Cecilia of Greece
Princess Cecilia of Greece and Denmark (born June 22, 1911 in Athens , † November 16, 1937 in Steene , near Ostend ) was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg .
Life
Origin and past life
Cecilia was born on June 22, 1911 in the royal summer residence of Tatoi near Athens. She was the third daughter of Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark (1882-1944) and his wife Alice von Battenberg (1885-1969), as well as the paternal granddaughter of King George I of Greece and Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna Romanova , a niece of Tsar Alexander II. Her maternal grandparents were Prince Ludwig von Battenberg, later Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven , and Princess Viktoria of Hessen-Darmstadt and bei Rhein , who was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria . She had four other siblings:
- Margarita (1905–1981) ⚭ 1931 Gottfried zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg
- Theodora (1906–1969) ⚭ 1931 Berthold von Baden
- Sophie (1914–2001) 1. ⚭ 1930 Christoph Prince of Hesse | 2. ⚭ 1946 Georg Wilhelm of Hanover
- Philipp, Duke of Edinburgh (* 1921) ⚭ 1947 Queen Elizabeth II.
Cecilia was baptized on July 2, 1911. Her godparents were King George V of the United Kingdom , Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse , Prince Nicholas of Greece and Duchess Wera of Württemberg . Cecilia was also called Cécile in the family. She grew up in Tatoi and Mon Repos Castle on the island of Corfu , among others . After a military coup in 1922, the family went into exile. Cecilia stayed with her mother and siblings in Paris while her father withdrew to Monte Carlo with his lover . That same year she was one of the bridesmaids at her uncle Louis Mountbatten's wedding to Edwina Ashley . After going into exile, the family was utterly impoverished, so that Mother Alice opened an art shop selling pictures and embroidery. Her parents lived apart for a long time, so she rarely saw her father. In 1930 Cecilia's mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia . At the urging of her uncle Louis Mountbatten, Alice was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland .
Marriage and early death
Cecilia married on January 23, 1931 in Darmstadt Georg Donatus (1906-1937), son of the Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen-Darmstadt and his second wife Eleonore zu Solms-Hohensolms-Lich (1871-1937). The following children were born from the marriage:
- Ludwig Ernst Andreas (born October 25, 1931 - † November 16, 1937, plane crash )
- Alexander Georg Karl Heinrich (April 14, 1933 - November 16, 1937, plane crash)
- Johanna Marina Eleonore (born September 20, 1936 - † June 14, 1939)
Shortly after the death of her father-in-law, in October 1937, the pregnant Cecilia, her husband, the unborn child as well as her two sons and her mother-in-law died in a plane crash near Ostend , Belgium . They were on their way to the wedding of their brother-in-law Ludwig (1908–1968) and his future wife Margaret Campbell Geddes (1913–1997), which took place on November 17, 1937 in London .
Cecilia, her husband, the two sons and her mother-in-law found their final resting place together with the not yet buried Ernst Ludwig in a large communal grave on the Rosenhöhe .
The little daughter Johanna stayed in Wolfsgarten Castle . She escaped the plane crash and was orphaned through the death of her parents. She was adopted by Ludwig and his wife. However, she died of meningitis in 1939 at the age of two . Johanna is buried away from her family on the Rosenhöhe.
The plane crash was thematized in 2017 in the episode Paterfamilias of the British television series The Crown (season 2, episode 9), albeit historically inaccurate in details. Subsequently, Prince Philip (played by Matt Smith ) remembers his time at the Scottish private school Gordonstoun and the death of his older sister ( Leonie Benesch ) who was afraid of flying .
politics
On May 1, 1937, she joined the NSDAP.
Individual evidence
- ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Nobility in Hesse: Dark days for the House of Hesse-Darmstadt . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . ( fr.de [accessed November 20, 2017]).
- ↑ Petropulos, Jonathan: Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany . Oxford University Press, New York, NY et al. 2006, ISBN 978-0-19-516133-5 , pp. 382 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cecilia of Greece |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cecilia of Greece and Denmark |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Princess of Greece and Denmark |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 22, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Athens |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 16, 1937 |
| Place of death | Steene near Ostend |