William, German Crown Prince

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Crown Prince Wilhelm. For German ships of the same name, please see the Kronprinz Wilhelm or SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm.

William
German Crown Prince, Crown Prince of Prussia
Head of the House of Hohenzollern
Period	4 June 1941 – 20 July 1951 (&0000000000000010.00000010 years, &0000000000000046.00000046 days
Predecessor	William II
Successor	Prince Louis Ferdinand
Spouse	Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Issue
Prince Wilhelm Prince Louis Ferdinand Prince Hubertus Prince Friedrich Princess Alexandrine Princess Cecilie
House	House of Hohenzollern
Father	Wilhelm II of Germany
Mother	Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein
Born	May 6, 1882(1882-05-06) Potsdam, Brandenburg German Empire
Died	July 20, 1951 (aged 69) Hechingen, Germany

Frederick William Victor Augustus Ernest (German: Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst) (6 May 1882 – 20 July 1951) of the House of Hohenzollern was the last Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire. He was colloquially known as William or Wilhelm.

Contents 1 Early life 2 World War I 3 After the German revolution 4 Family and children 5 Titles, styles, honours and arms 5.1 Titles and styles 6 Ancestry 7 Notes 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Early life

William was born in the Marble Palace of Potsdam in the Province of Brandenburg. He was the eldest son of William II, German Emperor (1859–1941) and his first wife Princess Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein (1858–1921).

William was a supporter of football, then a relatively new sport in the country, donating a cup to the German Football Association in 1908 and thereby initiating the Kronprinzenpokal, the oldest still existing cup competition in German football.^[1]

[edit] World War I

The Crown Prince was raised within militaristic circles. However, he had little command experience when he was named commander of the 5th Army in August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War I. In November 1914 William gave his first interview to a foreign correspondent and the first statement to the press ever made by a German noble since the outbreak of war.^[2][3] He said this in English:

"Undoubtedly this is the most stupid, senseless and unnecessary war of modern times. It is a war not wanted by Germany, I can assure you, but it was forced on us, and the fact that we were so effectually prepared to defend ourselves is now being used as an argument to convince the world that we desired conflict."

—Crown Prince Wilhelm, Wiegand^[2][3]

He led the 5th Army until November 1916, a two-year period which included the battle of attrition known as the Verdun Offensive. From April 1916 onward he tried in vain to convince the supreme command that the Verdun offensive no longer made any sense, but the campaign continued until September 2nd of that year.

During World War I he was belittled as the "Clown Prince" by the British soldiers; that nickname was adopted by the American forces in 1917.

[edit] After the German revolution

After the outbreak of the German Revolution in 1918, both Emperor William II and the Crown Prince signed the document of abdication. The Crown Prince went into exile to the isle of Wieringen, in the Netherlands. In 1923, he returned to Germany after giving assurances that he would no longer engage in politics. The former Crown Prince held some political ambitions, and was reportedly interested in the idea of running for Reichspräsident as the right-wing candidate opposed to Paul von Hindenburg in 1932, until his father forbade the idea.^{[citation needed]}

The Crown Prince supported Hitler for some time, hoping and announcing in public that this man would do for Germany what Mussolini had done for Italy - making an end to all Bolshevist/Marxist influence. He had connections with some organizations, more than loosely connected with the National Socialist Party (Nazi Party) and allowed himself to be used by the Nazi government in various symbolic actions.^{[citation needed]}. After the murder of his friend, the former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher in the Night of the Long Knives (1934), he retreated from all political activities. Most of his efforts from 1919 until 1934 had been directed to make a return of the Hohenzollerns to the throne viable option again, and he had assumed that Hitler would give this idea his support.

William lived as a private citizen on his family's estates throughout World War II. Upon his father's death in 1941, William succeeded him as head of the House of Hohenzollern, the former German imperial dynasty. In 1951, the former Crown Prince died of a heart attack in Hechingen, in the ancestral lands of his family in Swabia, as the family's estates in Brandenburg had been occupied by the Soviet Union.

