As a high profile figure in Austria she was very outspoken against Hitler's politics at the time.
She was a very competent dressage rider and was in fact selected for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin but refused to compete because of her political beliefs. In the late thirties it built to a head and she was convinced that she was in imminent danger from the SS and chose to disappear into outback Australia. At the time she was also convinced that the Australian government would have happily handed her over to Nazi Germany if push came to shove. She effectively hid in the middle of nowhere in this country for twenty five years (during which time she married Joe McDuff) until she was called back to Austria to sort out her affairs and manage her enormous inheritance.
In the last chapter of the book Phyllis McDuff admits that there was still a lot of questions her mother refused to answer before her death and you are left with the lingering impression that she may actually have been involved in some type of espionage against Nazi Germany!
Talk about opening a can of worms when I started scanning this film! 😱
😀