- Hubertus Czernin
Hubertus Czernin (more fully, Hubertus Alexander Felix Franz Maria Czernin von und zu Chudenitz) (
17 January 1956 -10 June 2006 ) was anAustria ninvestigative journalist .Born in
Vienna to Felix Theobald Paul Anton Maria Czernin von und zu Chudenitz (1902-1968) and his wife Franziska née von Mayer-Gunthof (1926-1987), he helped expose the Nazi past of formerUnited Nations Secretary-General and Austrian PresidentKurt Waldheim .He wrote initially for the news weekly "
Wochenpresse ". In 1984 he was hired by the Viennese magazine "Profil", eventually becoming its editor.Czernin's investigation of
Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer revealed that he had had sex with up to 2,000 seminarians and monks, starting in the 1950s and ending in the 1990s.Czernin was the first journalist to gain access to records at the Austrian Gallery in Vienna and, in 1998, published a series of articles about the ownership of five famous paintings from artist Gustav Klimt, proving that claims by Austria they had been donated to the gallery by Ferdinand or
Adele Bloch-Bauer were false. The articles led to the passage of Austria's Art Restitution Law, which allowed the family ofMaria Altmann , the niece of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, to successfully pursue claims to the Klimt paintings that had been looted from her uncle duringWorld War II (seeRepublic of Austria v. Altmann ). AUnited States Supreme Court ruling allowed Altmann to sue the Austrian government for ownership of the multimillion dollar Klimt paintings. Hundreds of families had looted art restored to them, or restitution made, under the new law.Altmann's attorney
E. Randol Schoenberg stated "Hubertus Czernin was a hero to me. He committed his life to exposing unspoken truths about Austria and itsNazi past."Czernin was married twice, first to Cristina Teresa Szapáry de Muraszombath Széchysziget et Szapár in 1979, ending in divorce in 1981. By his second marriage, to Valerie von Baratta-Dragona, in 1984, he became the father of three daughters.
He died in Vienna of
mastocytosis .Works
*Hubertus Czernin. "Die Fälschung: Der Fall Bloch-Bauer und das Werk Gustav Klimts". Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2006. ISBN 3-7076-0000-9
References
*http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-czernin15jun15,1,7485284.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california
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