He and his wife are buried at Hohenzollern Castle

[edit] Family and children

William married Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (20 September 1886 – 6 May 1954) in Berlin on 6 June 1905. Cecilie was the daughter of Grand Duke Frederick Francis III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1851–1897) and his wife, Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia (1860–1922). Their eldest son, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, was killed fighting for the German Army in France in 1940. However during the early stages of this marriage the crown prince had a brief affair with the American opera singer Geraldine Farrar.

Their children and male-line grandchildren are:

• Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1906–1940), who renounced his succession right.
  • Princess Felicitas of Prussia (born 1934)
  • Princess Christa of Prussia (born 1936)
• Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia (1907–1994)
• Prince Hubertus of Prussia (1909–1950)
  • Princess Anastasia of Prussia (born 1944)
  • Princess Marie-Christine of Prussia (1947–1966)
• Prince Frederick of Prussia (1911–1966)
  • Prince Frederick Nicholas of Prussia (born 1946)
  • Prince Andrew of Prussia(born 1947)
  • Princess Victoria of Prussia (born 1952)
  • Prince Rupert of Prussia (born 1955)
  • Princess Antonia of Prussia (born 1955)
• Princess Alexandrine of Prussia (1915–1980)
• Princess Cecilie of Prussia (1917–1975)

Their surviving descendants are also in the Line of British succession.

[edit] Titles, styles, honours and arms

[edit] Titles and styles

• 6 May 1882 – 15 June 1888: His Royal Highness Prince William of Prussia
• 15 June 1888 – 20 July 1951: His Imperial and Royal Highness The German Crown Prince, Crown Prince of Prussia

[edit] Ancestry

v • d • e Ancestors of William, German Crown Prince

16. Frederick William III of Prussia               8. William I, German Emperor                       17. Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz               4. Frederick III, German Emperor                             18. Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach               9. Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach                       19. Maria Pavlovna of Russia               2. William II, German Emperor                                   20. Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha               10. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha                       21. Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg               5. Victoria, Princess Royal                             22. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn               11. Victoria of the United Kingdom                       23. Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld               1. William, German Crown Prince                                         24. Frederik Christian II, Duke of Augustenborg               12. Christian, Duke of Augustenborg                       25. Louise Auguste of Denmark               6. Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein                             26. Christian-Conrad, Count of Danneskiold-Samsøe               13. Louise of Danneskiold-Samsøe                       27. Johanna Kaas of Mur               3. Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein                                   28. Charles Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg               14. Ernst, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg                       29. Amalie of Solms-Baruth               7. Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg                             30. Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen               15. Princess Feodora of Leiningen                       31. Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (= 23)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: William, German Crown Prince

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Andreas Elter (April 2003) (in German) (PDF), Die andere Front: Pressepolitik in den USKriegen des 20. Jahrhunderts, Cologne, http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=968575013&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&filename=968575013.pdf, retrieved on 2009-04-05 
• Karl Henry von Wiegand (1915), Current miscoceptions about the war, 1123 Broadway, New York: The Fatherland corporation, inc., http://www.archive.org/details/currentmisconcep00vonw, retrieved on 2009-04-05, "Copyright 1914, United Press ... November 20" 

[edit] External links

• The memoirs of the Crown Prince of Germany
• The Life of Crown Prince William

William, German Crown Prince House of Hohenzollern Born: 6 May 1882 Died: 20 July 1951
Titles in pretence
Preceded by Emperor William II	— TITULAR — German Emperor King of Prussia June 4, 1941 – July 20, 1951 Reason for succession failure: Empire / Kingdom abolished in 1918	Succeeded by Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia

Pretenders to the German and Prussian thrones since 1918 Emperor Wilhelm II 1918–1941 Crown Prince William 1941–1951 Prince Louis Ferdinand 1951–1994 Prince Georg Friedrich since 1994 See also House of Hohenzollern