[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 173 (Thursday, November 8, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2373]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TRIBUTE TO DR. OTTO VON HABSBURG ON HIS 95TH BIRTHDAY

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                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, November 8, 2007

  Mr. LANTOS. Madam Speaker, on November 20, Dr. Otto von Habsburg--a 
man of courage and intellect and a great friend of the United States--
will celebrate his 95th birthday. I extend to him on this occasion my 
very warmest greetings. Although he and I come from the most different 
Central European backgrounds imaginable, we have become friends over 
the years and I hold him in the highest regard.
  Dr. von Habsburg, who is in every way an extraordinary human being, 
was born in 1912 into one of Europe's oldest and most distinguished 
royal families. He is the eldest son of Emperor Charles, the last 
Emperor of Austria and the last King of Hungary and Bohemia, and his 
wife, Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma. Although he has renounced all 
claims to the Austrian throne, Dr. von Habsburg retains the hereditary 
titles of Archduke and Crown Prince of Austria and Crown Prince of 
Hungary and Bohemia.
  Madam Speaker, I met Otto von Habsburg shortly after I was elected a 
Member of the Congress a quarter century ago. At that time, I was the 
chairman of the U.S. delegation which met twice a year with a 
delegation of the European Parliament. At the time Otto was a 
representative of Germany to the European Parliament, and the 
Ambassador of Austria brought him to meet me in my office in the 
Longworth Building. We both felt an immediate bond, and have maintained 
a cordial relationship ever since.
  We have met on numerous occasions in Brussels and Strasbourg, and we 
have met frequently here in the United States when he has visited our 
country. His son Gyorgy was married in Budapest in 1997, and my wife 
Annette and I attended their wedding in the Basilica of St. Stephen. 
Just a few years ago on his last visit to the United States, I was 
pleased to welcome and pay tribute to Dr. von Habsburg at a special 
meeting here in the United States Capitol.
  Madam Speaker, although he became Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary 
and Bohemia when he was just 4 years old when his father became 
Emperor, and he continues to hold a number of impressive noble titles, 
what truly distinguishes Otto von Habsburg is not who he was at birth, 
but who he became in the course of his long and distinguished life.
  After growing up as an exile in Switzerland and Spain, the young Otto 
studied for his Ph.D. in political science at Belgium's famous Catholic 
University of Louvain. As an astute and principled conservative, he 
understood early on the true nature of the Nazi movement and became its 
staunch opponent.
  While doing research in Berlin in the early 1930s for his Ph.D. 
dissertation, Dr. von Habsburg was invited on two separate occasions to 
meet with Adolf Hitler, who for political reasons, sought to create the 
appearance of an association between himself and the heir to the 
Austrian and Hungarian thrones.
  ``I had the great advantage of having already read Mein Kampf from 
start to finish and knew what his plans were,'' Dr. von Habsburg later 
recalled. ``All of this only reinforced my refusal to meet him. On the 
other hand, it would have been an interesting experience. In fact, this 
was the only interesting conversation I ever avoided in my life.''
  In the immediate aftermath of the fall of France to the Nazi armies, 
Dr. von Habsburg worked with Aristide de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese 
consul in Bordeaux, to secure travel papers for an estimated 20,000 
Jews and others liable to be persecuted by the Nazis. For his trouble, 
he was sentenced to death by the Nazis. Fortunately, it was in 
absentia--Dr. von Habsburg had escaped from Europe in the nick of time 
and spent the war years here in the United States.
  After the war, he returned to Europe, where he became a leader of the 
Paneuropean Union, served for 20 years as a member of the European 
Parliament and emerged as a champion of human rights. He was famous 
for, among many other things, ensuring that there was always an empty 
chair inside the Parliament building as a symbol of the European 
nations that were dominated at that time by totalitarian and illiberal 
ideologies.
  Dr. von Habsburg, who is the author of 27 books in 7 languages, is a 
passionate supporter of freedom and liberty and an unblinking opponent 
of racism and totalitarianism. I salute him as he celebrates his 95th 
birthday, and I thank him for all the good that he has done in this 
world.

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