Otto von Habsburg was born in 1912 as the first son of Crownprince (and future Emperor) Karl I of Austria-Hungary. In the first months of 1986 Otto I was asked by the ländern Bavaria, Saxony and Prussia to become Emperor of the Germans after the end of the Third Reich. Otto I was crowned as constitutional monarch in Frankfurt on September 10th 1986, one day after the signation of the new democratic constitution of Germany. In 1997, at age 85, he passed some of his symbolic functions to his eldest son Karl, making him de facto regent.