An outspoken opponent of the Nazi regime, his properties were seized by the German Reich and by Third Czechoslovak Republic shortly before the Communist coup of 1948.

He completed a law degree at the Czech University in Prague and fought in the First World War; he later served in the Czechoslovak army.

The First Czechoslovak Republic was proclaimed in its wake, on October 28, 1918; it was to last only 20 years, until the Munich Agreement, which preceded the Second World War and German occupation.

The couple shared a passion for agriculture, wildlife and botany and spent much of their time at their Stará Obora[7] hunting lodge near Hluboká.

Apart from bringing modern farming methods to the estate, Adolph built a hydroelectric powerstation there (some of the machinery was imported from his native Hluboká) and made exceptional improvements to his workers' living conditions.

Adolph Schwarzenberg's stance against the Nazis and the Third Reich was clear even before the occupation of the Czech Lands and the outbreak of WWII: in 1937 he invited Edvard Beneš to Český Krumlov castle, where he gave him breakfast, as well as a million[10] crowns, at the time a very considerable sum, for the defense of Czechoslovakia against Germany.

Hermann Göring was also eager to benefit from the estate; a correspondence concerning the fate of the property ensued between various officials including Martin Bormann and Hans Heinrich Lammers, head of the Reichskanzlei.

[17] During his stay in the United States, Adolph Schwarzenberg supported the resistance and was an outspoken opponent of the Nazi regime, as confirmed by both Jan Masaryk[18] and Consul General Karel Hudec.

[20] Adolph also worked with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, producing the report mentioned above and carrying out various activities in support of the organisation.

By the time Lex Schwarzenberg came into effect, however, Czechoslovakia was well on its way to becoming a communist system: Klement Gottwald, who would become the country's Stalinist dictator, had been Prime Minister since 1946.

The ministries of agriculture and the interior were jointly responsible for the decision concerning Adolph Schwarzenberg's appeal file under the provisions of decree No.

On a train to Switzerland, he met an acquaintance, the banker Holzer, director of Escompte Bank in Prague, who engaged him in conversation and wanted to know his motives for leaving the Reich.

While Schwarzenberg's predictions concerning the outcome of the war and the long-term prospects of the "Thousand Year Reich" were correct, post-war developments proved his optimism regarding his own return to his home country to be misguided.

He made his last home in Katsch, a small village in Austria, where he and Hilda once more lived in a hunting lodge, and occasionally spent time at his house in Bordighera, Italy, where he died on 27 February 1950.