Franz von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg

Count Franz Edmund Joseph Gabriel Vitus von Hatzfeldt zu Wildenburg (15 June 1853 – 4 November 1910) was a German aristocrat and racehorse owner. Early life and ancestry Franz was born at Marxheim in Bavaria on 15 June 1853. He was the only son of Alfred, Prince von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg (1825–1911) and Countess Gabrielle von Dietrichstein-Proskau-Leslie (1825-1909). His younger sister Antonia (1856-1933) married Count Michael Robert von Althann (1853-1919). The marriage of his paternal grandparents, who were first cousins, Edmund, Prince von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg and Sophie von Hatzfeldt (a daughter of Prussian general Franz Ludwig von Hatzfeldt zu Trachenberg) unified the House of Hatzfeld. The Hatzfeld-Wildenburg-Weisweiler branch of the Hatzfeldt family had inherited Crottorf, Schönstein, Kalkum among other properties in 1794 and became Prussian Princes of Hatzfeld-Wildenburg in 1834. His uncle was Count Paul von Hatzfeldt, the German Ambassador to the United Kingdom. His maternal grandparents were Joseph Franz, Prince of Dietrichstein and the former Gabriele, Countess Wratislav von Mitrowitz. From her parents, Franz's mother inherited Lipník nad Bečvou, Hranice na Moravě and the rest of her family's Moravian estates. Career After being educated in the academies of Germany, he took an interest in the diplomatic services and served as an attaché in the German Embassy in Washington, D.C.