Margit of Batthyány
Margaret of Batthyány called Margit von Batthyány , nee Thyssen-Bornemisza (* 22. June 1911 in Schloss Rechnitz in Burgenland , Austria ; † 15. September 1989 in Castagnola in Switzerland ) was a daughter of Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon from of the Thyssen family .
Life
Margareta von Thyssen-Bornemisza married the Hungarian Count Ivan von Batthyány (1910–1985) in 1933 , whose family was historically linked for centuries to the city of Rechnitz and the castle that Margit Thyssen's father had acquired in 1906 and where she was born. During the Second World War, she maintained a recreation area for the Waffen SS in her castle .
On the night of March 24-25, 1945, the evening before Palm Sunday , shortly before the Red Army marched in , it organized a festival for the local NSDAP and the SS . According to the case files of the Vienna Regional Court from the post-war period, the owners of the palace, Count and Countess Batthyány, were also present at the festival. During this event, around 180 Hungarian-Jewish forced laborers were murdered by participants in the festival in the nearby Kreuzstadl barn during the Rechnitz massacre .
For the next sixty-two years the Thyssen family succeeded in never being associated with this atrocity; this crime was not mentioned in any representation of the Thyssen family.
Margareta von Batthyány lived to see the Red Army invade, but managed to escape to Switzerland. After the war she was suspected of complicity and support of the main perpetrators in their escape. Despite notifications to the Austrian Ministry of Justice, no charges were ever brought.
After the war she settled in the Swiss seat of the Thyssen family, the Villa Favorita in Castagnola near Lugano , and dedicated herself to breeding racehorses. Her breeding includes Nebos and the winners of the German derby Fanfar and Marduk . With the mare San San , bought in the USA , she won the most important horse race in the world, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe , in 1972 . In addition, she owned studs in Germany ( Bad Homburg Gestüt Erlenhof ), France and the USA. With the stallion Caro , which she bred herself , she left lasting traces in thoroughbred breeding . Her brother Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza was a famous art collector, his collection is in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza , one of the most important museums in Madrid .
literature
- David RL Litchfield: The Thyssen Art Macabre. Quartet Books, London 2006, 450 pp., ISBN 0704371197
- Litchfield's publication sparked heated controversy in the German-language newspapers. The historian Wolfgang Benz criticized the author's lack of scientific reputation, which Benz justified with his own internet research. Others noticed that the FAZ had suppressed Margit von Batthyanyy's direct involvement in the translation of the independent article. The Austrian filmmaker Eduard Erne , who shot the documentary “Totschweigen” (A Wall Of Silence) about the Rechnitz massacre together with Margareta Heinrich , said on Deutschlandfunk that Litchfield's allegations against Batthyány were still rather reserved. Batthyány certainly collaborated with the Nazis, but certainly not organized the massacre himself. Members of the RE.FUGIUS association, on the other hand, consider Batthyány’s share of guilt to be “grotesquely exaggerated” because the main burden is to be attributed to the Rechnitz Gestapo member Franz Podezin and his Austrian accomplices.
- Elfriede Jelinek : Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel) , world premiere Münchner Kammerspiele 2008.
- Pia Janke , Teresa Kovacs, Christian Schenkermayr (eds.): "The endless innocence". Elfriede Jelinek's "Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel)". Vienna: Praesens Verlag 2010 (= Diskurse.Kontexte.Impulse. Publications of the Elfriede Jelinek Research Center 6). Associated event series of the Elfriede Jelinek Research Center 2009 .
- Sacha Batthyany : And what does that have to do with me? A crime in March 1945. The story of my family. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-462-04831-5 .
documentary
- Totschweigen , direction and screenplay: Margareta Heinrich , Eduard Erne . Austria / Germany / Netherlands, 1994. [1]
Web links
- Memorial initiative RE.FUGIUS
- “Mass murder as a party gag?” , Der Spiegel , 43/2007
- On the judicial proceedings of the Rechnitz massacre
- Kreuzstadl memorial on the Batthyány estate
- "The killer countess: The dark past of Baron Heinrich Thyssen's daughter" , The Independent , October 7, 2007 by David Litchfield
- Conversation in the daily newspaper on November 8, 2007 with David RL Litchfield about the Rechnitz massacre
- “The Rechnitz massacre - The hostess of hell” , FAZ , October 18, 2007, partially translated independent article
- The horror of Rechnitz , Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, article by Sascha Batthyány , 16/2010
- Dear Ms. Jelinek! , Die Presse , by Dominik and Ladislaus E. Batthyány, May 22, 2010
- Website of the Batthyány family
swell
- ↑ FAZ: Rechitz Massacre - The hostess of hell of October 18, 2007 (accessed on August 8, 2017)
- ↑ a b "Conspiratorial Incidents - The FAZ, the Bild and the Rechnitz Massacre" , Perlentaucher , October 20, 2007
- ^ A massacre as party fun , Deutschlandfunk , October 18, 2007
- ^ "Example of the banality of evil" , FAZ , October 23, 2007
- ↑ Robert Misik : "Dialektik des Schweigens" , the daily newspaper , October 30, 2007
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Batthyány, Margit von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Batthyány, Margareta von; Thyssen-Bornemisza, Margit |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian nobleman, daughter of Heinrich Thyssen |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 22, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rechnitz |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 15, 1989 |
| Place of death | Castagnola , Switzerland |