Archduke Felix of Austria (1916-2011)

Austrian Royalty. He was the last surviving son of the last Austrian Emperor Charles I and his wife Zita of Bourbon-Parma. A member of the House of Habsburg, he was born in the Schonbrunn Palace and following the breakup of Austria and Hungary at the end of World War I, he and his family were exiled to the Portuguese island of Madeira in 1921. In the autumn of 1937, he was permitted to return to Austria, entering the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt and became the first Habsburg since the abolition of the monarchy to pursue a career as an officer in the Austrian Army. With the German Army approaching, he and his siblings Archduchess Adelheid and Archduke Eugen fled Austria to Czechoslovakia. During World War II, while in the US, he and his brother Carl Ludwig volunteered to serve in the 101st Infantry Battalion known as the "Free Austria Battalion." He refused to renounce his rights to the Austrian throne and membership of the Habsburg family, saying that doing so would violate his human rights. As a result, he was banned from entering Austria except for a brief three-day stay in 1989 in order to attend his mother's funeral. Ultimately, a deal was reached between him and his brother Carl Ludwig and the Austrian government whereby they declared their allegiance to the republic without any reference being made to their rights to the throne or to their membership in the Imperial Family. He built up a number of successful businesses in Mexico and Brussels and worked as a marketing consultant.

Bio by: William Bjornstad