Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg

Prince Ernst Rüdiger Camillo von Starhemberg, often known simply as Prince Starhemberg, (10 May 1899 – 15 March 1956) was an Austrian nationalist and politician who helped introduce Austrofascism and install a clerical fascist dictatorship in Austria in the interwar period. A fierce opponent of Anschluss, he fled Austria when the Nazis invaded the country and briefly served with the Free French and British forces in World War II.

Starhemberg was a leader of the Heimwehr and later of the Fatherland Front. He served in the Bundesrat between 1920 and 1930, as Minister of Interior in 1930, Vice-Chancellor in 1934 and subsequently Acting Chancellor and Leader of the Front after the murder of Engelbert Dollfuß, relinquishing the former position after a few days. Disenchanted by the moderate ways of Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, he was ousted from power in 1936, when the Heimwehr was dissolved, and fled the country after the Anschluss to avoid retaliation from vengeful Nazis.

Starhemberg lived in exile in Switzerland and served with the western Allies in the British and Free French air forces for a short period at the beginning of World War II, but became disenchanted with them when they entered into an alliance with Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, which he viewed as equally evil as the Nazis. He left for Argentina where he spent the next thirteen years in exile. He died during an extended visit to Austria in 1956.

He was the 1,163rd Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, Austrian Order.