Georg Donatus of Hessen-Darmstadt

Georg Donatus

Georg Donatus Wilhelm Nikolaus Eduard Heinrich Karl, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine (born November 8, 1906 in Darmstadt , † November 16, 1937 in Steene , near Ostend , Belgium ) was the eldest son of the last reigning Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and with Rhein and his second wife Eleonore zu Solms-Hohensolms-Lich . Shortly after his father's death, he and almost his entire family were killed in a plane crash.

Life

childhood and education

Georg Donatus in infancy

Georg Donatus was born in 1906 as heir to the throne of Hessen-Darmstadt and was the first child from his father's second marriage to Eleonore zu Solms-Hohensolms-Lich. The couple married on February 2, 1905 in Darmstadt. The prince was baptized on December 4, 1906, with the child taking the names of his godparents Kaiser Wilhelm II , Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, King Edward VII of Great Britain, Prince Heinrich of Prussia and Prince Karl zu Solms-Hohensolms-Lich , mother's brother. On the occasion of the christening, his parents founded the Ernst Ludwig and Eleonore Foundation , which successfully took care of mothers and babies in the following years.

Georg Donatus grew up with his two years younger brother Ludwig (1908–1968). The family mostly spent the year from spring to the end of October / beginning of November in Wolfsgarten Castle and the rest of the time in the New Palais in Darmstadt. Georg Donatus and Ludwig also spent their youth at the hunting lodge Romrod , where they explored the fields and stables with their friends. The two brothers were confirmed on July 23, 1923 in the church of Romrod by the Darmstadt pastor Georg Lautenschläger, a Freemason . He also shared his father's passion for cars and spent nine months as a trainee at the Opel works in Rüsselsheim .

Both princes began to perform representational duties in public early on, for example in 1914 when the last artists' colony exhibition opened or in 1917 when their father's 25th anniversary in government. They also posed for charity postcards and accompanied their parents on trips. From April to May 1912 the children traveled with Ernst Ludwig and Eleonore to Liwadija and Tsarskoye Selo , where they met with the Russian tsarist family. English nannies looked after the two princes. The last was to be sent home as the "enemy" when the First World War broke out.

Georg Donatus with his younger brother Ludwig

Shortly before the start of the First World War, Georg Donatus - called "Don" in family circles, and called "Erbschorsch" (Erbgeorg) by the people of Darmstadt - received his first private lessons in German and literature. His teacher was Anna Textor, who ran an institute for English girls in Darmstadt and had already taught Alix von Hessen-Darmstadt , the last Russian tsarina. In 1917 Georg Donatus and his brother Ludwig (called "Lu" in the family) were assigned further teachers by the local school. A year later, after the November Revolution , father Ernst Ludwig was deposed by the Darmstadt workers 'and soldiers' council and Hessen-Darmstadt became a people's state . The sons are said to have absorbed the change that, according to an entry in the diary of Grand Duchess Eleanor, contributed to their maturation.

Georg Donatus with his parents and brother Ludwig (1910)

In the 1920s, lessons from Georg Donatus and Ludwig took place in Darmstadt's Neue Palais. The management was incumbent on Professor Eugen Köser, who was supported in the individual subjects by colleagues from the old secondary school. Homeschooling was built into the school's timetable before Köser took over the lower prima and, at the request of the parents, both of them attended the secondary school as students. Due to a newspaper article in the Volksfreund , in which it was falsely denounced that the "sons of Brabanters " had been accepted into an officer's class at the secondary school, the parents soon sent Georg Donatus and Ludwig back private lessons in the New Palais. Both passed the external Abitur in the old secondary school on March 6, 1926.

After finishing school, Georg Donatus studied economics in Giessen , Lausanne and Munich . It was founded in 1933 in Giessen with a dissertation on " Friedrich List as world leaders" to phil doctor. PhD. The 1.96 m tall Georg Donatus was sociable and popular, was considered a sporty talent and went aviation and hunting - the latter hobby mainly in Romrod.

Weddings, starting a family and early death

On February 2, 1931 Georg Donatus married Princess Cecilia (Cäcilie) of Greece , daughter of Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark and Alice von Battenberg in the castle church of Darmstadt . The Lutheran ceremony was preceded by an Orthodox wedding in the New Palais. The Battenbergs had a close relationship with the Hessen-Darmstadt family, and Georg Donatus and Cäcilie had known each other since they were young. The participation of the population in the wedding celebrations was so unexpected that the car of the bride and the bride's father got stuck in the crowd despite the police operation and Georg Donatus, his brother and father had to lead Cecilia and their father personally to the church.

Georg Donatus and Cäcilie moved into a house they had bought at Wilhelminenstrasse 20. The couple had three children - Ludwig (* 1931) and Alexander (* 1933) and Johanna (* 1936). His brother Ludwig remembers his sister-in-law, "walking loudly through the streets with their small children, the boys always with cheeky idioms at hand, as it should be with Heinern." Cäcilie supported her mother-in-law Eleonore in her charitable work with the Alice Hospital and the Alice Sorority.

Georg Donatus' father Ernst Ludwig died in 1937 after a long illness. The funeral parade through Darmstadt on October 12th was taken over by the National Socialists. Georg Donatus led the funeral procession in the uniform of a pilot lieutenant at the side of his civilly dressed brother Ludwig. Georg Donatus was a reserve officer in the Air Force and joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) together with his wife on May 1 of the same year .

