Feodora of Saxony-Meiningen (1890–1972)

Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

3 Mark commemorative coin with the portraits of Feodora and Wilhelm Ernst on the occasion of their wedding in 1910

Feodora Karola Charlotte Marie Adelheid Auguste Mathilde von Sachsen-Meiningen (born May 29, 1890 in Hanover ; † March 12, 1972 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a princess of Sachsen-Meiningen and, by marriage, the last Grand Duchess of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach .

Life

Feodora (far right) around 1896 with her mother and her siblings ( Georg standing on the left , Adelheid sitting on the floor and Ernst (1895–1914) on her mother's lap).

Princess Feodora was the eldest child of Prince Friedrich von Sachsen-Meiningen (1861-1914) from his marriage to Adelheid (1870-1948), daughter of Count Ernst zur Lippe-Biesterfeld and sister of the last Prince zur Lippe .

She married Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1876–1923) in Meiningen on January 4, 1910 . On the occasion of the marriage, 133,000 silver coins with a value of 3 marks were minted, which were the official currency in the entire German Empire . Due to a stamping error , the coins have the curious misspelling WILHEIM ERNST in the inscription.

Wilhelm Ernst's first marriage to Caroline Reuss zu Greiz had remained childless. From this she took over the patronage of the "Patriotic Institute of Women's Associations", which in 1930 became part of the German Red Cross . Later she was head of the central directorate of the women's associations of the Red Cross in Saxony-Weimar. In 1912, Karl August, the heir to the throne, was born.

In 1918 Feodora accompanied her husband after his abdication in the November Revolution in the Silesian exile in Heinrichau . In 1932, on the 100th anniversary of Goethe's death , she laid the wreath at his grave together with Chancellor Heinrich Brüning in a state act of the Weimar Republic. In 1937 she bought Melchior Lechter's painting “Shambella”, which he could use to finance a trip to Switzerland.

After the grand ducal family fled to the western zones of occupation after the Second World War , their assets were confiscated in the Soviet zone of occupation . As the family representative, Feodora signed the Goethe-Schiller Archive on the condition that it be converted into a private foundation and the family assets released. The dispute over the archive between the family and the state of Thuringia continued until the turn of the millennium.

Werner Deetjen dedicated his book "Auf Höhen Ettersburgs " to the Grand Duchess in 1924 . The Feodora-Promenade in Eisenach's Kartausgarten is named after the Grand Duchess , as is Feodorastrasse in Jena (renamed Schillstrasse in 1952), in Apolda (from 1912 to 1948, now Rosestrasse) and Gera . The latter was renamed in 1950 by the city council of Gera in the course of the elimination of "militarist, fascist and anti-democratic" street names in Otto-Dix- Strasse.

progeny

From their marriage Feodora had the following children:

• Sophie (1911–1988)

⚭ 1938 (closed 1938) Friedrich Günther von Schwarzburg (1901–1971)

• Karl August (1912–1988), Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxony

⚭ 1944 Elisabeth von Wangenheim-Winterstein (1912–2010)

• Bernhard (1917–1986)

⚭ 1943 (closed 1956) Felicitas zu Salm-Horstmar (* 1920)

• Georg Wilhelm (1921–2011), resigned in 1953 and called himself " Jörg Brena "

⚭ 1953 Gisela Jänisch (1930–1989)

literature

• Bernhard Post; Dietrich Werner: Ruler at the turn of the century: Wilhelm Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, 1876–1923. Glaux, Jena 2006, ISBN 978-3-931743-94-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dietrich OA Klose: Die Mark - a German fate. History of the Mark up to 1945 , Staatliche Münzsammlung, 2002, p. 37
2. ↑ Paul Arnold et al: Large German coin catalog from 1800 to today. 26th edition, Battenberg Gietl Verlag, Regenstauf 2010, p. 395
3. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: DRK Thuringia (PDF)
4. ↑ Richard Faber: The Tasso Myth: A Goethe Critique , Würzburg, 1999, p. 148
5. ^ Karl Wolfskehl, Cornelia Blasberg: Correspondence from Italy 1933–1938. Luchterhand, 1993, p. 402
6. ↑ Trembling at the prince's hand . In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 1999 ( online ).
7. ↑ Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 1: A-G. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , p. 367.
8. ↑ thueringer-allgemeine.de, March 17, 2010: Last resting place of the Hereditary Grand Duchess on the Wartburg

Web links

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