Austria sent requests for the fate of its citizen to the Soviet Union. In response, there came only a certificate of sentence, while the death of the prisoner was hidden. There were even rumors throughout Vienna that Wilhelm Habsburg-Lothringen was seen alive in the Soviet Union. In 1952, the authorities of the Austrian Republic decided: a passport was issued to him illegally in the 1930s - after all, he did not give up his right to the throne - and therefore revoked his citizenship.