Wilhelm zu Wied (1876–1945)

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Prince Wilhelm zu Wied as Prince of Albania in Albanian uniform

Wilhelm Friedrich Heinrich Prince zu Wied (born March 26, 1876 in Neuwied ; † April 18, 1945 in Predeal , Romania ) was Prince of Albania for six months in 1914 .

Life

Wilhelm was born as the third son of Wilhelm Prince zu Wied and his wife Marie von Oranien-Nassau, Princess of the Netherlands, into an old noble family in Germany, the House of Wied . The prince was Rittmeister in the Prussian army when he was proposed by his aunt Elisabeth of Romania for the office of Prince of Albania (Albanian princ ). After much hesitation and negotiation, the great powers recognized the Albanian state at the Ambassadorial Conference in London in 1913 , which the Albanians proclaimed with the political and military help of Austria-Hungary after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First Balkan War . The great powers doubted that the Albanians would be able to rule themselves and therefore reserved the right to appoint a prince. In addition, Russia opposed the Albanian state because it wanted to give its ally Serbia access to the Adriatic . The choice finally fell on a German Protestant who was also favored by Austria-Hungary. With the appointment of Wilhelm, Austria-Hungary and Germany wanted to prevent Italy or Serbia from gaining influence over Albania. In addition, it was believed that a prince who did not belong to any of the religions represented in Albania would be accepted as a neutral. After some hesitation, at the insistence of his wife, Wilhelm zu Wied agreed. For example, 18 dignitaries from Albania, led by Essad Pascha Toptani, traveled to Neuwied to offer the “Albanian Crown” to the Prince of Wied in a ceremony on February 21, 1914.

With wife Sophie (ca.1913)

On March 7, 1914, Prince Wilhelm I set foot on Albanian soil for the first time with his wife Sophie von Schönburg-Waldenburg and their two children in Durrës , where he was supposed to reside. The land that was entrusted to him was very poor and had no infrastructure or administration to speak of. Even if quite luxurious by Albanian standards, the conditions in the castle were modest compared to other European residences and to Wilhelm's parents' house. It was a two-story house with a few rooms around a courtyard in the middle of town.

He knew very little about the country and local conditions, so he had to rely on advisors. He did not succeed in quickly gaining respect among the people and the Albanian rulers, so that the power struggles between Albanian local rulers and foreign states, on whose financial, political and military support he was dependent, soon dominated everyday life: In the south, the Greeks tried to To gain influence, some Albanian leaders, especially his Interior and War Minister Essad Pasha, sought the throne themselves, and Muslims from central Albania rose against the government and attacked the capital. With the outbreak of the First World War , the situation became even more hopeless. When the prince left Albania on September 3, 1914, according to some local experts, he had endured a surprisingly long time. The later Albanian Prime Minister and Bishop Fan Noli made a similar judgment when he remarked that Prince Wilhelm could only be criticized because he had failed to perform miracles.

Wied's tombstone in the Evangelical Church A. B. in Bucharest

Wilhelm Prinz zu Wied never abdicated as Prince of Albania . In 1917 he demanded his reinstatement in a memorandum. At that time he fought again as a Prussian officer. In April 1918 he took his leave . From 1925 he lived in Romania, where he died in 1945. His grave is in the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (AB) in Bucharest.

progeny

The children from his marriage to Princess Sophie von Schönburg-Waldenburg (1885–1936) on November 30, 1906 in Waldenburg (Saxony ) are:

  • Marie Eleonore (* 1909; † 1956 in a Romanian internment camp in Miercurea Ciuc ), first married in 1937 to Lieutenant Prince Alfred von Schönburg-Waldenburg (1905–1941), from 1949 to Ion Octavian Bunea (1899–1977 or later)
  • Hereditary Prince Karl Viktor of Albania, Prince of Wied (1913–1973), lawyer, married in 1966 to Eileen Johnston (1922–1985)

literature

  • Peter Bartl: Wied, Wilhelm Friedrich Heinrich Prinz zu , in: Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte Südosteuropas . Vol. 4. Munich 1981, pp. 463-466
  • Duncan Heaton-Armstrong : The six month kingdom. Albania 1914 . Tauris Verlag, London 2005, ISBN 1-85043-761-0 (English, excerpt ).
  • Marenglen Kasmi: The German-Albanian Relations 1912-1939 . In: Zeitschrift für Balkanologie , Volume 49, No. 1, Wiesbaden 2013, pp. 60–86.
  • Hanns Christian Löhr: The founding of Albania, Wilhelm zu Wied and the Balkan diplomacy of the great powers 1912-1914. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60117-4 .
  • Peter Marxheimer: To Albania, Karl! Another journey to 1914. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2007, ISBN 978-3-8370-0265-2 .
  • Ferdinando Salleo: Albania: un regno per sei mesi. Sellerio Verlag, Palermo 2000, ISBN 88-7681-129-X .
  • Michael Schmidt-Neke: Development and expansion of the royal dictatorship in Albania (1912–1939). Formation of government, mode of rule and power elite in a young Balkan state. (= Southeast European works. 84) Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-54321-0 .
  • Wilhelm Tullius: The checkered history of the House of Wied. Verlag Kehrein, Neuwied 2002, ISBN 3-934125-02-6 .

Footnotes

  1. ^ A b c Karl-Peter Schwarz: Wrong time, wrong place . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 14, 2014, p. 6.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm zu Wied  - Collection of Images
personal data
SURNAME Wied, Wilhelm to
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wied, Wilhelm Friedrich Heinrich Prinz zu (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince of Albania
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuwied
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1945
Place of death Predeal