Dr. Konrad Ratz (December 20, 1931 - May 22, 2014)

I was very saddened to learn of the death of my friend, Dr. Konrad Ratz, translator, researcher, and writer whose contributions to our understanding of Maximilian von Habsburg and Mexico's Second Empire I admire more than I can say. Among his many works, all of them major contributions:

Tras las huellas de un desconocido: Nuevos datos y aspectos de Maximiliano de Habsburgo (Link goes to my note in English about this excellent and very illuminating book.)

Los viajes de Maximiliano de Maximiliano en México(co-authored with Amparo Gómez Tepexicuapan)(Link goes to my comments for the book's presentation in Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City.)

Correspondencia inédita entre Maximiliano y Carlota

El ocaso del imperio de Maximiliano visto por un diplomático prusiano

Maximilian und JuárezBand I Das Zweite Mexikanische Kaiserreich und die RepublikBand II Querétaro-Chronik

The musical:
http://www.myspace.com/maximilian1867http://www.myspace.com/maximilianoycarlota

Very few researchers can work in both Spanish and German, fewer still with the skills to research Mexico's most complex and transnational period of the 19th century. We are fortunate indeed that Dr. Ratz dedicated so much effort and so many of his years to these tasks.

From the note his son Wolfgang sent out (my translation from the Spanish):

He began his professional life in Bilbao as a translator for the automobile industry. After moving with his family to Vienna, he worked for many years as an economist and translator for the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Following that, as Director of the Fund to Promote Research, he had the opportunity to support many innovative projects and young entrepreneurs. He also worked to help create similar institutions in various countries, among them, Mexico. In 1975 he received the Austrian Decoration for Arts and Science.

... As a historian, he dedicated his life to researching Maximilian von Habsburg, and especially so during his retirement when he considered Mexico his "adopted country" and spent many marvelous years there with his second wife, Herta, making many unforgettable friendships.

Throughout his life, music was a great passion. The musical "Maximiliano - el Sueño de una Corona" was debuted successfully in Querétaro and Mexico City.

Open to all cultures, his life created bridges among Austria, Spain, Switzerland, and Latin America.

COMMENTS always welcome.

Dr Konrad Ratz Today @ 17:00 in the National Palace, Mexico City

Dr Konrad Ratz has translated a profoundly important work for understanding Maximilian's Mexican adventure and gruesome end: The reports of the Prussian Ambassador to Mexico, Baron von Magnus, to Otto von Bismarck. Those who are aficionados of the period will know that Baron Magnus was the only diplomat who witnessed Maximilian's execution in 1867. Dr Ratz found Magnus's reports in the archives in Berlin. . . CONTINUE READING.

Konrad Ratz: Tras las huellas de un desconocido: Nuevos datos y aspectos de Maximiliano de Habsburgo

Aficionados of Mexican history take note! Tras las huellas de un desconocido [In the Footsteps of an Unknown](Mexico City: Siglo XXI / Conaculta / INAH, 2008), is a crucially important new work by Dr. Konrad Ratz, Austrian expert on Mexico's Second Empire. Covering a wide range of previously unknown or only superficially explored subjects relevant to Maximilian's life and brief rule in Mexico, Tras las huellas de un desconocido is a both fascinating and entertaining read. As Dr. Ratz writes in his introduction (my translation):

"This book does not attempt to rewrite the complete history of Mexico's Second Empire, but it does aim to fill several gaps in Mexican historiography by bringing forth accounts translated from the German, which because of the language barrier, have not been considered in Mexico. These are not only memoirs and diaries of the period, but also recent monographs, both published and unpublished, in German.

In 1974, the Austrian historian Adam Wandruska (1914-1997) professor at the University of Vienna and a leading expert on the history of the Habsburgs, formed a interdisciplinary group of researchers for an exhibit on "Maximilian of Mexico" at Hardegg Castle in Lower Austria. This had been the property of prince Karl von Khevenhueller, who had fought for Maximilian as commander of the Austrian hussars. Subsequently he became a friend of Porfirio Diaz. This lifelong friendship, apart from various extraofficial diplomatic contacts, greatly contributed to the resumption, in 1901, of diplomatic relations between Mexico and Austria, which had been severed in 1867...

... [In addition to these contributions by Professor Wandruska and his group of researchers, this work] covers the unpublished memoirs of the gardener and botanist Wilhelm Knechtl; the diary of Johann Stefan, first engineer on the Novara; published works on the Austrian Volunteer Corps by Edmund Daniek and on the Mexican Austrian Volunteer Corps by Felix Gamillscheg; the research by Norbert Stein on Father Fischer; a brief but essential and richly detailed work by Johann Lubienski on government institutions under Maximilian, and Felix Wilcek's thesis on Maximilian's income and expenditures in Austria.... [And] in a final chapter I have added a biographical sketch of Egon Cesar Corti, biographer of Maximilian and several other European sovereigns and dignitaries. Unfortunately, given the lack of biographical information and misunderstandings with the University of Vienna, which never offered him a professorship, the 50th anniversary of his death in 1953 went unnoticed in Mexico as well as his native country."

