August Wilhelm of Prussia (1887–1949)

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August Wilhelm von Prussia in the uniform of an SA-Obergruppenführer, around 1938
Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, around 1905

August Wilhelm Heinrich Günther Viktor Prince of Prussia (also called Auwi ; born  January 29, 1887 in Potsdam ; †  March 25, 1949 in Stuttgart ) was the fourth son of the German Emperor Wilhelm II from the House of Hohenzollern and an SA leader in the rank of an Obergruppenführer during the Nazi era .

Life

Empire

Prince August Wilhelm was born as the fourth son of the future German Emperor Wilhelm II and his wife Auguste Victoria in the Potsdam City Palace. He spent his childhood and youth with his siblings in the New Palace in Potsdam , and his school days in the Plön Prinzenhaus . He studied at the universities of Bonn ( living there in the specially purchased Crown Prince's villa), Berlin and Strasbourg . In 1906 he became a Konkneipant (CK) of the Corps Borussia in Bonn (left 1934). In 1907 he received his doctorate “in an extremely dubious way” (the dissertation was mostly written by Friedrich Wolters ) as a doctor of political science under Gustav von Schmoller .

On October 22, 1908, August Wilhelm married his cousin Princess Alexandra Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg in the Berlin City Palace . Actually, the couple should Schönhausen Palace (then) available from Berlin, but changed his plans, when August Wilhelm's father decided to his son in the park Sanssouci located Villa Legnica to leave. The couple's only child, Prince Alexander Ferdinand of Prussia († June 12, 1985), was born on December 26, 1912 . The royal couple's house in Potsdam developed into a meeting place for artists and scholars.

During the First World War , August Wilhelm became district administrator of the Ruppin district with his official residence and residence in Rheinsberg Castle . On the western front and later in the east he was an orderly officer in the stage. His personal adjutant, Hans Georg von Mackensen , with whom he had been close friends since his youth, played a major role in the prince's life. These "pronounced homosexual tendencies" contributed to the failure of the marriage with Princess Alexandra Viktoria. However, a formal divorce did not take place at first because of the contradiction of the father, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Weimar Republic

The couple separated shortly after the end of the war and divorced in March 1920. The custody of their son was awarded August Wilhelm. After his divorce and the marriage of his friend Hans Georg von Mackensen to Winifred von Neurath, the daughter of Konstantin von Neurath , August Wilhelm lived in seclusion again in his Potsdam villa. He took drawing lessons from Professor Arthur von Kampf . Selling his paintings provided him with an additional source of income.

August Wilhelm joined the German national paramilitary front-line combatants' association " Stahlhelm ". From 1929 he came increasingly in contact with the National Socialists . Finally, to the discomfort of his family, he joined the NSDAP on April 1, 1930 , where he was given the low membership number 24 as an “honorary” member . On June 4, 1931, he joined the SA and in November 1931 August Wilhelm received the rank of Standartenführer there. Because of his ingratiation to National Socialism and his admiration for Adolf Hitler , August Wilhelm was often the target of ridicule in left-wing print media ("Braunhemdchen Auwi").

August Wilhelm von Prussia in SA uniform speaking at an NSDAP rally in the Berlin Sports Palace (1932), photo from the Federal Archives

As a representative of the former Prussian royal and German imperial family, he was consciously used by the National Socialists as a vote-catcher in the elections - "as a spectator magnet, as an agitator and of course as an advertising medium in matters of seriousness". B. as the top candidate of the NSDAP for the Prussian state election on April 24, 1932 or as an election speaker next to Hitler, whom he accompanied on his legendary Germany flights at the same time. Through his appearances at mass rallies of the NSDAP, he addressed sections of the population who were more reluctant to face National Socialism and made them believe that "Hitler was not a threat, but a benefactor for the German people and the Reich".

time of the nationalsocialism

After the seizure of power of Hitler in 1933 was August Wilhelm Prussian State Council and member of the German Reichstag , and he was from 1933 to 1946 Member of the Senate of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society . After the establishment of the dictatorship, the Nazi regime was no longer dependent on an ex-prince who himself secretly hoped "that Hitler would one day lift him or his son Alexander to the vacant imperial throne". In spring 1934 he was denied direct access to Hitler; in the summer he was politically sidelined by the Röhm affair , but this did not diminish his admiration for Hitler. In former court circles he was soon considered "ridiculous", the family portrayed him as "crazy". For leading National Socialists like Joseph Goebbels he was a “good-natured but somewhat dumb boy”, for Hermann Göring a “buffoon”. On July 1, 1939, he was appointed SA-Obergruppenführer, the second highest rank of the SA. Denounced because of derogatory remarks about Goebbels on the edge of a lecture tour in Alsace, August Wilhelm was in November 1942 with a gag order occupied. He lived in Potsdam, protected by his friend, the local police chief Heinrich von Kozierowski , whom he is said to have supported occasionally as an informer.

