VIENNA – A century after Austria swept the Habsburgs from power, the royal family has re-emerged at the centre of a new national dispute – this time over a cache of jewels that vanished during the empire’s collapse and recently surfaced in a Canadian bank vault.
The latest twist in Austria’s long, complicated relationship with its imperial past arrived not in Vienna, but in Quebec, where the Habsburg family says a set of long-lost treasures has been quietly resting for decades. The Austrian government is now asking whether the jewels – including the legendary Florentine Diamond – belong to the dynasty that fled in 1918, or to the republic that succeeded it.
The revelation has reopened a familiar cultural fault line in Austria, where the monarchy is usually preserved in amber: museum vitrines, tourist brochures, and the sentimental glow of the Sissi films. This time, the argument has spilled squarely into politics.
The dispute also comes with a twist of historical karma. Austria has spent decades deflecting requests for the return of other people’s treasures – Mexico’s demands for the Aztec feather crown in Vienna, or the protracted battles over Schieles and Klimts stolen from Jewish families during the Nazi era. In those cases, the state insisted on strict legal definitions of ownership and custody. Now, in a reversal of roles, Austria is the one scrutinising century-old transfers and arguing that an object taken abroad under chaotic circumstances rightfully belongs at home.
A family secret, timed to the century
The drama began when Karl Habsburg-Lothringen – grandson of Austria’s last emperor and the family’s current head – announced that jewels long believed lost had “reappeared” in Canada.
Two of Karl’s cousins, Simeon and Lorenz, then insisted they had known the location for decades. According to their account, the jewels were brought to Quebec by Empress Zita, widow of Emperor Karl I, during her wartime exile beginning in 1940. She reportedly placed them in a bank vault and told two of her sons to reveal the secret only 100 years after the emperor’s death in 1922.
Before their own deaths, the sons – Rudolf and Robert – passed the secret to one heir each: Simeon and Lorenz. Only recently, the cousins say, did they disclose it to Karl, completing a multilayered family relay that sounds tailor-made for a prestige drama.
The family managed the unveiling with characteristic stagecraft. The New York Times and Der Spiegel were pre-briefed; the Times filmed the long-awaited box opening in Quebec, lending the moment a cinematic flourish that aligns neatly with the myths around the jewels themselves.
The diamond at the centre of the storm
Among the 15 pieces, one stands apart: the Florentine Diamond, a pale-yellow, 137-carat stone once considered among the largest in Europe. Before the Habsburgs acquired it in the 18th century, it had already passed through the Medici of Florence – hence its name.
Its modern, contested chapter began in 1918, when the imperial court fled Vienna in the final days of the monarchy. Officials removed the diamond and other valuables from the treasury and carried them to Switzerland. Over the following years, the family sold portions of its jewellery to maintain its lifestyle in exile – and to bankroll attempts to restore the Hungarian throne.
In the century since, speculation about the diamond has run rampant. Was it sold? Lost? Stolen? Cut into smaller stones? Its afterlife in novels and films only deepened the mystery.
Now, with the stone apparently intact, one question eclipses the intrigue.
Who owns the jewels?
The Habsburgs argue the jewels are private property, outside the reach of the 1919 Habsburg Law that confiscated family possessions within Austria. British historian Richard Bassett, retained by the family, supports that claim, asserting that the jewellery left the country before the law took effect.
Austrian historians are sceptical. Some contend the jewels may have belonged to the imperial treasury and not to the family. If so, they argue, removing them in 1918 amounted to an illicit export – meaning the jewels would legally belong to the Austrian state today.
Some even argue the rightful owner of the jewels is neither Austria nor the Habsburg family, but Italy. Rome, they argue, might have a rightful claim under the Treaty of St. Germain, the agreement Austria signed after its defeat in World War I. That theory hinges on the fact that the Habsburgs acquired the Florentine Diamond in the 18th century through a Medici who married into the family.
In an effort to resolve the matter, Andreas Babler, Austria’s vice-chancellor, culture minister, and leader of the Social Democrats, has ordered a legal review.
“If it turns out that the Florentine Diamond is the property of the Republic of Austria, I will initiate the process of its return,” he told Austrian media shortly after the story first broke.
A committee of legal scholars and historians is expected to be appointed soon, but no names or timeframe have been announced yet. Its members will have to untangle a complex international web of laws, trusts, and ownership claims, all embedded in tense historical events.
The final verdict, which will likely take years, is anyone’s guess.
The man who would be Kaiser
The resurfacing of the jewels has already reignited long-standing tensions between the republic and the dynasty it supplanted, however. Karl Habsburg-Lothringen stirred the pot further when, in an interview with public broadcaster ORF, he was asked whether he considered himself Austria’s rightful emperor. His reply: “I can neither confirm nor deny.”
He also defended leading the Order of St George, a conservative-leaning monarchist network whose members still address him as “His Imperial & Royal Highness Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen” – complete with the von, a noble honorific outlawed by Austria’s 1919 abolition of aristocratic titles.
When pressed during the interview about whether he would accept the prospective committee’s judgement should it decide against the family’s claim, Habsburg-Lothringen embraced ambiguity once more.
“I can’t look into the future,” he said.
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