Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia (historian)

Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia (1966)

Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia (born February 9, 1939 in Berlin ; † September 29, 2015 there ) was a German historian and member of the House of Hohenzollern , which provided the German emperors and Prussian kings until 1918 .

Origin and education

Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia was born in 1939 in Berlin-Grunewald as the son of Louis Ferdinand von Prussia , who was head of the Hohenzollern family until 1994 , and his wife Kira Kirillowna Romanowa . He was the oldest of seven children and the first great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II , who died two years after the birth of his great-grandson. He spent his early childhood in Cadinen in East Prussia before the family finally settled in Bremen after the Second World War in 1947 and since 1950 at the Wümmehof in the Borgfeld district .

After attending the Hermann-Böse-Gymnasium in Bremen and graduating from the Schloss Plön boarding school , Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia studied history at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg . In February 1971, he submitted his dissertation to Hans-Joachim Schoeps, The founding of an empire in the mirror of neutral press voices and was initially awarded his doctorate . However, based on the advice of the Marburg librarian Martin Winckler, an expert opinion was drawn up with the result that Prussia had taken over two thirds of the content from other works, which in 1973 led to the loss of the doctorate . In 1981 von Prussia again submitted a doctoral thesis and this time received his doctorate at the Ludwig Maximilians University . In the work on his own family, The Hohenzollern and National Socialism , he showed the importance of National Socialism for his great uncle August Wilhelm of Prussia . His doctoral supervisors were Gerhard A. Ritter and Thomas Nipperdey .

Marriages and children

In 1967 Friedrich Wilhelm married Prince of Prussia in Plön Waltraud Freydag (1940-2010), with whom he had their son Philip Kiril (* 1968). After the first marriage was divorced in 1975, the Prince of Prussia married in April 1976 at Hohenzollern Castle the Honor Guard von Reden (* 1943 in Berlin), who was also not from the nobility . The marriage, which lasted until 2002, had three children. In March 2004 he married Sibylle Kretschmer (* 1952) for the third time.

Inheritance regulation

In 1938, the former Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia signed an inheritance contract with his son Louis Ferdinand with the participation of the former Emperor Wilhelm II . The content was, among other things, whoever, currently or in the future, violates the house law by entering into an unequal marriage, cannot be the heir to the house property. Since Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia did not enter into a legal marriage, his father Louis Ferdinand excluded him from the succession. Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia as well as his younger brother Michael von Prussia , who was also affected, initially accepted this regulation. His father appointed his grandson Georg Friedrich as the future head of the house , whose father Louis Ferdinand Prince of Prussia jr. died in 1977.

When Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia applied for a certificate of inheritance as the sole subsequent heir to his grandfather, Crown Prince Wilhelm, after the death of his father and the Hechingen Regional Court had initially agreed that he was right, a family member went to the higher authority , as Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia in his opinion was excluded from the succession due to the unequal marriage.

After the Federal Court of Justice had declared the equality clause to be valid in 1998, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in its favor in 2004 and determined in this context that the regulations on equality in inheritance are subject to the provisions of the Basic Law and are no longer relevant with regard to inheritance . The Federal Constitutional Court declared the house laws of the Brandenburg-Prussian Hohenzollern to be irrelevant: “The constitution of the German Empire of April 16, 1871 was repealed (Art. 178 Paragraph 1 Weimar Constitution ). Art. 81 para. 1 of the Prussian constitution repealed the constitution of January 31, 1850 . At the same time, the house laws of the former ruling imperial and royal family became irrelevant in terms of constitutional law. "

Since the will of the Crown Prince was thus invalid, the will of succession according to the will of the father, Louis Ferdinand, entered into and his grandson Georg Friedrich became his sole heir, albeit burdened with compulsory portions in favor of his father's siblings, including Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia .

