Cecilie of Mecklenburg
Cecilie Auguste Marie Duchess of Mecklenburg (-Schwerin) (born September 20, 1886 in Schwerin Castle ; † May 6, 1954 in Bad Kissingen , Bavaria ) was the daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III. von Mecklenburg and Grand Duchess Anastasia Michailowna Romanowa . As the wife of Wilhelm von Prussia, she was the last Crown Princess of the German Empire from 1905 to 1918 .
Life
Cecilie was the third and youngest child of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and spent her childhood in Cannes and in Schwerin Castle . On July 3, 1903, she was confirmed in the castle church in Schwerin . On September 4, 1904, she got engaged in the Gelbensande hunting lodge . Three quarters of a year later, on June 6, 1905, she was married to the German Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia in Berlin . The marriage was one of the most spectacular events of the year, which was celebrated with an elaborately decorated procession from the Brandenburg Gate along the Unter den Linden boulevard to the Berlin City Palace .
Cecilie quickly settled in her new environment and became extremely popular both at court and with the people thanks to her open but calm manner. Contemporary sources emphasized their natural beauty and their fashionable, elegant appearance. In fact, she was very fashion-conscious, had a weakness for hats and quickly became a role model for thousands of women and girls in Germany. The Crown Princess, described by contemporary witnesses as an intelligent and eloquent woman, did not limit her external impact to good looks, but was also heavily involved in the social field within the conventions associated with her position. For example, Cecilie advocated women's education , which is why many schools and streets are (still today) named after her. In conversations with the inner circle, she also dealt with current political issues. In summer the Crown Prince family lived in the Marble Palace in the New Garden in Potsdam ; in the winter months they moved into the Kronprinzenpalais , Unter den Linden .
The First World War delayed the construction of the Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam , which, at Cecilie's request, was modeled on her parents' summer residence, the Gelbensande hunting lodge. Crown Princess Cecilie was only able to move in there in August 1917 and gave birth to her sixth child, Princess Cecilie , on September 5th .
Cecilie's court life came to an end with the outcome of the First World War when she refused to go into exile with the resigned Kaiser Wilhelm II , his wife and her husband. So she stayed with her six children as the only one in the German capital, where she continued to support charitable causes. Although her husband, the former Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, was allowed to return to Germany at the end of 1923, the couple had now finally become estranged, especially since Wilhelm had many affairs in addition to his marriage, including Gladys Marie Deacon . Officially, the Crown Prince couple lived in the Cecilienhof until 1945.
Cecilie continued to work in monarchist-oriented associations. From 1924 she was the patron of the Bund Queen Luise , a sister organization of the Stahlhelm .
After the “ seizure of power ” by the National Socialists and their allies in 1933, all monarchist associations were dissolved and banned. The former Crown Princess then finally withdrew from the public and from now on lived mainly on the Cecilienhof. There she devoted herself above all to her love of music by organizing private concerts and very soon she counted among her closest friends many well-known conductors and musicians such as Bronisław Huberman , Wilhelm Kempff , Elly Ney , Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan .
In February 1945, Cecilie had to get to safety from the approaching Red Army with just a few pieces of her personal belongings from her castle. She fled with the family of her son Louis Ferdinand to Bad Kissingen in Bavaria , where she lived until 1952, initially in an attic room in the “Fürstenhof”, the sanatorium of the spa doctor Paul Sotier , who was familiar with the imperial family , and then in her own apartment. From 1952 to 1954 she lived in the Frauenkopf district of Stuttgart .
