Brigitte Hamann portrays Rudolf von Habsburg, Crown Prince of Austria, as a liberal intellectual who stood in opposition to his father Emperor Franz Josef and the imperial establishment. Against the prevailing currents of his time, Rudolf wanted to modernize the Habsburg Empire by abolishing the privileges of the aristocracy. He vehemently opposed nationalism and anti-Semitism and fought for liberalism and democracy and the rights of the minorities within the multinational Empire. His political goal was a United Europe of liberal states. For a long time, Crown Prince Rudolf was known mainly in connection with his suicide at Mayerling with Baroness Mary Vetsera. However, the Mayerling tragedy may be seen as the last consequence of living without any prospect of realizing his ideals.

Brigitte Hamann, Dr. phil., was born in Essen and studied history and Germanistik in Münster and Vienna. She has been widely recognized for her numerous publications about Austrian history. Her main works, Elisabeth, Hitler's Vienna, and Winifred Wagner, became bestsellers highly praised by experts and the press. Until her death on October 4, 2016, she lived in Vienna, Austria. Edith Borchardt, Professor of German Emerita (University of Minnesota, Morris), was born in Vienna, Austria. She received her A.B. from Vassar College and her M.A. and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Mythische Strukturen im Werk Heinrich von Kleists (1987) and Women in the Shadows (2008), a translation of Charles S. Chiu's Frauen im Schatten.