Archduke Joseph Ferdinand of Austria (24 May 1872-28 August 1942) was an Austro-Hungarian archduke and general during World War I.
Biography[]
Joseph Ferdinand was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1872, the son of Grand Duke Ferdinand IV of Tuscany. He joined the Austro-Hungarian Army's Tyrolean jaegers in 1892, and he was made a Lieutenant Field Marshal in 1911. During World War I, he commanded a corps in the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army before replacing Moritz von Auffenberg as the Austro-Hungarian 4th Army's commander following its near-destruction during the Battle of Galicia. The Archduke commanded the 4th Army until June 1916, when his troops surrendered en masse to the Russians amid the Brusilov Offensive. From July 1917 to September 1918, he commanded Austria-Hungary's air force. In 1938, he and more than 70,000 other Viennese were arrested by Nazi Germany amid the Anschluss, and he was interrogated by the Gestapo and imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp for three months. He died a commoner in Vienna in 1942 at the age of 70.