Carl Eduard (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha)

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Karl-Eduard of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Carl Eduard Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1900)

Carl Eduard Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (baptized as Leopold Charles Edward George Albert , born July 19, 1884 in Claremont House , Esher , † March 6, 1954 in Coburg ) was the last from 1900 to 1918 (until 1905 under regency) ruling Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from the royal house of the same name . The grandson of Queen Victoria was born as Duke of Albany and Prince of Great Britain and Ireland . Between 1933 and 1945 he was, among other things, President of the German Red Cross and Obergruppenführer of the SA and the NSFK .

Life

origin

Carl Eduard Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha with family, 1918

Carl Eduard was born in Surrey in 1884 and was baptized Leopold Charles Edward George Albert . His nickname was Charles Edward, after the namesake Charles Edward Stuart . His parents were Leopold, 1st Duke of Albany , the fourth son of Queen Victoria , and Princess Helene von Waldeck-Pyrmont . Since he was only born after the death of his father, he already bore the title of Duke of Albany at birth. His older sister Alice (1883–1981) was Queen Victoria's last living granddaughter. The public baptism followed on December 4, 1884. The godparents were his paternal uncle, the Crown Prince Eduard , and his aunts, the Princesses Helena and Louise of Great Britain and Ireland , the Princess Friederike of Hanover and Cumberland , and on the maternal side his grandfather, the Prince von Waldeck and Pyrmont Georg Viktor , as well as his uncle, the Hereditary Prince Friedrich .

Lord of Saxony-Coburg and Gotha

5 Mark from 1907 with a portrait of Carl Edward

After the death of Hereditary Prince Alfred Alexander , the only son of Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , the succession to the throne in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had to be reorganized. Since Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and the next younger brother of Duke Alfred, renounced the succession to the throne for himself and his son , the fourteen-year-old son of the deceased common brother Leopold , Leopold Charles Edward, was determined as the future Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1899 .

In the autumn of 1899, at the age of 15, he moved with his mother and sister from Great Britain to Germany. He called himself Carl Eduard here and initially lived in the Stuttgart Palace with King Wilhelm II of Württemberg . In the spring of 1900 he moved to Potsdam with his mother and sister, where they lived in the Villa Ingenheim .

After the death of his uncle, Duke Alfred, on July 30, 1900, he became Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Ernst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg , who was married to the daughter of the late duke, took over the reign until he came of age .

Under the care of his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II , the former student of Eton College received a special education from a private teacher according to the curriculum of a high school , which he completed after a year with an exam. In the autumn of 1901 he was trained and educated at the Prussian main cadet institute in Berlin-Lichterfelde , which he finished in December 1902 with the Abitur. From 1903 he studied law and political science for three semesters at the University of Bonn . In 1904 he was reciprocated in the Corps Borussia Bonn . In summer 1904 he finished his studies with the academic title Dr. iur. From October 1, he was a member of the 1st Foot Guards Regiment for four months in order to achieve the rank of lieutenant.

Carl Eduard coat of arms

On his 21st birthday in 1905, Carl Eduard took over the rule of the duchy from the previous regent Ernst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg. On October 11, 1905, he married Princess Viktoria Adelheid of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg , a niece of the German Empress Auguste Viktoria, in Glücksburg Castle .

The young duke ruled demonstratively conservatively and nationalistically, with reactionary tendencies. He was a passionate hunter and traveled a lot. The regent, a technology enthusiast, owned a saloon car and various cars and turned to aviation at an early age. In 1910 he sponsored the construction of a landing pad with an airship hangar in Gotha and thus the expansion of the Gotha Aviation School and, from 1913, the Gothaer Waggonfabrik as an aircraft manufacturer. In addition, Carl Eduard was heavily involved in the renovation and reconstruction of the forts in Coburg and Wachsenburg . In addition to numerous protectorates, the Duke who suffered from rheumatism also supported bobsleigh and golf in Oberhof .

