Born in
Eferding,
Upper Austria, in 1899, into the illustrious
House of Starhemberg which hailed from a long line of Austrian nobles and inherited the title of
prince. He was the oldest son of
Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg and Princess
Franziska von Starhemberg, born Countess
Larisch von Moennich. He was a collateral relative to Field Marshal
Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg. In
World War I he served on the Italian Front and then in 1921 was a member of
Freikorps Oberland. Seeking election to the
Bundesrat, the representation of Austrian states (
Länder) at age 21, Starhemberg became a proponent of
Catholic and
conservative politics and joined the
Heimatschutz, quickly becoming a leader of one of its local branches. He also became an admirer of
Benito Mussolini and his
Fascist government. In the early 1920s, Starhemberg traveled to
Germany and had contacts with the nascent
Nazi movement.
Adolf Hitler actively used Starhemberg's status as an Austrian noble to try to improve the party's image and to attract wealthy and influential backers to its ranks. After seeing the failed
Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Starhemberg became disenchanted with Nazism and returned to Austria. Rejoining the Heimatschutz, Starhemberg became its national leader in 1930 and actively campaigned to turn Austria into a more organized state. Eventually, Starhemberg's movement became powerful enough to influence the government, and as such the chancellor appointed him
Minister of the Interior in September 1930. Starhemberg resigned his position shortly thereafter, however, when the
Heimatblock (the Heimwehr's political wing) only won eight seats in elections for the
Nationalrat. When conservative
Engelbert Dollfuß became
Chancellor of Austria in 1932, Starhemberg once again gained governmental power. At Dollfuß's request, Starhemberg worked to combine a number of right-wing groups into a single political entity. He was successful, and the result was the powerful
Fatherland Front, which saw its creation in late 1933, followed by the
authoritarian May Constitution of 1934. For his efforts, Starhemberg became Dollfuß's Vice-Chancellor under the new rule. Upon Dollfuß' assassination two months later during a failed coup by the Nazis, Starhemberg briefly came to head the government and the Front. As President
Wilhelm Miklas proclaimed Austria was not yet ready for a "Heimwehr Cabinet", called a cabinet meeting in Vienna's Ballhouse surrounded by
barbed wire and government troops to restrain suspicious members of the Heimwehr, who claimed the Nazi coup had been foiled only through their courage, and appointed
Kurt von Schuschnigg Chancellor instead on 29 July. Starhemberg officially supported the compromise and his office as Vice-Chancellor, being appointed Minister of Public Security as well. With these positions, Starhemberg was in effect the second most powerful man in Austria. During this period, the regime fought to keep Austria an independent state by
support from France, the United Kingdom and Fascist Italy and through crackdowns on Austrian Nazis and others favoring a union with Germany. The idea of union with Germany had been popular among Socialists as well as Conservatives, although the
Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) which Austria signed at the end of World War I forbade it. In 1936, Starhemberg's disagreements with Schuschnigg, who, inspired by the
appeasement policies of the western democracies, wanted to improve relations with Nazi Germany rather than risk invasion by a far stronger
Wehrmacht and face possible desertion by Hitler's new-found ally, Mussolini. In March 1936, Starhemberg was forced to relinquish his position as Federal leader of the Fatherland's Front, which was dissolved (as was the Heimwehr) and on 14 May that year he was ousted from the government. After the
Anschluss in March 1938, which saw much of the Front's leadership purged (Schuschnigg himself was detained and shipped to
concentration camp), Starhemberg escaped to Switzerland. In 1940, after the beginning of
World War II, Starhemberg joined the
French Army and later fled to England during the
Dunkirk evacuation. He went on to serve in the British and
Free French air forces. However, Starhemberg became disenchanted with the western Allies when they entered into an alliance with
Joseph Stalin's
Soviet Union, which he viewed as equally evil as the Nazis. In 1942, Starhemberg decided to leave the war and traveled to
Argentina where he spent the next thirteen years. In 1955, the year of
Juan Perón's (also a fervent admirer of Fascism and Mussolini) ousting by a military coup, Starhemberg returned to Austria. Starhemberg died in
Schruns,
Vorarlberg, during an extended visit to Austria in 1956. He was staying at a spa in Schruns. During a walk, he was photographed against his will by Georg Auer, a journalist who worked at a communist newspaper. In response, Starhemberg became enraged and attacked Auer with his walking stick. However, he suddenly suffered a cardiac arrest and died. ==Marriages==