Ernst Königsgarten, also known as Arnošt Königsgarten (14 July 1880 – 15 January 1942) was an Austrian businessman and fencer. He was the youngest member of the Austrian team in the Olympic 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens in four competitions, finishing sixth with the sabre. In 1907, he was one of the co-founders of the Wiener Fechtklub (Vienna Fencing Club), trained in the fencing academy of Luigi Della Santa and sat on the board of the Austrian Fencing Association and the Wiener AC. He fled Vienna after the Anschluss and returned to his hometown of Brno, but was deported by the Nazis and died in Theresienstadt.
Early life and family
Ernst Königsgarten came from a wealthy and extensive Jewish family in Brno, now in the Czech Republic, but then still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He had seven siblings, four sisters and three brothers. His eldest brother Friedrich "Fritz" Königsgarten took over the family metal-working business founded by their father Ignatz and also sat on the board of the Altbrünner Lederwerke.
In 1903, Ernst's brother Fritz married Elise "Lisi" Brück. The couple had a son, Hugo, in 1904, who became a well-known librettist, author and theatre critic. In 1907 a second son Heinrich (later Henry) was born. Fritz however died in 1908 after a serious illness, when Henry was only seven months old. At some later date Henry learnt that Ernst Königsgarten was not just his uncle, but also his biological father, from a brief affair with his sister-in-law Lisi. Ernst Königsgarten remained a lifelong bachelor and officially had no offspring, but treated his nephew Henry "like a son" and showed special interest in him.
Ernst, Lisi, and her sons moved from Brno to Vienna, some 140 kilometers away, in 1911, and lived at different but neighbouring addresses. However they frequently holidayed together. But in 1915 Lisi Königsgarten married the Berlin stockbroker Max Bohne and moved with him and her two sons to the German capital. In 1919, Königsgarten acquired a villa in Altaussee (Fischerndorf 59), a traditional summer resort of the Austrian upper classes, from a son of the artist Carl von Binzer. There also lived some Jewish artists and authors like Jakob Wassermann. From then on he used the Villa Königsgarten as a summer house, where Henry continued to visit him every summer.
His brother Hugo Königsgarten (later Hugo Garten) (1904–1975) had obtained his doctorate in philosophy at Heidelberg University in 1930 and worked as a freelance writer in Berlin until 1933 when he moved back to Vienna. There he had established a career as a writer and theatre critic.
Königsgarten's son Heinrich (later Henry Garton) (1907–1988) went to London in 1930 after completing his doctorate in law at Leipzig University, and then to Paris for five years before finally settling in England. During the Second World War he served as a soldier in the British Army, ending up in the Intelligence Corps. In 1944 he married an Englishwoman. They had two children, a son and a daughter.
Königsgarten's grandson Michael Garton (born 1947) learned little about the background of his family, as both his grandmother Lisi and his parents barely talked about the past. However, after the death of his mother in 2010, he found papers and family records of Lisi Bohne-Königsgarten in his mother's attic and began to investigate. In 2015 he published the book In Search of Ernst on the history of the Königsgartens and the story of his discovery.
Fencing career
Despite suffering from a chronic eye disease, Königsgarten had a distinguished fencing career. He fought left-handed with the foil and épée, but right-handed with his best weapon, the sabre. In 1906, at age 25, he was the youngest member of the Austrian team in the Olympic 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens in four competitions and finished sixth with the sabre. In 1907 he was one of the co-founders of the Wiener Fechtklub (Vienna Fencing Club), trained in the fencing academy of Luigi Della Santa and sat on the board of the Austrian Fencing Association and the Wiener AC.
In the following years he competed in numerous tournaments throughout Europe, including Marienbad (1905), Prague, Milan and Trieste (1906), Carlsbad and Ostend (1907), and Baden-Baden (1909). In some reports of those days he is referred to as Ernesto Königsgarten. In 1908 the fencers from Vienna, including Königsgarten, performed demonstration fights in front of the English king Edward VII in Marienbad, who was staying there for talks with the French Foreign Minister, Georges Clemenceau, and the Russian diplomat Alexander Izvolsky. On this occasion the King presented a medal to Della Santa.