Archduke Karl Albrecht of Austria


Archduke Karl Albrecht of Austria-Teschen was an Austrian military officer, a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

Early life and career

He was an Austrian archduke, the oldest son of Archduke Charles Stephen and Archduchess Maria Theresia, Princess of Tuscany.
He was a landowner in Żywiec, a colonel of artillery in both the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army and the Polish Army, and the 1,175th knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1910, etc.
In 1918 and again in 1939 he became a volunteer in the Polish army.
He fought in the Polish–Soviet War. In 1920, he commanded the Grudziądz Fortress.
During the German occupation of Poland, he declared Polish nationality and refused to sign the Volksliste. He was imprisoned in November 1939, kept in Cieszyn and tortured by the Gestapo. His wife was interned in Wisła.
He left prison blind in one eye and half-paralyzed. In October 1942, Albrecht and his family were sent to a labor camp in Strausberg.
After liberation, he moved to Kraków and then to Sweden.
His estate was confiscated in 1939 by the invading Germans, and again in 1945 by the Polish People's Republic.

Family and children

On 8 November 1920 he married morganatically Alice Elisabeth Ankarcrona in the castle of Żywiec Poland. She was a daughter of Oscar Carl Gustav Ankarcrona and his wife, Anna Carleson. The head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine accorded her the hereditary title of "Princess of Altenburg" on 15 December 1949.
Their children were:

Honours