One of the family coats of arms of the Princes of Schwarzenberg shows the field divided seven times into four silver and four blue lengthwise stripes. This is the original and oldest symbol of the Lords of Seinsheim, which is the oldest form of the name of the ancestors of this famous family that bought property in Bohemia in 1660 in order to settle there. The split of the family into two lineages occurred in 1802, forming the older Hluboká-Krumlov branch and the younger Orlík branch.
Adolf Schwarzenberg became the last member of the older lineage in Bohemia. He was born on 18th August 1890 as a son of John Nepomuk (1860 to 1938) and Theresa born of Trauttmansdorff. He was endowed with a difficult task. The 20th century was full of conflicts, wars, and revolutions and was not at all in favour of the aristocracy with its customs and traditions. The time of feudal privileges and chivalrous romances was gone. Whoever wanted to survive had to be educated enough and be gifted, talented, and lucky. Adolf Schwarzenberg had all of the above-mentioned qualities but the last. He had no luck.
After his general education, he attended a grammar school. Then he spent one year in England and after military service he graduated from the Charles University in Prague in 1914 with a doctorate in law. Immediately, however, he found himself in the turmoil of World War I and he fell into captivity on the Near Eastern front, from which he did not return until 1919. After his return to his homeland, his father appointed him the general authorised representative of the family property. The first land reform was declared in the 1920s. Its purpose was to condemn large land properties in the country and transfer them into the ownership of new small landholders recruited by agrarians, communities, and also the government. It was chiefly Adolf Schwarzenberg who led the complicated dealings with the land office on behalf of his family and he eventually managed to keep intact at least one third of their former property. The country estates Citoliby, Dlouhá Ves-Prášily, Jinonice, Mšec, Netolice, and Třeboň were condemned entirely, while other country estates were considerably reduced. However, the remaining property still comprised a perfectly interlinked and independently managed economic unit that took pride in the noteworthy care of its employees, which was on a level that contemporary trade unionists still do not even dream of.
When the turbulence settled, Adolf married Hilda, Princess of Luxemburg and Nassau, at the Colmar-Berg manor house on 28th October 1930. Both partners were keen hunters and they spent most of their time in a hunting lodge in Stará Obora. Soon, however, they were caught up by the beauty of the African continent, so they bought the M'pala farm near Nairobi, Kenya. John Adolf acquired the entire Schwarzenberg estate in 1938, after his father's death. He just managed to receive President Edward Beneš at his manor house in Český Krumlov before the Nazi German army occupied the Czech borderlands and divided some of the country estates so that part fell to Germany and another part remained in Czechoslovakia. The resulting economic problems certainly need not be pointed out. Hitler solved this problem completely for the Schwarzenbergs. He occupied his retrenched fatherland and the remaining Schwarzenberg property was confiscated by the Gestapo on 17th August 1940.
Adolf Schwarzenberg and his wife emigrated to the USA, where he received a Ph.D. from Columbia University. This "very impressed" Jan Masaryk, who mentioned it in his letter of 8th October 1945. The Czechoslovak foreign minister also greatly appreciated the fact that Adolf Schwarzenberg financially supported the anti-Nazi revolt at home as well as abroad. The government in exile headed by Dr. Beneš also owed him a lot. However, his return to his homeland did not happen, nor was there any gratitude, as is common in Czech conditions. Gratitude has never been the style of the Czech lands. Instead, the left-wing press set off a campaign called the "Fight for four milliards". This was the value of Schwarzenberg's Czech property as of 1947. The result of a carefully prepared action was the so-called "Lex Schwarzenberg" - a law created by the Members of Parliament of the Social Democratic Party that confiscated all of Schwarzenberg's property without compensation. "The Victorious February" then just sealed this fact. The hardship, which JUDr. Adolf Schwarzenberg had to withstand, long years of persecution by the Gestapo all over Europe, a time of emigration, and finally, the loss of most of the family property. All this strongly undermined his health and he died in Italy on 27th February 1950, without a heir, as the last member of the older lineage.