Ludwig Viktor von Habsburg (1842-1919) Archduke

Franz Karl von Habsburg, Archduke, had four sons: Frans Joseph (1830-1916) Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary for 68 years; Maximilian (1832-1867) who became Emperor of Mexico in 1864, and was executed by firing squad when the monarchy was abolished three years later; Karl Ludwig (1833-1896) who died of typhoid after drinking contaminated water from the River Jordan, and whose son, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in 1914 in the Bosnian colony, triggering the Great War; and Ludwig Viktor.

Ludwig Viktor was differently inclined. He was much younger than his three brothers, and called ‘Luziwuzi’ – a nickname that he kept into adulthood. After coming of age, he initially submitted to a military command, but then withdrew into a private life as an art patron. He spent the winters in his newly-built Viennese city palace on Schwarzenbergplatz, and the summers at Schloss Kleßheim near Salzburg. He was fairly open about his preference for male sex partners, took advantage of events to publicly transvest, and declined family pressures to marry for dynastic reasons – although this was not discussed in the censored press. As a member of the royal family he was not subject to the criminalisation of same-sex activity that applied to the rest of the male population. 

Ludwig & Ludwig

In 1904 there was an incident at the Centralbad, Vienna's largest and finest bathhouse, where Ludwig was a frequent visitor. Maybe he made an unwanted pass. He was slapped or punched by an athletic young man, and he demanded the man’s arrest. However the police, after listening to witnesses, released the man. Ludwig’s brother, the emperor, was outraged, banned him from Vienna, forced him to resign his patronages, and reassigned his Vienna staff elsewhere. From then on he mainly lived at the Schloss Kleßheim. Ludwig was no longer permitted to wear military uniform, his servants were denied their accustomed purple and silver livery and the wheels of the Archduke’s carriage were now black instead of gold.

In 1915 Ludwig was declared insane, and placed under supervision. Towards the end he was confined to a suite of three rooms, watched over by nuns. He died age 76. The art collection he had assembled was auctioned off at the Dorotheum in Vienna and his name was removed from the court annals. 

In 1923, Adolf Brand, the leader of Berlin’s masculinist gay movement, published an essay by a writer using the name Max Reversi, which in effect outed Ludwig to the general public. This was one of the first gay publications to name a recently-living person rather than long-dead Greeks. Reversi names Franz Ferdinand von Habsburg – who was assassinated at Sarajevo in August 1914 – as Ludwig’s nemesis. Franz had hurried to tell the Emperor after the bathhouse incident in 1904, and later set a honey trap with a comely coachman – which led to Ludwig’s being compelled into psychiatric treatment.

• Max Reversi. Erzherzog Ludwig Viktor von Österreich: Eine philosophische Studie. Adolf Brand/Der Eigene, 1923.
• Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller. Mann für Mann : biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte von Freundesliebe und mannmännlicher Sexualität im deutschen Sprachraum. Hamburg: MännerschwarmSkript, 1998: under “Ludwig Victor von Habsburg”.
• Hanne Egghardt. Habsburgs schräge Erzherzöge. Kremayr und Scheriau, 2008. Chp 3.
• Marlene Eilers Koenig. “ Archduke Ludwig Viktor banished for ’mysterious escapade’ ”. Royal Musings, March 3, 2010. Online.
• James J Conway. ”Ludwig-Viktor-Gasse”. Strange Flowers, May 15, 2012. Online. May 15, 2012. Online.
• Ingeborg Fiegl. ”Archduke Ludwig Viktor: Bon Vivant and Art Collector”. Dorotheum, 14 May 2021. Online.
• Stephen O’Donnell. “Baby brother - Archduke Ludwig Viktor of Austria”. Gods and foolish grandeur, April 30, 2023. Online.

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