First World War

During the First World War he took part as a Saxon general of the cavalry in the staff of the General Command of the 3rd Army , which included the XI. Army Corps with the 38th Division and the 6th Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 95, of which he was chief . There he was only formal and, as is usual with federal princes, had no active command. He accompanied the infantry regiment to the front and often visited the troops there. He spent 38% of the duration of the war at the front, with a total of 18 stays. In December 1914 he was promoted to general of the infantry . Carl Eduard made extensive rooms available in his castle in Gotha as a reserve hospital.

Duke Carl Eduard of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha at the front (1914)

Break with Great Britain

In order to demonstrate his unconditional loyalty to Germany, Carl Eduard signed a law on March 12, 1917 that excluded non-German members of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from succession if their home state wages war against the German Empire. An attack on London on June 17, 1917 with 17 twin-engined bombers from the Gothaer Waggonfabrik cost 160 lives and increased anti-German sentiment in London. As a result, the adopted British Parliament the law on the confiscation of titles and awards (Titles Deprivation Act) . It was the legal basis for the revocation of his British nobility titles and rights and thus also his seat in the English House of Lords by order of King George V of Great Britain and Ireland on March 28, 1919. Except for Carl Eduard as Duke of Albany , Earl of Clarence , Baron Arklow and Prince of Great Britain and Ireland , three other people were affected by this law: Ernst August, Crown Prince of Hanover as Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale , Earl of Armagh and Prince of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke Ernst August von Braunschweig-Lüneburg as Prince of Great Britain and Ireland as well as Heinrich Graf von Taaffe as 12th Viscount Taaffe and Baron Ballymote . Under the Titles Deprivation Act, the male heirs of these persons have the right to ask the British Crown to restore them to these titles, but have not yet made use of them.

End of rule

On November 9, 1918, the Gotha workers and soldiers council declared Duke Carl Eduard to be deposed. On November 13, 1918, later than most of the federal princes, he announced his resignation, which was announced on November 14 by the Minister of State Hans Barthold von Bassewitz in a session of the joint state parliament in Gotha and meant the renunciation of the throne of both duchies. This broke up Saxony-Coburg and Gotha into the two Free States of Coburg and Gotha . They went their separate ways when Gotha joined the newly created state of Thuringia in 1920 , while Coburg joined the Free State of Bavaria .

Worked from 1918 to 1945

The Free State of Coburg succeeded in signing a severance payment agreement with Carl Eduard Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on June 7, 1919 regarding his property and financial situation in the former Duchy of Saxe-Coburg. However, he rejected the offer of compensation from the Free State of Saxony-Gotha in the amount of 15 million marks for the loss of his possessions. Therefore, on July 31, 1919, the law on the confiscation of the Gotha Fideikommiss, the Lichtenberger Fideikommiss, the Ernst-Albert Fideikommiss, the Schmalkalden Forests and the Hausallods was passed by the Gotha State Assembly. It was the only expropriation of a prince in Germany; it was later overturned by a judgment of the Reichsgericht dated June 18, 1925. He was reassigned values ​​of around 37.2 million Reichsmarks. From 1918 to 1945, Carl Eduard lived with his family mostly in the summer at Callenberg Castle , which remained his property, and in the winter on the renovated Veste Coburg, where he had the right to live.

Carl Eduard Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1933)
Carl Eduard Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha speaks as President of the German Red Cross on November 11, 1936 on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the DRK
Meeting in Hawaii in 1934 with the head of the American Red Cross John Barton Payne (right) and the delegate of Georgetown University , W. Coleman Nevils (left)

From 1919, the former duke sought to join national-conservative and ethnic circles. From 1917 to 1922 he was a member of the Bund der Kaisertreuen . In December 1919 he got to know the Free Corps Leader Hermann Ehrhardt , whom he supported both ideally and materially. After the failed Kapp Putsch , he hid Ehrhardt, who was wanted on an arrest warrant, at Callenberg Castle . In 1920 Carl Eduard became District Leader Coburg with the Ehrhardt Brigade and the Consul Organization and Thuringia District Leader of the Consul Organization. He assumed the same, purely representative positions in 1923 with the paramilitary successor organization Bund Wiking . In 1926 he became a member of the Stahlhelmbund , which he also supported financially. In 1930 he became a member of the federal executive committee after he had already become Reichsstaffelführer of the Reichskraftfahr-Staffel des Stahlhelm in 1928. In 1929 he took over the presidency of the National German Automobile Club, founded by the Reichskraftfahr-Staffel. On October 11, 1931, Carl Eduard took part in the meeting of the Harzburg Front in Bad Harzburg and in 1932 he became President of the Berlin National Club .