After the Second World War , the once popular Crown Princess was largely forgotten. She died on May 6, 1954 during a visit to the Sotier house in Bad Kissingen, presumably of a stroke . She is buried in the small family cemetery in the officers' garden of the St. Michaels Bastion within Hohenzollern Castle , where the tombs of Crown Prince Wilhelm and several of her children are also located.
ancestors
| Pedigree of Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great-great-grandparents |
Friedrich Ludwig zu Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1778–1819) |
King |
Count |
Count |
Tsar |
King |
Grand Duke |
King |
| Great grandparents |
Grand Duke |
Heinrich LXIII. Reuss zu Köstritz (1786–1841) |
Tsar Nicholas I of Russia (1796–1855) |
Grand Duke Leopold of Baden (1790–1852) |
||||
| Grandparents |
Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1823–1883) |
Grand Prince Michael Nikolajewitsch Romanow (1832–1909) |
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| parents |
Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III. von Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1851–1897) |
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|
Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg (1886–1954) |
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Honors
- She is the namesake of the Ceciliengärten residential complex in Berlin-Schöneberg, which was built in the 1920s and is now a listed building .
- Several streets or squares in Germany were given their names, but most of them were renamed after the end of the Second World War . Among other things, the Cecilienallee in Düsseldorf-Golzheim is named after her and has been preserved by name.
- The Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam was named after her, and she lived there with interruptions from 1917 to 1945.
- One of the large sailing ships of the first half of the 20th century, a four-masted barque built by Rickmers AG in Geestemünde in 1902 , was baptized with the name Duchess Cecilie . A new street in the Überseestadt Bremen was also given the name Herzogin-Cecilie-Allee .
- The Cecilienkoog , diked in 1905, was named after her.
- She was the namesake of the express steamer Kronprinzessin Cecilie of North German Lloyd.
- In 1910 a road connecting the former villages of Marzahn and Kaulsdorf east of Berlin was named after her. The street, now largely located in the Berlin-Hellersdorf district, was given the name again in 1992.
- Several schools are named after her, including a. the Ceciliengymnasium Bielefeld or Cecilien-Schule (elementary school) Berlin .
progeny
- Wilhelm Friedrich Franz Joseph Christian Olaf of Prussia (* 1906, † May 1940 after being seriously wounded in the French campaign )
- ⚭ 1933 Dorothea von Salviati (1907–1972)
- ⚭ 1938 Kira Kirillowna Romanowa (1909–1967), former Grand Duchess of Russia
- Hubertus Karl Wilhelm of Prussia (1909–1950)
- ⚭ 1941–1943 Maria Anna Freiin von Humboldt-Dachroeden (1916–2003)
- ⚭ 1943 Magdalene Pauline Princess Reuss (1920–2009)
- Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Christoph of Prussia (1911–1966)
- ⚭ 1945 Lady Brigid Katherine Rachel Guinness (1920–1995), daughter of the British industrialist Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh
- Alexandrine Irene Princess of Prussia (1915–1980)
- Cecilie Viktoria Anastasia Zita Thyra Adelheid of Prussia (1917–1975)
- ⚭ 1949 Clyde Kenneth Harris (1918–1958)
Works
- Summer at the sea . Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1914, DNB 572584849 .
- Memories . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig 1930 (new edition: Koehler & Amelang, Munich / Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-7338-0304-3 ).
- Memories of the German Crown Prince . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Biberach an der Riss 1952 (new edition: Koehler & Amelang, Munich / Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-7338-0315-9 ).
literature
- Iselin Gundermann : Crown Princess Cecilie . Edition Rieger, Karwe bei Neuruppin 2004, ISBN 978-3-935231-51-0 .
- Jörg Kirschstein : Crown Princess Cecilie. A picture biography . Bebra, Edition Q, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-86124-666-4 .
- Duchess Viktoria Luise : The Crown Princess . Göttinger Verlagsanstalt, Hanover 1977, ISBN 3-87267-027-1 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Cecilie zu Mecklenburg in the catalog of the German National Library
- Cecilie zu Mecklenburg-Schwerin at preussen.de
Individual evidence
- ^ 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. 465.
- ^ Jörg Kirschstein, imperial children. The Wilhelm II family in photographs, p. 32
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated June 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Cecilienstraße. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near Kaupert )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cecilie of Mecklenburg |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cecilie Auguste Marie Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; Prussia, Cecilie von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | last Crown Princess of the German Empire |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 20, 1886 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schwerin Castle |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 6, 1954 |
| Place of death | Bad Kissingen |