Victoria of Prussia (1866–1929)

Princess Viktoria zu Schaumburg-Lippe

Princess Victoria at a young age

Princess Viktoria of Prussia , full name Friederike Amalia Wilhelmine Victoria of Prussia VA (born April 12, 1866 in the New Palace in Potsdam ; † November 13, 1929 in Bonn ), was a member of the House of Hohenzollern and by marriage was Princess of Schaumburg-Lippe . Since 1927 she was called Viktoria Zoubkoff after remarrying and published as “ Viktoria Zoubkoff, geb. Princess of Prussia, used Princess zu Schaumburg-Lippe ”in 1929 her memoirs.

Life

Viktoria, called Moretta , was the second daughter of eight children of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and later German Emperor Friedrich III. (1831–1888) and his wife the Princess Royal Victoria (1840–1901), called Kaiserin Friedrich . She was a younger sister of Crown Prince Wilhelm, later German Kaiser Wilhelm II and King of Prussia. It was named after her grandmother and godmother Queen Victoria . Princess Viktoria grew up in Berlin under the supervision of various teachers in the imperial palace.

In 1883, with the consent of her mother, she became engaged to Prince Alexander von Battenberg , Prince of Bulgaria . But her grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm I , and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck were against the engagement for political reasons and prohibited marriage. For years Viktoria fought in vain against the ban, but Bismarck in particular opposed it decisively. In 1889 the engagement was finally broken off for reasons of state.

A year later, Viktoria met Prince Adolf zu Schaumburg-Lippe (1859-1916), the fourth son of Prince Adolf I. Georg and his wife Princess Hermine zu Waldeck and Pyrmont; The occasion was a visit by the Princess zu Wied, mother of Queen Carmen Sylva of Romania. They got engaged shortly afterwards and married in Berlin in November of the same year. After an extended honeymoon in different countries, the couple took up residence in Bonn. In addition, the villa of the cloth merchant Wilhelm Loeschigk, built between 1858 and 1860, which is now the “ Palais Schaumburg ”, was bought. After a miscarriage, the marriage remained childless. Prince Adolf zu Schaumburg-Lippe died in 1916, and Viktoria became lonely.

She became increasingly eccentric and in 1927 met the Russian adventurer Alexander Zoubkoff , 34 years her junior , who pretended to be a nobleman disenfranchised by the revolution. In the same year they got married, which led to a major scandal. After a few months, the marriage broke up and Zoubkoff, who took all of her fortune, was expelled in 1928. He went to Luxembourg and worked there as a waiter. The restaurant advertised with a board that read: "The Emperor's brother-in-law serves you here".

Viktoria stayed in Bonn and published her memoirs in Bonn's “ General-Anzeiger ” due to lack of funds . It was extremely popular with the population until the end. Her estate was auctioned in 1929 in the riding hall of Palais Schaumburg by the Cologne art house Lempertz .

Autobiography

• Viktoria Zoubkoff: What life gave me - and took away . With an afterword by Horst-Jürgen Winkel. Bouvier, Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-416-03071-0 (first edition in book form).

literature

• Barbara Beck: Wilhelm II and his siblings. Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2016; ISBN 978-3-7917-2750-9 .
• Josef Niesen : Bonn Personal Lexicon. Bouvier, Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-416-03159-2 .
• Karin Feuerstein-Prasser: The German Empresses . Piper, 2006.
• Alexander Zoubkoff: My life and love , autobiography, ISBN 978-3-416-03072-4 .

Web links

Commons : Viktoria von Preußen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Viktoria von Preußen at preussen.de
• Gisela Bensch: Stories about the Palais Schaumburg. Princess of Prussia and Mr. Alexander Zoubkoff - a reading tip for Bonn residents on locomnet.de .