page_title: Mayerling incident
section_title: Exhumations and forensic evidence
hierarchical_section_title: Mayerling incident / Exhumations and forensic evidence
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Abschiedsbrief von Kronprinz Rudolf und das Foto seiner Frau Stephanie Liebe Stephanie! Du bist von meiner Gegenwart und Plage befreit; werde glücklich auf Deine Art. Sei gut für die arme Kleine, die das einzige ist, was von mir übrig bleibt. Allen Bekannten, besonders Bombelles, Spindler, Latour, Wowo, Gisela, Leopold, etc. etc. sage meine letzten Grüße. Ich gehe ruhig in den Tod, der allein meinen guten Namen retten kann. Dich herzlichst umarmend, Dein Dich liebender Rudolf English: Final letter of Crown Prince Rudolph; photo of Princess Stephanie Warning: This photo shows Royal Princess Stephanie of Belgium, wife (widow) of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, and NOT the baroness Mary Vetsera. Dear Stephanie, you are now rid of my presence and annoyance; be happy in your own way. Take care of the poor wee one, she is all that remains of me. To all acquaintances, especially Bombelles [Count Karl Bombelles, head of his household], Spindler [Head Secretary Heinrich Ritter von Spindler], Latour [Count Josepf Latour von Thurmburg, Rudolf's childhood governor], Wowo [Rudolf's childhood nickname for his nurse, Baroness Von Welden], Gisela [his sister], Leopold [Gisela's husband], etc., etc., say my last greetings. I go quietly to my death, which alone can save my good name. I embrace you affectionately. Your loving Rudolf. The letter is undated. Italiano: Cara Stefania, adesso sei libera della mia presenza e del mio fastidio; sii felice a modo tuo. Abbi cura della povera piccola, lei è tutto quello che resta di me. A tutti gli amici, specialmente Bombelles, Spindler, Latour, Wowo (soprannome della baronessa Von Welden, tata di Rudolf), Gisela, Leopold, ecc. porgi i miei ultimi saluti. Io vado serenamente verso la mia morte, che sola può salvare il mio buon nome. Ti abbraccio affettuosamente. Il tuo amato Rudolf.
context_page_description: The Mayerling incident is the series of events surrounding the apparent murder–suicide of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, and his lover, Mary Freiin von Vetsera. Rudolf, who was married to Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, was the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth, and was heir apparent to the Imperial throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
  Rudolf's mistress was the daughter of Albin Freiherr von Vetsera, a diplomat at the Austrian court. Albin had been created a Freiherr in 1870. The bodies of the 30-year-old Kronprinz and the 17-year-old Freiin were discovered in the Imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods, 26.6 kilometres southwest of the capital, on the morning of 30 January 1889.
  The death of the Crown Prince interrupted the security inherent in the direct line of Habsburg dynastic succession. As Rudolf had no son, the succession would pass to Franz Joseph's brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig, and his eldest son, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
  This destabilisation endangered the growing reconciliation between the Austrian and Hungarian factions of the empire.
context_section_description: Freiin von Vetsera's body was spirited out of Mayerling and interred in the graveyard at Heiligenkreuz. The official story of murder-suicide went unchallenged until just after the end of the Second World War. In 1946, occupying Soviet troops dislodged the granite plate covering the grave and broke into Vetsera's coffin in the graveyard, perhaps hoping to loot it of jewels. This break-in was not discovered until 1955 when the Red Army withdrew from Austria per the Austrian State Treaty.
  In 1959, a young physician named Gerd Holler, stationed in the area, accompanied by a member of the Vetsera family and specialists in funereal preservation, inspected her remains. Dr. Holler carefully examined the skull and other bones for traces of a bullet hole but stated that he found no such evidence. Intrigued, Holler claimed he petitioned the Vatican to inspect their 1889 archives of the affair, where the Papal Nuncio's investigation had concluded that only one bullet was fired. Lacking forensic evidence of a second bullet, Holler advanced the theory that Vetsera died accidentally, probably as the result of an abortion, and it was Rudolf who consequently shot himself. Holler witnessed the body's re-interment in a new coffin in 1959.
  In 1991, Vetsera's remains were disturbed again, this time by Helmut Flatzelsteiner, a Linz furniture dealer who was obsessed with the Mayerling affair. Initial reports were that her bones were strewn around the churchyard for the authorities to retrieve.   But Flatzelsteiner removed them at night for a private forensic examination at his expense, which finally took place on February 1993.
  Flatzelsteiner told the examiners that the remains were those of a relative killed some one hundred years ago, who had possibly been shot in the head or stabbed. One expert thought this might be possible, but since the skull was not only in a state of disintegration but was actually incomplete, this could not be confirmed. Flatzelsteiner then approached a journalist at the Kronen Zeitung to sell both the story and Vetsera's skeleton. That these were Vetsera's remains was confirmed through forensic examination. The body was re-interred in the original grave in October 1993, and after a court case, Flatzelsteiner paid the abbey €2000 for damages.
  In July 2015, the Austrian National Library issued copies of Vetsera's letters of farewell to her mother and other family members. These letters, previously believed to be lost or destroyed, were found in a safe deposit box in an Austrian bank, where they had been deposited in 1926. The letters—written in Mayerling shortly before the deaths—state clearly and unambiguously that Vetsera was preparing to commit suicide alongside Rudolf:
  Dear Mother
  
  Please forgive me for what I've done
  
  I could not resist love
  
  In accordance with Him, I want to be buried next to Him in the Cemetery of Alland
  
  I am happier in death than life.
caption: Rudolf's farewell letter
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