Former Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg dies
Published: Sunday, Nov 12th 2023, 08:50
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The former Czech foreign minister and presidential candidate Karel Schwarzenberg is dead. He died in Vienna at the age of 85 after a long illness, as the newspaper "Echo24" and Czech public radio reported on Sunday, citing his family. Schwarzenberg, who was often simply called "the Prince" in the Czech Republic, came from a Bohemian-Franconian aristocratic family.
After the fall of communism in 1989, Schwarzenberg briefly headed the presidential office under Vaclav Havel. From 2007 to 2009 and again from 2010 to 2013, the founder of the conservative TOP09 party headed the Czech Foreign Ministry. His presidential candidacy in 2013 ended in defeat in the run-off election against Milos Zeman, who reproached him for his critical stance on the expulsion of Germans after the Second World War.
Just over two weeks ago, Schwarzenberg received the highest state award in the Czech Republic, the Order of the White Lion. He was unable to accept it in person for health reasons. Schwarzenberg's long-time political comrade-in-arms and former finance minister Miroslav Kalousek wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday: "The Czech Republic should be forever grateful to him for what he selflessly did for this country."
Schwarzenberg was born in Prague on December 10, 1937. After the expropriation and the communist takeover in 1948, his family moved to Austria. After 1989, Schwarzenberg was given back Orlik Castle in South Bohemia, among other things. He was particularly interested in the preservation of monuments. Although the Czech Republic "has no sea and no skiing opportunities like Switzerland or Austria, it does have beautiful monuments", he once said.
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