Richard of Hesse

Richard Wilhelm Leopold Prince of Hesse (born May 14, 1901 in Frankfurt am Main ; † February 11, 1969 there ) was Obergruppenführer in the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK) and President of the German Traffic Guard .

Life

Richard Prince of Hesse was born as the fifth son of the nominal Landgrave Friedrich Karl of Hesse (1868-1940) and his wife Margarethe of Prussia (1872-1954). His great-grandmother was Queen Victoria of Great Britain , his mother was the youngest sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II. His siblings were Friedrich Wilhelm Sigismund of Hesse (1893-1916), Maximilian Friedrich Wilhelm Georg of Hesse (1894-1914), Philip of Hesse (1896 –1980), Wolfgang von Hessen (1896–1989) and his twin brother Christoph von Hessen (1901–1943).

After the First World War he had contact with Frank Buchman at Friedrichshof Palace and later referred to this time as Saison Buchman .

In his function as NSKK brigade leader, he ran on the nomination of the NSDAP on the list with the number 358 in the election to the German Reichstag on March 29, 1936, but did not move into the National Socialist Reichstag . At that time he lived in Frankfurt am Main, Lindenstrasse 7. His candidacy in the election for the Greater German Reichstag in 1938 also failed. In 1937 he was promoted to NSKK Obergruppenführer and headed the NSKK Group Hesse until 1941.

After the war he lived in Kronberg im Taunus and remained unmarried. He was first head of the state traffic watch in Hesse , then President of the German traffic watch in the Federal Republic of Germany.

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)

Richard 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)

literature

Jonathan Petropoulos: Royals and the Reich. The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany , Oxford University Press 2006, ISBN 0-19-920377-6 .

Web links

Literature by and about Richard von Hessen in the catalog of the German National Library
Hesse, Richard Prince of. Hessian biography. (As of November 28, 2019). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
Richard of Prussia together with Frank Buchman - picture at the beginning of the website

Individual evidence

↑ On July 3, 1920 Frank Buchman embarked for Europe with two students from Yale and, as a result of this trip, met the von Hessen family through Sophie of Greece in a well-known hotel in Lucerne . She also visited Switzerland with her son Paul , her cousin Landgravine Margarete von Hessen and their two sons Richard and Christoph. Prince Richard wrote about it 40 years later: “We young people, who came from an impoverished and humiliated Germany after the First World War, were attracted and fascinated by this luxurious environment. My mother, who had a keen sense of a person's intrinsic worth, viewed this luxury with suspicion. (...) With Frank Buchman it was completely different. He moved in the most natural way in that atmosphere, without being in the least influenced or infected by it. That's why we were able to trust him. ”But what Prince Richard remembered best was Buchman's“ infectious laugh ”- you only had to hear it to feel good straight away. Since then, Buchman and his friends have regularly visited their family every summer at their Kronberg Castle in the Taunus - the family even said that the “Buchman season” had then started. From: Prince Richard von Hessen: Memories of Dr. Frank Buchman. February 1958 (unpublished) in: Garth Lean: The Forgotten Factor - From the life and work of Frank Buchman. Moers 1991, p. 90 f.

personal data
SURNAME	Hessen, Richard von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hesse, Richard Prince of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German NSKK Obergruppenführer and President of the German Traffic Guard
DATE OF BIRTH	May 14, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH	Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH	February 11, 1969
Place of death	Frankfurt am Main

[1] On July 3, 1920 Frank Buchman embarked for Europe with two students from Yale and, as a result of this trip, met the von Hessen family through Sophie of Greece in a well-known hotel in Lucerne . She also visited Switzerland with her son Paul , her cousin Landgravine Margarete von Hessen and their two sons Richard and Christoph. Prince Richard wrote about it 40 years later: “We young people, who came from an impoverished and humiliated Germany after the First World War, were attracted and fascinated by this luxurious environment. My mother, who had a keen sense of a person's intrinsic worth, viewed this luxury with suspicion. (...) With Frank Buchman it was completely different. He moved in the most natural way in that atmosphere, without being in the least influenced or infected by it. That's why we were able to trust him. ”But what Prince Richard remembered best was Buchman's“ infectious laugh ”- you only had to hear it to feel good straight away. Since then, Buchman and his friends have regularly visited their family every summer at their Kronberg Castle in the Taunus - the family even said that the “Buchman season” had then started. From: Prince Richard von Hessen: Memories of Dr. Frank Buchman. February 1958 (unpublished) in: Garth Lean: The Forgotten Factor - From the life and work of Frank Buchman. Moers 1991, p. 90 f.