Albert von Thurn and Taxis (1867–1952)

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Prince Albert

Albert Maria Joseph Maximilian Lamoral von Thurn und Taxis (* May 8, 1867 in Regensburg ; † January 22, 1952 there ) was the eighth Prince of Thurn and Taxis from 1888 to 1918.

Life

Youth, education, marriage

He was born on May 8, 1867 in Regensburg as the youngest of four children of Hereditary Prince Maximilian Anton von Thurn und Taxis (1831-1867) and Duchess Helene in Bavaria (1834-1890). His father died a few weeks after his birth, so that when his grandfather Prince Maximilian Karl (1802–1871) died, his brother Maximilian Maria (1862–1885) became the new Prince of Thurn und Taxis under the tutelage of his mother.

Prince Albert spent his childhood with his mother and three siblings in the Erbprinzenpalais on Bismarckplatz in Regensburg. As was common with many aristocrats at the time, he completed a kind of Studium Universale, he attended lectures in law, economics and art history in Würzburg, Freiburg and Leipzig. When his brother Prince Maximilian Maria died at the age of 22, Prince Albert succeeded his brother at the age of 18, also under maternal tutelage. His full title at that time was: Prince of Thurn and Taxis, Prince of Buchau and Prince of Krotoszyn, Prince Count of Friedberg-Scheer, Count of Valle-Sassina, also of Marchtal, Neresheim etc., Hereditary Postmaster General. In 1899, the royal Bavarian title of Duke of Wörth and Donaustauf was added. With the declaration of majority on May 8, 1888, he was unreservedly head of the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis.

Prince Albert

In addition to a large number of orders and decorations that he was to receive throughout his life, admission to the Order of the Golden Fleece was probably the highest distinction that was bestowed upon him. It took place on St. Andrea's Day, November 30, 1889, together with ten other representatives of the European nobility, including the later father-in-law of his only daughter, King Friedrich August III. of Saxony . Prince Albert was the ninth member of the House of Thurn and Taxis, which belonged to the highest order of Catholic Christianity.

When he took office in 1888, Prince Albert was still unmarried. On July 15, 1890, he married Archduchess Margarethe Klementine of Austria (1870–1955) in the Siegmund Chapel of the Royal Castle of Ofen (in Budapest ). The Archbishop of Gran and Primate Hungariae, Cardinal János Simor performed the wedding ceremony. Archduchess Margarethe, who came from the Hungarian line of the Austrian imperial family, lived with him for over 60 years. The marriage resulted in seven sons and one daughter.

First and Second World War and post-war period

In the years before the outbreak of the First World War, the Princely House of Thurn und Taxis was financially brilliant. Never in the entire time of Prince Albert were the profits higher and never were his events and numerous trips with the large family more expensive. The yearbook of millionaires in Württemberg with Hohenzollern lists him, who belonged to the 1st Württemberg Chamber, as the richest man in Württemberg in 1914, with a fortune of 270 million marks. By way of comparison: the wealth of King Wilhelm II of Württemberg in the same year was only estimated at 36 million marks. During the First World War, the unmilitary Prince Albert acted as a delegate and inspector for the Red Cross and the medical services. On his trips to the front in the princely saloon car, he did not forego luxury and a large entourage, but also supported the soldiers of his 2nd Chevaulegers regiment "Taxis" and had the Ostheim hospital set up in Regensburg on the grounds of the sugar factory, where his wife was also Margarethe worked as a nurse.

In the post-war period during the November Revolution and the Munich Soviet Republic , there were also unrest in Regensburg and rumors about planned attacks on the princely castle of St. Emmeram. However, the royal family was given security guarantees by the mayor and soldiers' councils. Prince Albert reciprocated with financial contributions to the construction of small apartments. When the situation came to a head in January 1919, the castle was barricaded and soldiers from the regiment taxis secured with machine guns. Ultimately, even after Kurt Eisner's murder in Munich at the end of February 1919, there were no attacks on St. Emmeram Castle. In order to alleviate the plight of the population in the winter months of the post-war period, Prince Albert founded the princely emergency kitchen in 1919. From 1923 the kitchen became a permanent feature and has been preserved to this day. In 1957, 70 students were able to enjoy the princely cuisine for the first time and even today up to 400 meals are served to the needy every day from Monday to Friday. After the Second World War, Prince Albert had all the princely castles in and around Regensburg opened to accommodate the numerous refugees. The Philosophical-Theological College moved into the former Benedictine monastery at Schloss Wollening for a short time .

Albert was an opponent of National Socialism in his Catholic and aristocratic self-image . Although he did not offer any active resistance, he had to witness that his son Karl August was arrested in August 1944, taken to the Landshut Gestapo prison, and imprisoned there until 1945. Albert received the Albertus Magnus Medal from the city of Regensburg in 1949 .

Prince Albert and his wife Margarethe as artists, patrons of the arts and builders

Death note from 1952

Prince Albert himself played the piano and organ and practiced as a baritone in private. In the city of Regensburg he worked as a builder and patron of the arts and supported a wide variety of cultural activities. He donated the 14 m high high altar when the parish church of St. Josef in Reinhausen was built between 1906 and 1912 . His coat of arms adorns the work of art at the level of the central Joseph figure.

When a bust of the composer was to be erected in the Walhalla in 1913 on the occasion of Richard Wagner's 100th birthday , Prince Albert personally asked Prince Regent Luitpold to pay for the cost of the bust and its installation.

