Christian Ludwig Duke of Mecklenburg

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Christian Ludwig Duke of Mecklenburg

Christian Ludwig Herzog zu Mecklenburg (born September 29, 1912 in Ludwigslust ; † July 18, 1996 at Gut Hemmelmark near Eckernförde) was chairman of the Mecklenburg-Schwerin Family Association from 1945 until his death.

Life

Christian Ludwig (right) with his mother and brother, postcard from 1918

Christian Ludwig was the second son of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV and Princess Alexandra of Cumberland, Braunschweig and Lüneburg . His father's sister, Cecilie von Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was the last German Crown Princess. After the November Revolution, the family went into exile in Denmark at the invitation of Alexandrine von Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the older sister of the Grand Duke, where they lived for a year in the summer residence of the Danish royal family, Schloss Sorgefri . In 1919 they returned to the Gelbensande hunting lodge in Mecklenburg . From 1921 the family lived in Ludwigslust Palace , which the family had been given as their residence.

After graduating from high school, Christian Ludwig completed an agricultural and forestry training course. In the autumn of 1935 he went as a recruit to the 14th Cavalry Regiment in Ludwigslust, with which he was drafted into the Second World War in 1939 . As a first lieutenant and orderly officer , he fought in the French campaign and in the war against the Soviet Union . In 1944 he was dismissed from the Wehrmacht as a member of a former ruling house due to the prince's decree . As a result, he supported his father in the administration of the ducal estates. Shortly before the end of the war, he appointed him chairman of the Mecklenburg-Schwerin family association.

At the end of the war, Ludwigslust was initially occupied by the British, but soon handed over to the Soviet occupying power, so that Christian Ludwig initially went to Glücksburg Castle in Schleswig-Holstein with his family . However, he soon returned to Ludwigslust to take care of the family property and was captured by the Soviet military authorities. After imprisonment in Parchim, Godern, Schwerin and Potsdam, he was flown to Moscow, where he was sentenced in the Lubyanka to 25 years imprisonment as a member of a caste that had always planned and carried out wars .

In 1953 he was released after Konrad Adenauer's intervention for the German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union and returned to his family in Glücksburg at Christmas 1953.

On 5./11. In July 1954 he married Barbara Princess of Prussia (1920–1994), the eldest daughter of Sigismund Prince of Prussia, in Glücksburg . Since 1954 they lived together on Gut Hemmelmark in Schleswig-Holstein. In numerous trips he kept in contact with Mecklenburg and took part in public events such as the reopening of the Schwerin Theater, the Doberan racecourse and the consecration of numerous local rifle clubs.

Christian Ludwig was honorary commander of the Order of St. John . He had been a member of the executive board of Landsmannschaft Mecklenburg since 1954 and was later appointed honorary chairman of the Landsmannschaft.

progeny

Christian Ludwig and Barbara had two daughters:

  • Donata (born March 11, 1956 in Kiel ), librarian
⚭ 1987 Alexander von Solodkoff (* 1951) in London
  • Edwina (born September 25, 1960 in Kiel)
⚭ 1995 Konrad von Posern (* 1964) in Eckernförde

Collection of Christian Ludwig Herzog zu Mecklenburg

As a collection Duke Christian Louis of Mecklenburg those parts of the 1945 expropriated private art and movable property of the former Mecklenburg royal house were designated for the 1990th

In 1997 the family's collection was restituted . At that time it comprised 412 objects. The family granted the land a free usufruct for 266 works of art until December 1, 2014, and kept 152 for themselves, most of which were auctioned off in the following years.

On the recommendation of the Kulturstiftung der Länder , the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania entered the remaining 266 pieces from the Christian Ludwig Herzog zu Mecklenburg collection in the register of nationally valuable cultural assets.

After long negotiations, which were coordinated by the Kulturstiftung der Länder, a purchase agreement was reached for the usufructuary objects. 252 objects passed directly into state ownership, as did the loft find of Ludwigslust Palace , which was only inventoried from 2011, with a total of 323 objects. The family kept another eight works of art as mementos , but made some of them available to the state free of charge as permanent loans for a further 10 years and granted the state a right of first refusal. The contract was signed on June 26, 2014 in Schwerin Castle .

The collection is to be called the Mecklenburg-Schwerin Ducal House Collection in the future .

literature

  • Alexander Solodkoff: Christian Ludwig Herzog zu Mecklenburg. Mecklenburg-Schwerin . Club Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-933781-28-0 .
  • Alison Weir: Britain's Royal Family. A Complete Genealogy . The Bodley Head, London 1999, p. 292.
  • Marlene A. Eilers: Queen Victoria's Descendants . Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore 1987, pp. 161, 162, 169.
  • Peter Hoffmann: Stauffenberg's friend. The tragic story of the resistance fighter Joachim Kuhn . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-55810-8 .
  • Peter Hoffmann: Colonel i. G. Henning von Tresckow and the coup plans in 1943 . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Vol. 55, 2, April 2007, pp. 331–364 ( full text , PDF).
  • Christian Ludwig Herzog zu Mecklenburg: Stories from my life . 3. Edition. Schwerin 1998, ISBN 3-910179-75-4 .
  • Sabine Bock : Grand Ducal Art in Ludwigslust Palace. Compensation for princes, expropriation and restitution. Thomas Helms Verlag, Schwerin 2014, ISBN 978-3-940207-98-2 .
  • Bernd Kasten : Prince Schnaps. Black sheep in the Princely House of Mecklenburg. Rostock 2009, ISBN 3-356-01334-3 , p. 107.

Web links

Commons : Christian Ludwig Herzog zu Mecklenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility (1959). Volume V. Starke Verlag , p. 46
  2. ↑ http://www.promonarchie.de/GothaAbteilung1-2004.pdf
  3. ^ Sabine Bock : Grand Ducal Art in Ludwigslust Palace. Compensation for princes, expropriation and restitution. Thomas Helms Verlag Schwerin 2014, ISBN 978-3-940207-98-2 .
  4. ↑ See critically Klaus Graf : Gone with the Wind: Castle furnishings from Ludwigslust (Mecklenburg) and Niederstotzingen (East Württemberg). In: Kunstchronik 52 (1999), No. 11, pp. 521-525 ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ Press release of the Kulturstiftung from June 26, 2014, accessed on February 2, 2016; Entry , accessed August 2, 2014.
  6. ^ The Ducal Collection remains in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , press release of March 25, 2014, accessed on March 27, 2014; Press release of the Cultural Foundation of June 26, 2014, accessed on February 2, 2016
  7. ↑ list
  8. ↑ Items not acquired in 2014
  9. ↑ Press release ( Memento of the original dated August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Cultural Foundation on June 26, 2014, accessed on August 2, 2014.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kulturstiftung.de
personal data
SURNAME Christian Ludwig Duke of Mecklenburg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Christian Ludwig Ernst August Maximilian Johann Albrecht Adolf Friedrich Herzog zu Mecklenburg (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German nobleman, head of the House of Mecklenburg
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludwigslust
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1996
Place of death Gut Hemmelmark near Eckernförde