Charlotte of Prussia (1860-1919)
Princess Charlotte of Prussia , full name Victoria Elisabeth Augusta Charlotte of Prussia VA (* July 24, 1860 in Potsdam , † October 1, 1919 in Baden-Baden ) was a member of the House of Hohenzollern and by marriage Duchess of Saxony-Meiningen (1914– 1918).
Life
Charlotte was the second child and the eldest daughter of the future German Emperor Friedrich (III) of Prussia and his wife, the British Princess (Princess Royal) Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland . Through her mother, Charlotte was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Consort Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha .
Charlotte was a capricious and easy-going princess and wanted to get away from home as soon as possible. Since marriage was the only way out, she chose the shy and educated Hereditary Prince Bernhard of Saxony-Meiningen . Because the prince was a suitable marriage candidate and their daughter caused a lot of unrest at home, the Crown Prince couple agreed to Charlotte's marriage. The engagement to her cousin (2nd degree) took place in 1876 and the marriage on February 18, 1878 in Berlin . It was a double wedding at which Elisabeth Anna of Prussia was married to Hereditary Grand Duke Friedrich August von Oldenburg . The wedding was a great spectacle , as it was the first event of its kind since the establishment of the German Empire under the government of the Prussian Hohenzollerns . In addition to the German princes, King Leopold II of Belgium and his wife Marie Henriette as well as Charlotte's maternal uncle Eduard , Prince of Wales , traveled to the wedding of the emperor's granddaughter .
After the wedding, the young couple settled in the Villa Liegnitz in Potsdam . It had a daughter, Feodora , who was born on May 12, 1879, after whose birth Charlotte soon returned to Berlin society. Charlotte attributed the distance to her mother to her conservative political views - her mother preferred liberal policies against Chancellor Otto von Bismarck . In 1891 she was involved in the Kotze affair . In 1914 Prince Bernhard inherited the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen and became the last ruling duke, as he had to abdicate at the end of the First World War . A few months later, Duchess Charlotte died after a long period of cancer at the age of only 59.
After her daughter Feodora committed suicide in 1945, doctors found that she, and probably her mother, had porphyria . Charlotte's great-great-grandfather King George III had the same hereditary disease . suffered.
literature
- Andrew Sinclair: Victoria - Empress for 99 days. Bastei Lübbe ISBN 3-404-61086-5
- Robert Massie, Jeffrey Finestone: The Last Courts of Europe.
- Jerrold M. Packard: Victoria's Daughters.
- John van der Kiste: Kaiser Wilhelm II.
- Karin Feuerstein-Prasser: The German Empresses , Piper 2006
- Wolfgang Wippermann : Scandal in the Grunewald Hunting Lodge , Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2010
- Catherine Radziwiłł: Memories of forty years. Retrieved July 10, 2016 (1914).
- Barbara Beck: Wilhelm II and his siblings. Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2016; ISBN 978-3-7917-2750-9 .
Web links
- Works by and about Charlotte von Prussia in the German Digital Library
- Entry to Charlotte of Prussia in Kalliope
- Princess Charlotte of Prussia
- Swinger Club in Grunewald, Spiegel article August 30, 2010
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Charlotte of Prussia |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Victoria Elisabeth Augusta Charlotte of Prussia; Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Prussian princess and by marriage Duchess of Saxony-Meiningen |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 24, 1860 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Potsdam |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 1, 1919 |
| Place of death | Baden-Baden |