Hubertus Czernin

Hubertus Czernin (more fully, Hubertus Alexander Felix Franz Maria Czernin von und zu Chudenitz; 17 January 1956 – 10 June 2006) was an Austrian investigative journalist.

Born in Vienna on 17 January 1956[1] to Felix Theobald Paul Anton Maria Reich Graf Czernin von und zu Chudenitz (1902–1968) and his wife Franziska née Baronin von Mayer-Gunthof (1926–1987), he helped expose the Nazi past of former United Nations Secretary-General and Austrian President Kurt Waldheim. Count Czernin was a remarkable member of one of the Austro-Bohemian oldest noble families.

Czernin is noted as a main character figure of the 2015 film, Woman in Gold, where he is depicted by Daniel Brühl.

Career

He wrote initially for the news weekly Wochenpresse. In 1984 he was hired by the Viennese magazine Profil, eventually becoming its editor.

Czernin's investigation of Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër revealed that he had had sex with over 2,000 young men,[2] starting in the 1950s and ending in the 1990s.

Czernin was the first journalist to gain access to records at the Austrian Gallery in Vienna and, in 1998, published a series of articles about the ownership of five famous paintings from artist Gustav Klimt, proving that claims by Austria that they had been donated to the gallery by Ferdinand or Adele Bloch-Bauer were false. The articles led to the passage of Austria's Art Restitution Law, which allowed the family of Maria Altmann, the niece of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, along with Altmann's lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg, to pursue claims successfully to the Klimt paintings that had been looted from her uncle during World War II (see Republic of Austria v. Altmann). A United States Supreme Court ruling allowed Altmann to sue the Austrian government for ownership of the multimillion dollar Klimt paintings in the United States. Hundreds of families had looted art restored to them, or restitution made, under the new law.

Views on Czernin

Altmann's Attorney E. Randol Schoenberg stated "Hubertus Czernin was a hero to me. He committed his life to exposing unspoken truths about Austria and its Nazi past." Schoenberg's client Maria Altmann stated "Without Hubertus, there would have been nothing."[3]

"Believing in justice for Maria Altmann kept Czernin alive," an obituary in Der Standard noted shortly after Czernin's untimely death in 2006.[3]

"All was quiet in the thieves’ kitchen, and might have stayed that way except for Count Hubertus Czernin. An investigative journalist of integrity, he campaigned successfully for a law to compel restitution," wrote David Pryce-Jones.[4]

Czernin was portrayed by actor Daniel Brühl in the 2015 film Woman in Gold.

Personal life

Czernin was married twice, first to Cristina Teresa Countess Szapáry de Muraszombath Széchysziget et Szapár in 1979 (first cousin to Cristina von Reibnitz, Princess Michael of Kent), ending in divorce in 1981. By his second marriage, to Valerie Countess von Baratta-Dragona, in 1984, he became the father of three daughters.

He died in Vienna of mastocytosis.

Works

References

  1. ↑ "Universalist und Edelmann Hubertus Graf von und zu Czernin (1956–-2006)". profil (in German). 17 June 2006. Retrieved 9 July 2016. C1 control character in |title= at position 65 (help)
  2. ↑ "Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer". The Independent. London. 27 March 2003.
  3. 1 2 Elisabeth Penz; Jon =Thurber (15 June 2006). "Hubertus Czernin, 50; Austrian Journalist Had Role in Return of Art Seized by Nazis". Los Angeles Times.
  4. ↑ Restitution and the Shame of the Austrians National Review. Retrieved 9 July 2016.

Further reading

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/6/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.