Peter II (Yugoslavia)

Peter Karađorđević as pretender to the throne (1966)

Peter II. Karađorđević ( Serbian - Cyrillic Петар / Petar ; born September 6, 1923 in Belgrade ; † November 3, 1970 in Denver , Colorado , United States ) came from the House of Karađorđević and was the last king of Yugoslavia from 1934 to 1945 .

Life

Peter was the eldest son of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and Princess Maria of Romania , daughter of King Ferdinand I of Romania from the house of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen .

In October 1934 his father died after an assassination attempt and Peter succeeded him at the age of eleven as Peter II. The affairs of state were conducted by his father's cousin, Prince Paul . On March 25, 1941, Paul joined the three-power pact under German pressure ; Two days later, a pro-British military coup took place in Belgrade - supported by Great Britain - which overturned the Regency Council and declared King Peter to be of legal age and therefore fit to rule. The real power, however, lay with the new government under General Simović , which tried to return to a neutral policy towards Hitler's Germany . However, Hitler did not accept this U-turn , which actually benefited Great Britain, and began the military attack on Yugoslavia and Greece on April 6, 1941 . A few days later the army had to surrender.

Together with the government, King Peter II fled the country. In 1943 the communists forbade him to return. In exile in London on March 20, 1944, he married Princess Alexandra of Greece (1921–1993), daughter of the former King Alexandros I ; on July 17, 1945 son Alexander was born.

After the victory of the Allies and the restoration of Yugoslavia, despite short-term hopes of return, he had to renounce the throne in November 1945 and passed power to the imperial administrators Srđan Budisavljević , Ante Mandić and Dušan Sernec . After the proclamation of the “Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia” by the new communist ruler Josip Broz Tito in November 1945, ex-King Peter II emigrated to the USA.

Peter Karađorđević died in November 1970 in Denver hospital after a failed liver transplant . He was buried in St. Sava Monastery Church in Libertyville , a suburb of Chicago . His bones were transferred to Serbia in January 2013, where they were buried together with those of his wife and mother in a solemn ceremony on May 26, 2013 in the family crypt in Oplenac .

His son Alexander has been living in Belgrade again since 2001.

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  With his mother and the younger brothers Andreas and Tomislaw (around 1931)

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  1941 with Bernard Montgomery and Winston Churchill

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  Married in 1944 in British exile (left and right of the couple: George VI of Great Britain and George II of Greece )

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  After reconciliation with his wife in 1963 they went on a skiing holiday in Gstaad

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  Former grave of Peter Karađorđević in Libertyville

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  Grave in the crypt of the Church of St. George at Topola

literature

• Peter II. , In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 03/1971 from January 11, 1971, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Edgar Hösch: Petar II. Karadjordjević . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, p. 433 f.

Web links

Commons : Peter II of Yugoslavia  - Peter II. (Yugoslavia)

• Newspaper article about Peter II in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Portrait on the website of the Serbian royal family (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Margret Dünser: Royal and Princely Houses Today (1980)
2. ↑ Посмртни остаци краља Петра II у Београду . On January 22, 2013 on rtv.rs, accessed on April 1, 2018
3. ^ Robert Mendick, Patrick Sawer: Yugoslavia's exiled Queen returns home at long last . April 28, 2013 from telegraph.co.uk, accessed April 1, 2018
4. ↑ Last Yugoslav King Petar II buried in Serbia . On May 26, 2013 at orf.at, accessed on April 1, 2018

predecessor	Office	successor
Alexander I.	King of Yugoslavia 1934–1945	-