At the express request of the USSR, which feared an opposition in its oppressed countries, the anti-Habsburg laws became mandatory international and constitutional components of the Austrian State Treaty in 1955. The family tried to get their former property returned under rules for victims of the Nazi regime. The attempt of Karl von Habsburg failed because the law of expropriation still has constitutional status.Habsburger mit Entschädigungs-Forderung beim VfGH abgeblitzt .</ref> The Habsburg family played a leading role in the fall of the Iron Curtain. On 1 January 2007, his father relinquished his position as the head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, a status which then devolved on Habsburg, and in 2008 he became the grand master of a Habsburg-Lorraine Order of St. George.