Works

• as publisher: Prussia's Kings. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1971.
• Bismarck's founding of an empire and abroad. Göttinger Verlagsanstalt, Göttingen 1972 (dissertation, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg).
• The Hohenzollern and National Socialism. 1984 (dissertation, University of Munich, 1984).
• The Hohenzollern house 1918–1945. Langen Müller, Munich 1985; 2nd, revised and expanded new edition 2003.
• "... as long as there are two of us". Friedrich the Great and Wilhelmine Margravine of Bayreuth in letters. , Herbig, Munich 2003.
• with Sibylle Princess of Prussia: The King's Love. Frederick the Great. His wind chimes and other passions. Siedler, Munich 2006.
• Foreword in: Friedrich-Wilhelm v. Oppeln-Bronikowski: Friedrich v. Oppeln-Bronikowski 1873–1936. Officer, translator, writer, journalist and campaigner against anti-Semitism in the Weimar Republic. His life and work. C. A. Starke, Limburg 2009.
• "I thank you before the cure and let nature rule" - Friedrich II. An enlightened patient. Annual gift of the museum association im Schloss Pyrmont e. V., Bad Pyrmont 2005.
• 1912 - Kaiser Wilhelm II accompanied by his sons. In: The pictures of the Germans. Munich 2005.
• Role models: Famous Germans tell who is important to them. Marix-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-86539-147-6 .
• Kira Princess of Prussia (1909–1967). In: Antje Leschonski (ed.): Anne, Lilly and Regine - 30 portraits of women from Brandenburg-Prussia . Berlin 2009.
• with Sibylle Princess of Prussia: Frederick the Great. From the decent treatment of animals. MatrixMedia Verlag, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-932313-47-9 .

Honorary positions

• First chairman of the board of trustees of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church Foundation, Berlin.
• Honorary member of the Förderverein Schloss & Garten Schönhausen e. V., Berlin.
• Honorary President and Honorary Member of the European Cultural Workshop (EKW) Berlin-Vienna.
• Board of Trustees of the Metropolitny Orchestra Bratislava
• Patronage / Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Elbland Festival Wittenberge .
• Preparatory commission for the establishment of the House of Brandenburg-Prussian History in Potsdam on August 17, 2001 (including Prime Minister Manfred Stolpe and publisher Friede Springer). Since then member of the Friends of the House of Brandenburg-Prussian History eV
• Member of the board of trustees of the classical music festival “Kissinger Sommer”, Bad Kissingen.
• Member of the Society of Friends of the Academy of the Arts, Berlin

See also

• Prussia and the Kingdom of Prussia
• Tribe list of the Hohenzollern

ancestors

Pedigree of Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia
Great grandparents	Kaiser Wilhelm II. (1859–1941) ⚭ 1881 Auguste Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (1858–1921)		Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III. von Mecklenburg (1851–1897) ⚭ 1879 Grand Duchess Anastasia Michailowna Romanowa (1860–1922)		Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich Romanov (1847–1909) ⚭ 1874 Marie zu Mecklenburg (1854–1920)		Alfred von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha (1844–1900) ⚭ 1874 Grand Duchess Marija Alexandrovna Romanowa (1853–1920)
Grandparents	Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1882–1951) ⚭ 1905 Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg (1886–1954)				Grand Prince Kyrill Wladimirowitsch Romanow (1876–1938) ⚭ 1905 Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1876–1936)
parents	Louis Ferdinand Prince of Prussia (1907–1994) ⚭ 1938 Kira Kirillowna Romanowa (1909–1967)
Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia (1939-2015)

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Prince Georg sells family seat , Hohenzollerische Zeitung , July 11, 2013.
2. ^ The high nobility and scientific work , Telepolis , February 21, 2011.
   Affaires: treated quietly
3. ↑ Everything is long history , Berliner Morgenpost , June 10, 2008.
4. ↑ Geneall (Genealogical Database)
5. ^ BGH, decision of December 2, 1998 , Az. IV ZB 19/97, full text.
6. ↑ BVerfG, decision of March 22, 2004 , Az. 1 BvR 2248/01, full text.
7. ↑ Constitutional Court objects to equality clause: German Emperor's grandson can still inherit RP-online , April 2, 2004.
8. ^ Constitution of the Free State of Prussia of November 30, 1920 (see Art. 81 there)
9. ↑ Decision of March 22, 2004 , Az .: 1 BvR 2248/01, full text (see there marginal 45)
10. ↑ ( Memento from July 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
11. ↑ http: //www.förderverein-schönhausen.de/IMPRESSUM
12. ↑ http://www.ekw-org.de/europaeische-kulturwerkstatt-ev/die-europaeische-kulturwerkstatt-ev.html
13. ↑ http://www.mob.sk/cestne-kuratorium/
14. ↑ ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2015 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. 
15. ↑ http://www.kissingersommer.de/kalender/m_70862
16. ↑ http://www.adk.de/freundeskreis/verein/verbindungen.htm