As part of the compensation for the loss of the postal monopoly when the Kingdom of Bavaria was founded, the monastery buildings of the secularized imperial monastery of St. Emmeram were transferred to the Princes of Thurn and Taxis in 1812. From 1816 the buildings were converted into a residence. In the days of Prince Maximilian Maria , the architect Max Schultze had built the 150 meter long south wing of the palace (1883–1885). From 1888, under the reign of Prince Albert, the south wing was furnished in the neo-rococo style. In the years 1904 to 1908, Prince Albert had a new, modern stables with stables and a three-story carriage house built in the northern wing of the new court marshal's office on Waffnergasse by the princely building officer Max Schultze. After the cessation of driving and the dissolution of the princely royal stables office (1931), the wagon house and the crockery rooms with their holdings were preserved as the royal stables museum of the Princes of Thurn and Taxis.

A sense of art and charity were also two of the main characteristics of Princess Margarethe. She not only made a name for herself as a painter and sculptor in artistic circles, but also assisted as an operating room nurse in Regensburg hospitals. The chief physician Dr. She often stood by Leo Ritter in the hospital of the Brothers of Mercy during operations.

Honors, anniversaries and death

Prince Albert was the first recipient to receive the Golden Citizen Medal of the City of Regensburg in 1913 . In 1923 he was made an honorary doctorate from Innsbruck's Leopold Franzens University . Since 1922 there have been efforts by the Tyroleans to break away from “red Vienna” and to become independent under a Catholic monarch. Since Albert was married to a Habsburg woman and corresponded to the Tyrolean ideas of a Catholic regent, one wanted to underline this request with the award of an honorary doctorate.

Albert was an honorary member of the Catholic student associations KDStV Vindelicia Munich and the KDStV Rupertia Regensburg in the CV .

On July 15, 1950, Albert and Margarethe von Thurn und Taxis celebrated their diamond wedding with the large participation of the European nobility and the people of Regensburg . On the same day, at the same Holy Mass , her granddaughter Maria Fernanda married Franz Josef Prince of Hohenzollern . The city of Regensburg honored the cheering couple with the honorary citizenship of the city.

Albert Fürst von Thurn und Taxis died on January 22nd, 1952 at the age of 84 in Regensburg Castle St. Emmeram. His wife Margarethe died three years later on May 2, 1955. Both were buried in the princely crypt of the palace. Today two streets in Regensburg bear the couple's name.

Prince Albert and Mrs. Margarethe, 1890

Title until 1919

According to the Genealogical Handbook of the Aristocracy, he had the following titles until the status privileges were abolished in the Weimar Republic in 1919 : Prince of Buchau and Prince of Krotoszyn, (since 1899 :) 1st Duke of Wörth and Donaustauf, Prince Count of Friedberg-Scheer, Count to Valle-Sássina, also to Marchtal, Neresheim etc., hereditary postmaster general

progeny

ancestors

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Maximilian Karl von Thurn and Taxis (1802–1871)
Prince
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Maximilian Anton von Thurn and Taxis (1831–1867)
Hereditary Prince
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Konrad Heinrich Ernst Friedrich von Dörnberg
Baron von Dörnberg
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wilhelmine von Dörnberg (1803–1835)
Imperial Freeess of Dörnberg
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wilhelmine Sophie von Glauburg
Freiin
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Albert von Thurn and Taxis (1867–1952)
Prince
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Helene in Bavaria (1834–1890)
Duchess
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


literature

  • Wolfgang Behringer : Thurn and Taxis, the history of their post office and their companies . Munich, Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-492-03336-9 .
  • Martin Dallmeier, Martha Schad : The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis, 300 years of history in pictures . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1492-9 .
  • Fabian Fiederer: "... hold on to all old traditions". The living environment and self-image of the high nobility using the example of the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis in the time of Prince Albert I (1888–1952) (= Thurn and Taxis Studies , New Series, Vol. 5). Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-7917-2795-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Fabian Fiederer: Times of change at the court of the Princes of Thurn and Taxis: The diary of the princely archivist Rudolf Freytag from the years 1918 to 1920 . In: Negotiations of the historical association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg . tape 158 . Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg, 2018, ISSN  0342-2518 , p. 203-209 .
  2. ^ Rudolf Martin: Yearbook of the wealth and income of the millionaires in Württemberg with Hohenzollern. Berlin 1914, pp. 2–3.
  3. ↑ cf. Dallmeier / Schad 1996, p. 139.
  4. ^ Golden Citizen Medal , City of Regensburg.
  5. ↑ Fabian Fiederer: "... hold on to all old traditions". The living environment and self-image of the high nobility using the example of the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis in the time of Prince Albert I (1888–1952) . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2017, p. 137 ff.
  6. ↑ Honorary Citizen of the City of Regensburg ( Memento from February 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Genealogical handbook of the nobility, Princely Houses Volume XV, Limburg / Lahn 1997, p. 474.
predecessor Office successor
Maximilian Maria Prince of Thurn and Taxis
1885–1918 		---
predecessor Office successor
Maximilian Maria Head of the Thurn and Taxis family from
1885–1952 		Franz Joseph
personal data
SURNAME Thurn and Taxis, Albert von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thurn and Taxis, Albert Fürst von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION last Prince of Thurn and Taxis
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH regensburg
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1952
Place of death regensburg