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Mayerling ohne Mythos: Ein Tatsachenbericht
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 5, 2026
This is another book I read when I was still in school back in the 1970s and it is now over sixty five years since it was first published. As far as I am aware it is still the best and most comprehensive account of the events at Mayerling and I do not believe that a better account has been published subsequently in any language. Indeed it is appalling the vast number of books since this book's first publication which continued, and still continue, to reproduce the most egregious of the lies, rumours, disinformation, gossip and speculation-as-fact that has attached itself to the rather squalid end of Rudolph and Marie Vetsera. In fact everything squalid in what happened at Mayerling has to do with Rudolph and the coterie of cynical and debauched nonentities who enabled Rudolph to manipulate Marie Vetsera so that he could murder her to ensure he had a companion on his journey into the afterlife. He left behind a scene of a tacky seaside boarding house Sardanapalus but there was nothing that would have attracted Delacroix in Rudolph's demise.
Judtmann effectively demolished the idea of revolutionary plots by Rudolph to reinvigorate the sclerotic Dual Monarchy. Rudolph at the time of his suicide was deserving of Alexander the Great's scorn towards his father when on the eve of invading Persia he said of him:
"Look, gentlemen, at the man who is preparing to cross from Europe to Asia, and who cannot even cross from one table to another without losing his balance..."
The only plots Rudolph was involved in were to lift the soul crushing ennui which consumed Rudolph - the most significant inheritance from his mother the 'Sisi' of a thousand Austrian tourist board t-towels.
Judtmann's book is a fine example of popular history written by a historian. Without going and trawling through the archives yourself you will not find a more readable and comprehensive account of these event and their consequences - one of the most interesting was that it led to pope Pius X in 1904 to issue a new apostolic constitution called Commissum Nobis which abolished the Jus Exclusivae which had up to then allowed catholic monarchs to 'veto' potential candidates for the papacy. Emperor Franz Josef had exercised the Jus Exclusivsae at the 1903 conclave against the much front runner Cardinal Mariano Rampolla because he had refused to co-operate in the Mayerling cover-up by refusing Rudolph a funerary mass. The whole incident makes a mockery of the Vatican's insistence that the Holy Spirit is the only outsider allowed to influence the voters in a conclave.
I apologise for that diversion but I couldn't resist recounting it because so few people, Catholics in particular, know of it. It is an example of the diverse threads of the Mayerling story that Judtmann explores and pins down and which are far more interesting then the speculative nonsense that is all to often repeated ad nauseam about Mayerling.
Judtmann effectively demolished the idea of revolutionary plots by Rudolph to reinvigorate the sclerotic Dual Monarchy. Rudolph at the time of his suicide was deserving of Alexander the Great's scorn towards his father when on the eve of invading Persia he said of him:
"Look, gentlemen, at the man who is preparing to cross from Europe to Asia, and who cannot even cross from one table to another without losing his balance..."
The only plots Rudolph was involved in were to lift the soul crushing ennui which consumed Rudolph - the most significant inheritance from his mother the 'Sisi' of a thousand Austrian tourist board t-towels.
Judtmann's book is a fine example of popular history written by a historian. Without going and trawling through the archives yourself you will not find a more readable and comprehensive account of these event and their consequences - one of the most interesting was that it led to pope Pius X in 1904 to issue a new apostolic constitution called Commissum Nobis which abolished the Jus Exclusivae which had up to then allowed catholic monarchs to 'veto' potential candidates for the papacy. Emperor Franz Josef had exercised the Jus Exclusivsae at the 1903 conclave against the much front runner Cardinal Mariano Rampolla because he had refused to co-operate in the Mayerling cover-up by refusing Rudolph a funerary mass. The whole incident makes a mockery of the Vatican's insistence that the Holy Spirit is the only outsider allowed to influence the voters in a conclave.
I apologise for that diversion but I couldn't resist recounting it because so few people, Catholics in particular, know of it. It is an example of the diverse threads of the Mayerling story that Judtmann explores and pins down and which are far more interesting then the speculative nonsense that is all to often repeated ad nauseam about Mayerling.
February 20, 2013
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I admit I am a little obsessed with The Mayerling Incident, but that aside, I honestly feel Fritz Judtmann's Mayerling: The Facts Behind the Legend stands next to Richard Barkeley's The Road to Mayerling: Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria as one of the best resources available in the United States.
In a nutshell, the Mayerling Incident is a blanket term for the series of events that culminated on January 30th when the bodies of Crown Prince Rudolf and his mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera were discovered at Mayerling. The cause of death was easy enough to determine, both had suffered gun shot wounds to the head, but the circumstances that led to their passings has always been shrouded in mystery.
In his examination of the tragedy, Judtmann takes a very unique approach. Rather than relaying the events, he analyzes the myriad of details and theories tied to the case, taking each in turn and evaluating possible explanations and/or possibilities.
No one argues it was a gun that took the lives Rudolf and Mary, but what type of gun might have been used? Could Archduke Johann Salvator have been the man who pulled the trigger? Judtmann answers both questions and hundreds more, reconstructing the events leading up to and following the deaths.
Though not the easiest of texts, Judtmann's work is the most comprehensive book I've encountered regarding Mayerling. An essential volume for anyone interested in the mystery.
I admit I am a little obsessed with The Mayerling Incident, but that aside, I honestly feel Fritz Judtmann's Mayerling: The Facts Behind the Legend stands next to Richard Barkeley's The Road to Mayerling: Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria as one of the best resources available in the United States.
In a nutshell, the Mayerling Incident is a blanket term for the series of events that culminated on January 30th when the bodies of Crown Prince Rudolf and his mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera were discovered at Mayerling. The cause of death was easy enough to determine, both had suffered gun shot wounds to the head, but the circumstances that led to their passings has always been shrouded in mystery.
In his examination of the tragedy, Judtmann takes a very unique approach. Rather than relaying the events, he analyzes the myriad of details and theories tied to the case, taking each in turn and evaluating possible explanations and/or possibilities.
No one argues it was a gun that took the lives Rudolf and Mary, but what type of gun might have been used? Could Archduke Johann Salvator have been the man who pulled the trigger? Judtmann answers both questions and hundreds more, reconstructing the events leading up to and following the deaths.
Though not the easiest of texts, Judtmann's work is the most comprehensive book I've encountered regarding Mayerling. An essential volume for anyone interested in the mystery.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews