Anna Nahowski

Anna Nahowski , b. Nowak, (* 1860 in Vienna , Austria; † 1931 there ) was the lover of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in the 1870s and 1880s .

Anna Nahowski at the age of 22, around 1882

Life

At the age of 15 Anna was married to the silk manufacturer Johann Heuduck, an alcoholic addicted to gambling. When they divorced after three years, she deposited a large amount of money for him, who had no idea about his wife's imperial affair.

Her second marriage was to the womanizer Franz Nahowski. He was an official of the private southern railway company , later of the state railway in Galicia . He, too, kept running into debts, which Anna arranged to pay off. From time to time she received gifts of money from the emperor, a total of over 100,000 guilders, according to other sources a total of over 200,000 guilders.

Anna and the emperor met by chance in 1875 during a morning walk in the park of Schönbrunn Palace . Franz Joseph is said to have addressed her with: "But you go for a walk." (Nahowski later described this day as the happiest of her life.) The sexual relationship between the two is said to have started three years later and lasted about ten years.

Anna Nahowski lived with her husband in the summer since 1878 in Vienna- Hetzendorf , 12., Schönbrunner Allee (until 1892 Schönbrunner Strasse) No. 8 (with a secret entrance for her lover) and since 1885 in Vienna- Hietzing , 13., Maxingstraße (until 1894 Hetzendorfer Straße) No. 46, corner of Weidlichgasse, right next to the Schönbrunn Palace Park. A villa in Trahütten near Deutschlandsberg was used as a summer residence, the acquisition of this property (now called Alban-Berg-Villa ) is said to have been made possible by the Kaiser. Anna Nahowski's daughter Helene was born in 1885 and married the composer Alban Berg in 1911 . Nahowski had other children.

The love affair overlapped with Franz Joseph's (long-term) relationship with Katharina Schratt , who supposedly wanted to buy the villa on Maxingstrasse that had just been acquired by Franz Nahowski, but then moved to another property in the same block. During this time, Franz Joseph's morning visits to Anna Nahowski became increasingly rare; she allegedly began to spy on him. (Katharina Schratt did not know anything about Nahowski.)

After his son's Mayerling tragedy at the beginning of 1889, the Emperor no longer went to Anna and ended the relationship generously but impersonally. Anna was ordered to the Hofburg , where an unknown baron was supposed to present her with a present from the emperor. She was told that she could determine the amount of the severance payment "for the 14 years in the service of the emperor" herself. She asked for the same amount that she had received before and also asked for 50,000 guilders for her children. In return, she had to sign the following statement:

“I hereby confirm that today I received 200,000  fl as a gift from His Majesty the Emperor. I also swear that I will keep silent about the meeting with His Majesty at any time. Anna Nahowski, Vienna, March 14, 1889. "

It was long assumed that two of Anna's five children were Franz Joseph's; one of them was their daughter Helene , who married Alban Berg on May 3, 1911 . But Anna's diary, which her daughter had released for publication in her will, shows that Anna's last meeting with the emperor took place a year before the birth of her son and that her son, even if he was named after the emperor, was therefore not a child of the emperor was. The son cut off his left little finger on Franz Joseph's 100th birthday in 1930. Franz Joseph Nahowski is said to have been admitted to the psychiatric clinic of the City of Vienna at Steinhof after this self-mutilation .

Anna Nahowski's grave is located in the Hietzinger Friedhof (group 22, grave no. 17) not far from her house on Maxingstrasse. (In 1940 Katharina Schratt was buried in the same cemetery.)

Her diary was released for publication after the death of her daughter Helene Berg in 1976.

literature

• Friedrich Saathen (ed.): Anna Nahowski and Kaiser Franz Josef . Records. Böhlau, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-205-05037-1 .
• Maria Erben: Helene Berg - Emperor's daughter and composer's wife. A study of society . Diploma thesis at the University of Vienna, 2012: [1]

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sigrid-Maria Großering : Empress Elisabeth and her men. Verlag Carl Ueberreuter, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-8000-3692-4 .
2. ^ Georg Markus : Addresses with history. Where famous people lived. Amalthea, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85002-542-X , p. 361 f.
3. ^ Weekly newspaper Weststeirische Rundschau . No. 10 (March 6, 2015), 88th year 2015, ZDB -ID 2303595-X . Page 3.

Web links

• The mistress of Emperor Franz Joseph I.