As Mexican historian Patricia Galeana writes in her prologue (my translation),

"...Konrad Ratz's work has great value for Mexican as well as Austrian and European historiographies on the Second Empire. He brings us new details and in such clear prose with short chapters that we may read it as a novel, though it is based on solid foundations thanks to meticulous historical research.... we discover the weaknesses and strengths of Maximilian, the romatic politician who dreamed of being the new Quetzatcoatl, Mexico's savior."

Tras las huellas de un desconocido has my highest and most enthusiastic recommendation. Indeed, no bibliography of Maximilian and the Second Empire would be complete without it.

I'll be posting a note about some of Dr. Ratz's other works anon.

P.S. Yes, I was able to incorporate some of this new information into my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. In particular, it helped bring into a sharper focus that shadowy arch-conservative intriguer, Father Fischer; Maximilian's education; and Maximilian's relationship with Count Bombelles.

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire: Bibliography

Pub date for The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is May 5th. The list of selected books consulted is now on-line. I've added a few links to relevant blog posts and in the coming days will be adding more. Some of these works are now available on-line in their entirety.

Aguilar Ochoa, Arturo, ed., La fotografía durante el Imperio de Maximiliano.

Almonte, Juan Nepomuceno, Guía de forasteros y repertorio de conocimientos útiles.

Arróniz, Marcos, Manual del viajero en México, Paris: 1858.

Ávila, Lorenzo, ed., Testimonios artísticos de un episodio fugáz 1864-1867.

Basch, Dr. S., (translated by Hugh McAden Oechler), Memories of Mexico: A History of the Last Ten Months of the Empire.

Bigelow, John, Reminiscences of an Active Life. 3 volumes.

Blanchot, Col. Charles, Mémoires: L'Intervention Française au Mexique. 3 volumes.

Blasio, José Luis, Maximiliano íntimo: El Emperador Maximiliano y su corte.

Buffum, E. Gould, Sights and Sensations in France, Germany, and Switzerland; or, Experiences of an American Journalist in Europe.

Clay, Mrs., A Belle of the Fifties: Memoirs of Mrs Clay, of Alabama, Covering Social and Political Life in Washington and the South, 1853-66.

Conte Corti, Egon César, Maximiliano y Carlota.

Cortina del Valle, Elena, ed., De Miramar a México.

Evans, Henry Ridgely, Old Georgetown on the Potomac.
Evans, Dr. Thomas W., The Second French Empire: Napoleon the Third; The Empress Eugénie; The Prince Imperial.

Fabiani, Rossella, Miramare Castle: The Historic Museum.

Gooch, Fanny Chambers, Face to Face With the Mexicans. Original, unedited edition.

Hamann, Brigitte, Con Maximiliano en México: Del diario del príncipe Carl Khevenhüller, 1864-1867.

Haslip, Joan, The Crown of Mexico.

Kearny de Iturbide, Louise, My Story. Manuscript, Catholic University Archives.

Iturriaga de la Fuente, José N., Escritos mexicanos de Carlota de Bélgica.

Kolonitz, Paula, Un viaje a México en 1864. Translated by Neftali Beltrán.

Leech, Margaret, Reveille in Washington, 1860-1865.

Lombardo de Miramón, Concepción, Memorias.

Luca de Tena, Ciudad de México en tiempos de Maximiliano.

Magruder, Henry R., Sketches of the Last Year of the Mexican Empire.

Mann-Kenney, Louise, Rosedale: The Eighteenth Century Country Estate of General Uriah Forrest, Cleveland Park, Washington DC.

Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, Recollections of My Life. 3 volumes.

Michael, Prince of Greece, The Empress of Farewells: The Story of Charlotte, Empress of Mexico.

Meyer, Jean, ed., Yo, el francés: Biografías y crónicas.

Ortiz, Orlando, Diré adiós a los señores: Vida cotidiana en la época de Maximiliano y Carlota.

Pani, Erika, El Segundo Imperio.

Payno, Manuel, The Bandits from Río Frío. Translated by Alan Fluckey.

Ratz, Konrad, Tras las huellas de un desconocido.

Ratz, Konrad, Correspondencia inédita entre Maximiliano y Carlota.

Reglamento y ceremonial de la Corte, 1866. Second Edition.

Ridley, Jasper, Maximilian and Juárez.

Romero de Terreros, Manuel, La corte de Maximiliano: Cartas de don Ignacio Algara.

Robertson, William Spence, Iturbide de México.

Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo, ed., An American In Maximilian's Mexico, 1865-1866: The Diaries of William Marshall Anderson.

Salm-Salm, Felix, The Diary of Prince Salm-Salm.

Salm-Salm, Princess (Agnes), Ten Years of My Life.

Solares Robles, Laura, La obra política de Manuel Gómez Pedraza.

Stevenson, Sara Yorke, Maximilian in Mexico: A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867.

Villalpando, José Manuel, Maximiliano.

Warner, William W., At Peace with All Their Neighbors: Catholics and Catholicism in the National Capital, 1787-1860.

Windle, Mary J., Life in Washington.

Maximilian on MySpace: Der Traum einer Krone, A Musical by Konrad and Wolfgang Ratz

Listen and see the videos on MySpace. (Konrad Ratz is one of the leading Maximilian scholars. His latest book, a magnificent series of essays based on extensive original research and translation, is Tras las huellas de un desconocido: Nuevos datos y aspectos de Maximiliano von Habsburgo.)
P.S. Oodles more Maximilian links here.