This is the first ever biography of the extraordinarily colourful Archduke Wilhelm von Habsburg (1895-1947). Tattooed, bisexual, crossdressing, multilingual, he was a major - and symbolic - figure in 20th-century European culture and politics. Born into one of the great European dynasties with every expectation of a glittering future, instead he became a playboy in Paris during the 1930s and died - a spy for Britain - under interrogation in a Soviet prison. The arc of Wilhelm's life therefore describes the dying fall of the ancient regime - the Europe of his birth bears very little resemblance to that of his death.Operating largely in inter-war Europe, Wilhelm is like a Le Carre character - a prisoner of private impulses that drove him to a doomed secret war. To the history of the Second World War the book adds a detailed discussion of Hitler's confrontation with a particular object of his loathing - the Habsburg family. A major subject of the book is Soviet communism and it's effect on the individual; cf Vassily Grossman's Life and Fate and A Writer at War.
This is a book of exceptional brilliance and originality - it cites documents from 20 archives and in 12 languages; each chapter title is a different colour.
- ISBN10 0224081527
- ISBN13 9780224081528
- Publish Date 5 June 2008
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 August 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint The Bodley Head Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 352
- Language English