Hitler got to know Carl Eduard personally on October 14, 1922, as the guest of honor at the welcome and celebratory evening on the third German Day in Coburg. In the decades that followed, he met him personally at least 21 times. After the NSDAP's first election successes in Coburg in 1929, he openly supported the party. On December 5, 1929, Carl Eduard and his wife attended an election campaign event of the NSDAP in the Coburg Hofbräu restaurants with Hitler as the speaker. On October 18, 1931, he took part in the SA deployment in Braunschweig . With a public appeal on March 23, 1932 in the Coburg national newspaper, he supported Hitler in the presidential election against the conservative incumbent Hindenburg . After the victory of the NSDAP in the Reichstag election in 1933 , he had the swastika flag hoisted on the Veste Coburg on March 9, 1933 on the occasion of the takeover of power in Bavaria and joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 .

As a result, Carl Eduard received many honorary posts so that he could feel as a high-ranking member of the NSDAP, giving the party a reputation in his own country and supporting it abroad as a figurehead with an international reputation. In 1933 he became a supporting member of the SS . At the end of July 1933 he was appointed SA-Gruppenführer in the staff of the Supreme SA Leader and in 1938 Hitler promoted him to SA-Obergruppenführer. On December 1, 1933, the Reich President appointed him President of the German Red Cross and in January 1934 Reich Commissioner for Voluntary Nursing. In 1933 he became Reich Commissioner for Motor Vehicles and with membership number 2230 Honorary Leader and in 1935 Obergruppenführer of the National Socialist Motorist Corps NSKK . Other offices followed, such as 1933 Senator of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science , 1934 Representative of the Reich Government Abroad, 1935 President of the German-English Society in Berlin, 1936 Member of the Reichstag and President of the Association of German Frontline Fighters and 1938 President of the Permanent International Committee former front soldier. It is said that he was also head of the Anglo-German Fellowship . However, there are no sources to support this. In the course of the establishment of the National Socialist Fliegerkorps in April 1937 he was appointed honorary leader of the German aviation with the rank of aviation commodore as well as NSFK-Obergruppenführer.

Furthermore, Carl Eduard was active in the economy as a member of various supervisory boards, u. a. since 1928 with Wanderer-Werke AG and Rhein-Metall-Borsig AG , from 1933 with Deutscher Ring Lebensversicherung AG , from 1934 with Deutsche Bank und Discontogesellschaft and Deutsche Centralboden-Kredit AG and from 1938 as chairman of Europäische Güter- and luggage insurance AG.

Due to his global experience, the National Socialist Carl Eduard represented the DRK and also the German Reich, especially vis-à-vis abroad. To this end, from 1933 to 1944 he undertook 39 trips abroad and two trips around the world. His deputy as President of the German Red Cross and Reich Commissioner for Voluntary Nursing was Paul Hocheisen , and from 1937 Ernst-Robert Grawitz . After a lost power struggle for competencies in 1934, he was left with purely representative tasks, and Hocheisen carried out the actual official business. In the same year he went on his first trip around the world. It lasted four months and went through England, Canada, USA, Japan, China, Singapore, India, Egypt and Italy. He should, among other things, the German Empire at the XV. International Conference of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tokyo. In Japan he was also received by the imperial couple.

In December 1935 Carl Eduard english German company was in London as President of the elected, and in January 1936 he officially represented the German Reich at the funeral of the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland George V . In the funeral procession, Carl Eduard walked in the sixth row behind the gun carriage with the coffin and was wearing a general uniform of the Wehrmacht and an M35 steel helmet .