At the beginning of February 1945 August Wilhelm fled from the approaching Red Army , accompanied by the former Crown Princess Cecilie, to Kronberg to Margarete Landgräfin von Hessen , a sister of his father.

After 1945

In the course of the surrender of the Wehrmacht , August Wilhelm of Prussia was arrested by US troops on May 8, 1945 and imprisoned on the grounds of the Ludwigsburg flak barracks . Because of his active membership in the NSDAP and SA, he was sentenced to three years in a camp. "In response to the question in the judging chamber proceedings of 1948 whether he was at least in the meantime rejecting National Socialism, he asked blankly: 'I beg your pardon?'" So he was classified in the group of the incriminated by the verdict chamber of the Ludwigsburg internment camp and sentenced to two and a half years in a labor camp. Due to the detention in the internment since May 8, 1945, the sentence was considered to have been served.

Immediately after August Wilhelm's release from prison, new proceedings were pending against him. So lay u. a. from the Potsdam District Court an arrest warrant against the emperor's son. However, the execution of the arrest warrant and the initiation of the proceedings did not come about. August Wilhelm Prince of Prussia fell seriously ill and died in a hospital in Stuttgart. He was buried in Langenburg in the cemetery of the Princes of Hohenlohe-Langenburg .

August Wilhelm of Prussia with his son Alexander Ferdinand (between 1916 and 1918)

progeny

August Wilhelm had a son with his wife:

  • Alexander Ferdinand von Prussia, Alexander Ferdinand Albrecht Achilles Wilhelm Joseph Viktor Karl Feodor (born December 26, 1912 - June 12, 1985) ⚭ 1938 Armgard Weygand (1912–2001) descendants:
    • Stephan von Preußen, Stephan Alexander Dieter Friedrich (* September 30, 1939; † February 12, 1993) 1. ⚭ 1964–1976 Heide Schmidt (* 1939) You have a daughter and four grandchildren. 2. ⚭ 1981–1985 Hannelore-Maria Kerscher (* 1952) Offspring:
      • Stephanie von Preußen, Stephanie Viktoria-Luise (* September 21, 1966) ⚭ 1991–1999 Amadi Mbaraka Bao (* 1958 in Tanzania ) (four children)

literature

Web links

Commons : August Wilhelm von Preußen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Kösener corps lists 1910, 19 , 788
  2. a b c Peter Winzen: Review of: Lothar Machtan, Der Kaisersohn bei Hitler, Hoffmann and Campe 2006 . In: Historische Zeitschrift 283, 2006, p. 813.
  3. Lothar Machtan: A doctor for the prince . In: Die Zeit, October 22, 2009, No. 44.
  4. ^ Wolfgang Mück: Nazi stronghold in Middle Franconia. The Volkish Awakening in Neustadt ad Aisch 1922–1933. Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 2016 (= Streiflichter aus der Heimatgeschichte. Ed. By Geschichts- und Heimatverein Neustadt ad Aisch eV, special volume 4), 3rd, extended edition ibid. 2016, p. 251 f. ( August Wilhelm von Prussen ); here: p. 251.
  5. Lothar Machtan: The Emperor's Son with Hitler. Hamburg 2006.
  6. ^ Volker Ullrich: Party member 24. How the prince and SA leader August Wilhelm von Prussia helped to inspire the German aristocracy for National Socialism. In: Die Zeit , June 22, 2006.
  7. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 472.
  8. ^ Wolfgang Mück: Nazi stronghold in Middle Franconia. The Volkish Awakening in Neustadt ad Aisch 1922–1933. Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 2016 (= Streiflichter aus der Heimatgeschichte. Ed. By Geschichts- und Heimatverein Neustadt ad Aisch e.V., special volume 4), 3rd, extended edition, ibid. 2016, p. 124.
  9. ^ A b Tilman Krause: Brown shirt Auwi. Lothar Machtan's interestingly unsuccessful, yet highly exciting biography of the Nazi Hohenzollern Prince August Wilhelm . In: Welt Online, June 24, 2006.
  10. a b Lothar Machtan: The Emperor's Son with Hitler. Hamburg 2006, p. 259.
  11. Quoted from Lothar Machtan: The Emperor's Son with Hitler. Hamburg 2006, p. 363.
  12. Lothar Machtan: The Emperor's Son with Hitler. Hamburg 2006, p. 379.