistic images of times past. Those uniforms definitely have their lineage in the old Prussian nobility. All in all, an impressive requiem to what may be the last of the Hapsburg line. I bow my head in respect.
“And to think that all it took a was a Serbian malcontent to upset it all.”
This is like saying that all it took to destroy the American Empire was some Saudi dude holed up in Afghanistan.
Nothing would have happened if the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the rest of Europe including the UK hadn’t been controlled by trigger-happy jerks who all thought of themselves as the Bestest and the Greatest and ennobled with Manifest Destiny.
Gas!
“This is like saying that all it took to destroy the American Empire was some Saudi dude holed up in Afghanistan.”
Well it did take one dude holed up in Afghanistan but only because the prerequisites where in place that had been created by others.
Europe in 1914 had seen insane economic growth as well as relative peace since for a very long time with no major war. People had simply put it out of their mind what war actually meant, they had been tricked by easy wars like the ones resulting from the unification of Germany.
All it took were populations of people who shared some malevolent ideas, believed some foolish myths and were prepared to do violence. The one malcontent was the detonator that allowed the consequences of those to explode into reality.
What a terrible loss of civilisation.
Sione
Vety touching. Says so much. The knowing know well.
The traditional Habsburg entombment ceremony warms my Catholic heart.
God rest the soul of His servant, Otto.
Just curious, who paid for all of this, the family or the state (and by state I mean taxpayers)?
This is the best English translation of the proceedings that I’ve seen on the web thus far. Very complete, and largely translated correctly.
In the interests of having a correct record in English, here are some corrections:
(1) “Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia.” Croatia is in the next clause.
(2) “Osweicim” should be Anglicized as “Auschwitz.” Yes, *that* Auschwitz.
(3) “Trento” should be Anglicized as “Trent.”
As long as you’re Anglicizing Österreich as Austria and Ungarn as Hungary, you might as well Anglicize all the place names.
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