Maximilian, Duke of Hohenberg (Maximilian Karl Franz Michael Hubert Anton Ignatius Joseph Maria von Hohenberg; 29 September 1902 – 8 January 1962), was the elder son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Countess Sophie Chotek von Chotkow und Wognin, Duchess von Hohenberg. Because his parents' marriage was morganatic, he was excluded from succession to the Austro-Hungarian throne, to which his father was heir presumptive, and to inheritance of any of his father's dynastic titles, income, and properties, although not from the archduke's personal estate nor from his mother's property.
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Life
Maximilian was born on 29 September 1902 and baptized in Vienna two days later with Archduke Charles Stephen of Austria as sponsor. From birth he had the lesser princely title and the nobiliary particle von Hohenberg accorded his mother as a predicate at the time of her marriage, and in 1905 he shared with his siblings her receipt of the style "Serene Highness". Although Sophie had been raised from Princess (Fürstin) to Duchess (Herzogin) in 1909 by Emperor Franz Joseph, because that title was accorded ad personam, Maximilian did not inherit it upon her death in 1914. On 31 August 1917, however, Emperor Charles I granted him the dukedom on a hereditary basis, simultaneously raising his treatment from "Serene Highness" (Durchlaucht) to "Highness" (Hoheit).
In 1911, it was rumored among French circles that Germany planned to install Maximilian as Imperial Governor of Alsace-Lorraine.
Following the assassination of his parents in Sarajevo in 1914, which resulted in the outbreak of World War I, Maximilian, his sister, Princess Sophie and their brother, Prince Ernst, were initially taken in by their maternal aunt and uncle Marie and Jaroslav, Prince and Princess von Thun und Hohenstein, subsequently being raised in the care of their step-grandmother, Archduchess Maria-Theresa of Austria.