Plane crash

Just a few weeks after the funeral, on November 16, 1937 Georg Donatus, his pregnant wife Cäcilie, their two sons Ludwig and Alexander and his mother Eleonore were killed in a plane crash near Ostend (Belgium). The family was on their way to London, where Georg Donatus' brother Ludwig and his fiancée Margaret Geddes were to marry on November 20th. Only one-year-old Johanna had been left behind in Wolfsgarten Castle. The planned wedding was replaced by a silent ceremony on November 17th; the couple had the deceased family members transferred to Darmstadt, where they were buried together with the not yet buried Ernst Ludwig in a large communal grave on the Rosenhöhe . The orphan Johanna was adopted by Ludwig and his wife Margaret, but died of meningitis in 1939 at the age of two . She is buried away from her family on the Rosenhöhe .

Trivia

In the series The Crown he was portrayed by August Wittgenstein , who himself comes from the nobility .

Pedigree

Pedigree Hereditary Grand Duke Georg Donatus
Great grandparents	Prince Karl of Hesse and by the Rhine (1809–1877) ⚭ 1836 Princess Elisabeth of Prussia (1815–1885)	Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819–1861) ⚭ 1840 Queen Victoria (United Kingdom) (1819–1901)	Prince Ferdinand zu Solms-Hohensolms-Lich (1806–1876) ⚭ Countess Caroline von Collalto and San Salvatore (1818–1855)	Count Wilhelm zu Stolberg-Wernigerode (1807–1898) ⚭ 1835 Countess Elisabeth zu Stolberg-Rossla (1817–1896)
Grandparents	Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and the Rhine (1837–1892) ⚭ 1862 Princess Alice of Great Britain and Ireland (1843–1878)		Prince Hermann Adolf zu Solms-Hohensolms-Lich (1838–1899) ⚭ 1865 Countess Agnes zu Stolberg-Wernigerode (1842–1904)
parents	Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and by the Rhine (1868–1937) ⚭ 1905 Eleanor of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich (1871–1937)
Georg Donatus (1906–1937), Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine

children

The sons Alexander (left, in 1937) and Ludwig (around 1934/35)

The following children were from the marriage to Cecilia (Cäcilie) von Greece :

Ludwig Ernst Andreas (born October 25, 1931 - † November 16, 1937 in a plane crash in Belgium)
Alexander Georg Karl Heinrich (born April 14, 1933 - † November 16, 1937 in a plane crash in Belgium)
Johanna Marina Eleonore (born September 20, 1936 - † June 14, 1939)

literature

Manfred Knodt : The regents of Hessen-Darmstadt. Schlapp, Darmstadt 1977, ISBN 3-87704-004-7 .
Manfred Knodt: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine. His life and his time. Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 .
Ernst Klee : The cultural 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. 242.

Web links

Commons : Georg Donatus von Hessen-Darmstadt - Collection of images

Hesse and by the Rhine, Georg Donatus Hereditary Grand Duke of. Hessian biography. (As of October 10, 2019). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

Individual evidence

↑ Manfred Knodt: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , pp. 95-97.
↑ ^a ^b Knodt, p. 86.
^ Karl Dienst: Politics and Religious Culture in Hesse and Nassau between "State Change" (1918) and "National Revolution" (1933). Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60469-4 , pp. 149-150.
↑ Knodt, pp. 109-110.
^ ^A ^b ^c Manfred Knodt: The regents of Hessen-Darmstadt . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1977, ISBN 3-87704-004-7 , p. 153.
↑ Knodt, p. 99.
↑ Knodt, pp. 105-108.
↑ Knodt, pp. 108-109.
↑ Knodt, p. 154.
↑ Knodt, pp. 110-112.
↑ Knodt, p. 157.
^ Jonathan Petropoulos: Royals and the Reich: The Princes of Hessen in Nazi Germany . Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford / New York 2006, ISBN 0-19-516133-5 , p. 382.
↑ Knodt, pp. 398-411.
↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6410814/?ref_=adv_li_tt

personal data
SURNAME	Hessen-Darmstadt, Georg Donatus von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hesse and near the Rhine, Georg Donatus Wilhelm Nikolaus Eduard Heinrich Karl (full name); Hesse and near the Rhine, Georg Donatus Prince of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German nobleman, head of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt
DATE OF BIRTH	November 8, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH	Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH	November 16, 1937
Place of death	Steene , Ostend , Belgium

[1] Manfred Knodt: Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine: His life and his time . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87704-006-3 , pp. 95-97.

[Knodt86-2] Knodt, p. 86.

[3] Karl Dienst: Politics and Religious Culture in Hesse and Nassau between "State Change" (1918) and "National Revolution" (1933). Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60469-4 , pp. 149-150.

[4] Knodt, pp. 109-110.

[Knodt-5] A ^b ^c Manfred Knodt: The regents of Hessen-Darmstadt . Schlapp, Darmstadt 1977, ISBN 3-87704-004-7 , p. 153.

[6] Knodt, p. 99.

[7] Knodt, pp. 105-108.

[8] Knodt, pp. 108-109.

[9] Knodt, p. 154.

[10] Knodt, pp. 110-112.

[11] Knodt, p. 157.

[12] Jonathan Petropoulos: Royals and the Reich: The Princes of Hessen in Nazi Germany . Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford / New York 2006, ISBN 0-19-516133-5 , p. 382.

[13] Knodt, pp. 398-411.

[14] ttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt6410814/?ref_=adv_li_tt