Between February and June 1940, as President of the DRK and special ambassador of the Reich Government, he undertook a second trip around the world, via the Soviet Union and Japan to the USA and back. The five-week, unofficial visit to the USA had the guise of a humanitarian, charitable character and, above all, served to present Germany positively. On March 18, 1940, he was also received by President Franklin D. Roosevelt . When a journalist asked whether the Jews in Poland would be subjected to special treatment with regard to care and assistance, he answered untruthfully that the Red Cross did not know any differences. On the return journey Carl Eduard was officially received by the Japanese Emperor Hirohito on April 30, 1940 . He conveyed the congratulations of the German Empire on the 2600th anniversary of the empire. On the return journey he had a meeting with Vyacheslav Molotov in Moscow on May 31, 1940 .

He did not support initiatives by members of the Swedish royal family - his daughter had married the Hereditary Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden in 1932 - to help victims of the Nazi regime . A request from Prince Eugene of Sweden in March 1942 to obtain an exit permit to the USA for Martha Liebermann, Max Liebermann's widow , he passed on to Reinhard Heydrich without any further steps .

Due to an individual approval that took into account his merits and his loyalty to the Nazi regime, the Fuehrer's decree on the keeping of internationally bound men from key positions in the state, party and armed forces of May 19, 1943 was not applied.

After the Second World War

After the end of World War II , Carl Eduard was arrested by the US Army in Coburg on June 4, 1945 and interned until the end of 1946 . Initially accused of crimes against humanity , Carl Eduard, who had been issued several Persil notes and who was not aware of any guilt, was sentenced in 1950 to an atonement of 5,000 DM in the arbitration chamber proceedings after several appeals proceedings as a follower and minor offender.

Cemetery of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in the forest of Callenberg Castle

Carl Eduard Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha died in 1954 as the penultimate former German federal prince at the age of seventy from cancer . He was buried in the family cemetery in the forest of Callenberg Castle, which was laid out in 1944 .

progeny

His first son, Hereditary Prince Johann Leopold (1906–1972), did not marry the divorced Feodora Freiin von der Horst in his first marriage in 1932. Therefore, according to the house law, he had to forego his hereditary prince rights and membership of the entire house of Saxony-Coburg and Gotha for himself, his family and his descendants . The second son, Prince Hubertus (1909–1943), was childless when he fell in World War II. Therefore, the youngest son Friedrich Josias Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1918–1998) became head of the entire house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. His eldest son Andreas (* 1943) took over this position in 1998.

Carl Edward's older daughter, Princess Sibylla (1908–1972), married Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden in Coburg in 1932 († 1947, had an accident). Their son, Carl Edward's grandchild Carl XVI. Gustaf (* 1946), has been King of Sweden since 1973.

The younger daughter Princess Caroline Mathilde (1912–1983) married Count Friedrich Wolfgang Otto von Castell-Rüdenhausen in 1931 , with whom she had three children. Less than two months after her divorce, in June 1938 she married Max Schnirring, a Lufthansa captain and test pilot at Arado Flugzeugwerke , who died in an accident six years later in 1944. The marriage also had three children. Another marriage followed after World War II, which ended in divorce.

literature

Web links

Commons : Carl Eduard Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener CDorpslisten 1960, 9/875
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Harald Sandner: Hitler's Duke. Carl Eduard of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The biography. Shaker Media, Aachen 2011, ISBN 978-3-86858-598-8 .
  3. ↑ Jürgen Erdmann: Coburg, Bavaria and the Reich 1918–1923 . Druckhaus and Vesteverlag A. Rossteutscher, Coburg 1969, p. 91.
  4. ^ Stefan Nöth: Duke Carl Eduard of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1884–1954) . In: ahead at the wrong time. Coburg and the rise of National Socialism in Germany. Coburg 2004, ISBN 3-9808006-3-6 , p. 46.
  5. ^ Hubertus Büschel: Hitler's noble diplomat. The Duke of Coburg and the Third Reich. P. 231.
  6. ↑ Ernst II of Saxony-Altenburg survived him
  7. ↑ Review by Roger Moorehouse in The Times
predecessor Office successor
Alfred Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
1900–1918 		-
Alfred Head of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
1900–1954 		Friedrich Josias
Leopold Duke of Albany
1900-1919 		Revoked title
personal data
SURNAME Carl Eduard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carl Eduard Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR, President of the German Red Cross, last ruling Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Esher , England
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1954
Place of death Coburg