Philipp von Hessen (politician)

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Philipp and Mafalda at their wedding on September 23, 1925 in Racconigi

Philipp von Hessen (born November 6, 1896 in Rumpenheim Castle near Offenbach ; † October 25, 1980 in Rome ) was a prince from the Hessen-Kassel line of the House of Hesse and, as a National Socialist politician, President of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau . Since his two older brothers had died in World War I , he became head of the Hessen-Kassel line after the death of his father in 1940 and, following the tradition of the family, called himself Landgrave von Hessen .

Life

Youth and education

Philip of Hesse was born as the third son of Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Rumpenheim and Princess Margarethe of Prussia . His maternal great-grandmother was Queen Victoria of Great Britain, his mother was the youngest sister of Emperor Wilhelm II. He first attended the Goethe-Gymnasium in Frankfurt am Main and then the Helmholtz-Gymnasium Potsdam . He fought in the First World War as a volunteer and lieutenant in the Grand Ducal Leib-Dragoon Regiment .

When his father Friedrich Karl was elected King of Finland in 1918 , he did not appoint his eldest living son Philipp, but his younger twin brother Wolfgang (1896–1989) as Crown Prince of Finland. Philipp, on the other hand, was to continue the family's business in the Hessian homeland.

After the end of the war he began to study art history, first in Berlin and later in Rome. There he is said to have worked as an architect.

On September 23, 1925, Philip married Princess Mafalda of Savoy , a daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III. from Italy. The couple lived in Italy and had four children.

Before his marriage, the bisexual prince had a long love affair with the British poet Siegfried Sassoon . Rumors about Philip's inclinations were circulating in National Socialist circles. Karl Wolff , General of the Waffen-SS , expressed in his denazification proceedings that the prince “was considered homosexual”.

National Socialist politician

Philip of Hesse at a Reich meeting of the Reichsbund Volkstum und Heimat in Kassel in 1933 as second from the right in the first row

Even before the establishment of the Nazi state , Prince Philipp was an active National Socialist. He had already joined the NSDAP in 1930 ( membership number 418.991) and in 1931 also the SA , in which he became Obergruppenführer on November 9, 1938 . With his memberships, he ensured, among other things, that the NSDAP was made “socially acceptable” in aristocratic circles. After the Nazis took power, he was in 1933 by his longtime friend Hermann Goering to the Provincial President of the Province of Hesse-Nassau appointed.

As the son-in-law of the Italian king, the National Socialists used him to establish contacts with Benito Mussolini , who was initially cautious about the Nazi regime. In the 1930s he took on various diplomatic missions to Italy, passing through official diplomatic channels. On August 25, 1939, on behalf of Hitler, he informed Mussolini of the impending attack on Poland .

From January 30, 1939 Philipp owner was the Golden Party Badge of the NSDAP .

He shared common interests in art and architecture with Hitler. He brokered the purchase of numerous important works of art for the large museum that Hitler was planning in Linz . For this purpose, the Reich Chancellery set up a special account for him at the German Embassy in Rome , which Prince Philip could freely dispose of. In 1940/41, German art purchases in Italy increased to such an extent that the fascist government prohibited the sale of art treasures to foreigners in September 1941.

Philip of Hesse

In 1941 relations between Philipp and Hitler cooled down. Philipp and his wife were imprisoned as special prisoners when his father-in-law had Mussolini arrested in July 1943. Mafalda died in 1944 after an air raid on Buchenwald concentration camp . Philipp spent the rest of the war in various camps, including Flossenbürg and Dachau , and was liberated by the Wehrmacht in 1945 . Because of his prominent role in the National Socialist regime, he was then imprisoned by the Allies, from which he was released in 1947.

post war period

After his release he lived alternately in Schloss Fasanerie , where his collection of antiquities is located, and in Italy . The childless Prince Ludwig of Hesse and near Rhine adopted Philip's son Moritz in 1960, so that after Ludwig's death in 1968 the two main lines of the House of Hesse , Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt , which had been separate since 1567 , reunited to form the 'House of Hesse'.

ancestors

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Wilhelm of Hesse (1787–1867)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Friedrich Wilhelm of Hesse (1820-1884)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Louise Charlotte of Denmark (1789–1864)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Friedrich Karl of Hesse (1868–1940)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Carl of Prussia (1801-1883)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Anna of Prussia (1836–1918)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Marie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1808–1877)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Philip of Hesse
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Kaiser Wilhelm I (1797–1888)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Emperor Friedrich III. (1831-1888)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1811–1890)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Margarethe of Prussia (1872–1954)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819–1861)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Victoria of Great Britain (1840-1901)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Victoria Queen of Great Britain (1819–1901)
 
 
 
 
 
 

progeny

⚭ 1964 Tatiana Princess zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg
⚭ 1965 Eleonore Wrede
⚭ 1988 Elisabeth Bonker
  • Elisabeth Margarete (* 1940)
⚭ 1962 Friedrich Carl Graf von Oppersdorff (1925–1985)

literature

  • Jonathan Petropoulos: Royals and the Reich. The Princes of Hessen in Nazi Germany . Oxford University Press 2006, ISBN 0-19-920377-6 .
  • Jobst etiquette : Prince Philip of Hesse. Hitler's special ambassador for Italy . Humboldt University Berlin 2009 edoc (PDF; 486 kB)
  • Heinrich Prinz von Hessen: The crystal chandelier. My German-Italian youth 1927-1947 . Munich and Zurich 1994.
  • Anders Huldén : Finland's German King's Adventure 1918 . Traute Warnke Verlag, Reinbek 1997, ISBN 3-9801591-9-1 .
  • Ovidio Lagos: Principessa Mafalda. Historia de dos tragedias . Editorial El Ateneo, Buenos Aires, 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eckhart G. Franz : The House of Hesse. A European family. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-17-018919-0 , p. 199 f.
  2. Since 1919, due to the abolition of the privileges of the nobility, no earlier birthright titles have been part of the civil name in Germany. According to information from the family archive of the Hessian House Foundation , the question of the name is as follows: "If you ask for the family name, it is" Prince and Landgrave of Hesse "for all members of the House of Hesse since 1920" ". The Frankfurt am Main district court confirmed this name on December 22, 1956. “Landgraf” is part of the civil-legal name and not an outdated primogeneity title. And yet, to a certain extent, this is how it is handled: by virtue of the fact that all other family members shorten their names to "Prince / essin of Hesse" in public appearances and only the head of the house shortens his name to "Landgrave of Hesse".
  3. ^ A b c Hans Philippi: Landgrave Philipp of Hesse † . Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies 1980/81, Marburg 1982, ISSN  0342-3107 , pp. 9–15.
  4. ^ Jobst Knigge: Prince Philip of Hesse Hitler's special ambassador for Italy. Open Access of the Humboldt University, Berlin 2009, pp. 11–13.
  5. a b Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 250.
  6. Hans Woller : From the myth of moderation. Mussolini and the Munich Conference 1938. In: Jürgen Zarusky and Martin Zückert (eds.): The Munich Agreement of 1938 in a European perspective . Oldenburg Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3486704174 , p. 214 ( online ).
  7. Klaus D. Patzwall : The golden party badge and its honorary awards 1934-1944 (studies of the history of awards, vol. 4), Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, Norderstedt 2004, ISBN 3-931533-50-6 , p. 71.
  8. Malte König: Cooperation as a power struggle. The fascist axis alliance Berlin-Rome in the war 1940/41 . sh-Verlag, Cologne 2007, pp. 259–266.
predecessor Office successor
Friedrich Karl Head of the House of Hesse
1940–1980
Moritz