by Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2020
Katharina Schratt; Credit – Wikipedia
In December 1873, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and his wife Empress Elisabeth attended a gala performance of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew at the Stadttheater (link in German) in Vienna, Austria. No one could have foreseen that Katharina Schratt, the actress playing the female lead role, whom Franz Joseph saw for the first time that evening, would become an important person in his life.
Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria in 1885; Credit – Wikipedia
Katharina Schratt had a long-standing private relationship with Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, however, the exact nature of their relationship is unclear. Some believe that Katharina and Franz Joseph were lovers. Others believe that their relationship was platonic and that Franz Joseph, whose wife was emotionally distant from him and fled from him as well as her duties at court by frequent traveling, needed someone to support him emotionally. Franz Joseph had to deal with the violent deaths of relatives. His brother Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was executed by a firing squad, his only son Crown Prince Rudolf killed his mistress and himself, his wife Empress Elisabeth was assassinated by being stabbed, and the assassination in 1914 of his nephew Archduke Franz Ferdinand who had become his heir after his son’s suicide, sparked the beginning of World War I. Certainly, Katharina’s emotional support helped Franz Joseph to deal with all these tragedies. Katharina always maintained the strictest discretion regarding her relationship with Franz Joseph.
Born on September 11, 1853, in Baden bei Wien, Austria, Katharina Schratt was the only daughter and the second of the three children of paper and office supplies merchant Anton Schratt. Katharina’s older brother was Heinrich Schratt (1851-1940) and her younger brother was Rudolf Schratt (1860-1952). Katharina fell in love with the theater at a young age. Her parents tried to dissuade her, even sending her away to a boarding school. Nothing worked and they finally relented and allowed Katharina to attend Eduard Kirschner’s Theater Academy in Vienna.
At the age of seventeen, Katharina made her acting debut in her hometown as a guest actress with the Vienna Theater Academy. In 1872, she obtained her first permanent position with the Königliches Hoftheater (link in German) in Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia where she achieved much success in a short period. She soon received an offer from the Stadttheater (link in German) in Vienna. Her performances there made her a leading lady on the Viennese stage. In the spring of 1879, Katharina married Hungarian diplomat Baron Miklós Kiss de Ittebe. The couple had a son Anton (1880–1970), and eventually separated but never divorced.
Katharina had a long and distinguished acting career and became one of the most popular actresses of her time in Austria. After appearing on the stage in New York City, she returned to Vienna in 1883 and joined the Burgtheater in Vienna, one of the most important stages in Europe. Katharina remained with the Burgtheater until 1900, when she disagreed with director Paul Schlenther (link in German), terminated her contract, and retired at the age of 47.
Katharina Schratt in her debut at the Burgtheater as Lorle in “Dorf und Stadt” on November 10, 1883; Credit – Wikipedia
In 1883, Katharina was presented to Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth after a performance at the Burgtheater. Further meetings between Katharina and Franz Joseph were arranged by Empress Elizabeth who felt remorse that her constant absence from the court deprived her husband of contact with women. Elisabeth had difficulties with the rigidity of the Austrian court and did not get along with Imperial Family members. Although Franz Joseph loved Elisabeth, she felt emotionally distant from her husband and fled from him as well as her duties at court, by frequent traveling. Elisabeth not only tolerated her husband’s relationship with Katharina but even seemed to encourage it. Except for short periods – a brief time after the assassination of Empress Elisabeth in 1898 and a disagreement between Franz Joseph and Katharina in 1900-1901, the relationship lasted until Franz Joseph died in 1916.
Katharina Schratt, circa 1900; Credit – Wikipedia
Katharina’s relationship with Franz Joseph garnered her a generous lifestyle. Her debts were paid off, she was showered with jewelry and she became the owner of a mansion on Vienna’s Gloriettegasse, near Schönbrunn Palace, and a mansion in the spa town of Bad Ischl. When her husband died in 1909, Katharina inherited the Palais Königswarter (link in German), a three-story palace on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, just across from the Vienna State Opera.
In 1902, Katharina returned to the stage at the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna portraying Franz Joseph’s great-great-grandmother Empress Maria Theresa. The journalist Karl Kraus wrote that Katharina portraying an Empress was the “summit of tastelessness”. Franz Joseph and Katharina had always taken care not to disclose their relationship but now she was seen to have left the limits of good taste. Even Franz Joseph was astounded. The play had a short run and Katharina never stepped on the stage again.
Katharina Schratt and Emperor Franz Joseph, circa 1910; Credit – Wikipedia
Katharina was a great support to Franz Joseph during the last years of his life which occurred amid the tumult of the assassination of his heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and the first two years of World War I. Katharina last saw Franz Joseph two days before his death, which occurred on November 21, 1916, and she knew it would be the last time she would see him alive. Having received a phone call, informing her that Franz Joseph had died, Katharina was shocked to receive an invitation to Schönbrunn Palace from Emperor Karl I, Franz Joseph’s nephew and successor. Karl respected the three decades of his uncle’s close relationship with Katharina. The new emperor led Katharina to Franz Joseph’s deathbed where she laid two white roses on Franz Joseph’s chest.
Katharina Schratt in the silent film Der Ochsenkrieg; Credit – https://www.moviepilot.de/movies/der-ochsenkrieg/bilder/803462
After the death of Franz Joseph, Katharina lived at the Palais Königswarter, the palace she had inherited from her husband. She made one last foray into the world of acting. In 1920, she appeared in the silent film Der Ochsenkrieg (The War of the Oxen) (link in German), a German silent film directed by Franz Osten, made by Bavaria Film at the company’s Munich studios, and based on the 1914 historical novel The War of the Oxen by Ludwig Ganghofer, set against the backdrop of the War of the Oxen in the 1420s.
In the 1930s, Katharina was harassed by journalists wanting her to discuss her relationship with Franz Joseph and by book companies wanting her to write her memoirs. She always replied, “I’m an actress, no writer, and have nothing to say because I’ve never been a Pompadour or a Madame de Maintenon”, referring to two mistresses of French kings. In her later years, Katharina became deeply religious. Every day she visited the tombs of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth in the Imperial Crypt at the Capuchin Church in Vienna.
Katharina Schratt died on April 17, 1940, at the age of 86. She was buried at Hietzing Cemetery (link in German) in Vienna, Austria, adjacent to Schönbrunn Palace.
Grave of Katharina Schratt; Credit – Von Andreas Faessler – Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30752834
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Works Cited
- De.wikipedia.org. 2020. Katharina Schratt. [online] Available at: <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharina_Schratt> [Accessed 1 April 2020].
- En.wikipedia.org. 2020. Katharina Schratt. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharina_Schratt> [Accessed 1 April 2020].
- Pl.wikipedia.org. 2020. Katharina Schratt. [online] Available at: <https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharina_Schratt> [Accessed 1 April 2020].
- Ru.wikipedia.org. 2020. Шратт, Катарина. [online] Available at: <https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A8%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%82,_%D0%9A%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0> [Accessed 1 April 2020].
- Van Der Kiste, John, 2005. Emperor Francis Joseph; Life, Death And The Fall Of The Habsburg Empire. Thrupp: Sutton Publishing Limited.