MARRIED BY PROXY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21089, 15 July 1938, Page 9

MARRIED BY PROXY

AUSTRIAN COUNT IN NAZI HANDS United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph —Copyright VIENNA, July 13. The spokesman for Herr Burckels (Nazi Administrator of Austria) admits that Dr. Kurt Schuschnigg, the former Chancellor Austria, who is held in Nazi hands for trial, was married by proxy to Countess Vera Fugger vo : Babenhausen. The couple were married by proxy some months ago; the ex-Chancellor was not given even a lew minutes of liberty to stand at the altar with her. His brother was her “husband” for the purposes of the wedding ceremony at the Dominican Church in Vienna. HL father, Major-General Arthur von Schuschnigg, and the sexton were witnesses. The bride received a letter from her new husband on the following day. It sent her his good wishes and assured Iter he was well. It was written on a blank sheet of paper. It had been lasted in Vienna, but the postmark was so indistinguishable that the district number was Indecipherable. Shared Internment Mme. Schuschnigg is now living with her ather-in-law. She had been engaged to the ex-Chancellor for about a year. Until recently she and her new father had shared his internment in the Belvedere Palace. They were tl ere on the evening of March 11, when Dr Schuschnigg resigned under pressure from Hitler, and there they were forced to stay when the Nazis locked the pates. After they had gone, however. Austria’s cx-ruler w'as smuggled awaj. The Countess is thirty-four years old; her husband h forty. Her previous mavrlage, to an air force major, was annulled. She has three children. Dr. Schuschnlgg’s first wile was killed in a motor-car accident in , 1935. He has a son aged twelve.