Egon Caesar Conte Corti

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Memorial plaque, Vienna

Egon Caesar Conte Corti alle Catene , from 1919 Egon Caesar Corti (born April 2, 1886 in Agram, today Zagreb , Croatia ; † September 17, 1953 in Klagenfurt ) was an officer , historian and writer ; but above all a bestselling author .

Life

Corti came from an old Lombard aristocratic family that sided with Austria when Italy was unified. His father was the later Austro-Hungarian field marshal lieutenant Hugo Conte Corti (1851–1916), whose father Franz Conte Corti (1803–1890) had also been a kuk field marshal lieutenant. The mother Olga (née Müller) came from a middle-class family. Corti himself also embarked on the career of a professional officer. However, after the lost World War in 1918, he was adopted. In search of a livelihood, Corti began to write biographical works. He benefited greatly from the opportunity to work at the University of Vienna under the auspices of the historian Heinrich Srbik . He wrote biographies on the history of the 19th century and has been a specialist in biographical works on personalities from the European aristocracy since the interwar period. As can be seen in his extensive work, Corti was deeply monarchist and married to a Jewish wife. Nevertheless, he became a member of the "Volksbund" founded in 1937, which served as a cover organization for the NSDAP in Austria, which was illegal at the time . After Austria's "annexation" to the German Reich in 1938 , Corti contributed to the Confession Book of Austrian Poets , which was published by the Association of German Writers in Austria . Corti's application to join the NSDAP was made with reference to his Jewish wife Gertrud Mautner-Markhof, twin sister of the so-called "Senf-Tegethoff" Manfred Mautner-Markhof sen. , from which he did not want to part, refused.

Corti's only son Ferrante (February 9, 1925 - December 1944, missing in World War II ) was arrested in 1940 at the age of 15 and interrogated for days by the Gestapo on charges that he had conspired against the Nazis. Later in the war, Ferrante Corti was assigned to a punitive battalion.

Corti's books and biographies still stand out in a specific way from other works of a similar kind: on the one hand, they contain numerous original statements by contemporary witnesses who were still alive in Corti's time. On the other hand, the works contain historically unique sources: various noble and noble houses granted Conte Corti - as the only author and their kind, because they were also noble - access to their secret private archives, which have now been closed again or some of which were destroyed in the Second World War.

Corti died in 1953, a few months before his wife. There is a memorial plaque on his house at Franziskanerplatz 1 in Vienna (1010 Vienna).

In 1960 the Cortigasse in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him.

Works (selection)

as an author
  1. The rise of the house of Rothschild. 1770-1830 . 1927.
  2. The Rothschild House in its prime. 1830-1871 . 1928.
  1. From child to emperor. Childhood and first youth of Emperor Franz Joseph I and his siblings . 1950.
  2. Man and ruler. Paths and fates of Emperor Franz Joseph I between the accession to the throne and the Berlin Congress . 1952.
  3. The old emperor. Franz Joseph I. from the Berlin Congress until his death . 1955.
as editor
  • Benito Mussolini : My War Diary ("Il mio diario di guerra"). Amalthea, Vienna 1930.

Individual evidence

  1. The title was made bourgeois on the basis of the "Law on the Abolition of the Nobility, Secular Knights and Ladies Orders and Certain Titles and Dignities" of the Republic of Austria (Nobility Repeal Act ) of April 3, 1919 with effect from April 10, 1919.
  2. Corti used his former title after 1919 as an artist name, so that he later published under the name "Conte Corti".
  3. a b Street names in Vienna since 1860 as “Political Places of Remembrance” (PDF; 4.4 MB), p. 195f, final research project report, Vienna, July 2013.
  4. ^ Association of German writers Austria (ed.): Confession book of Austrian poets . Krystall, Vienna 1938.
  5. ^ Roman Roček: Shine and misery of the PEN: biography of a literary club, Böhlau Vienna, p. 248.

literature

Web links