Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Princess flouts Kaiser!

Winterhalter
March 10, 1925

The Berlin newspaper Tagblatt published a letter that showed the "drastic methods" used by the former Kaiser Wilhelm II when attempting to discipline his family members. According to the letter, Wilhelm "gave a piece of his mind" to Princess Anna of Hesse, the widow of Landgraf Friedrich of Hesse, who informed the Kaiser that she was converting to the Roman Catholic church. This decision infuriated the Kaiser, who "refused to regard her any longer as a Hohenzollern and ordered her to cease all intercourse with that family."

In the letter's final paragraph, the Kaiser wrote: "The House of Hohenzollern expels you and has forgotten your existence."

The letter was written in 1901. The Princess was not intimidated by the Kaiser's threats and joined the Roman Catholic church.

Princess Anna was born in 1836. In 1853, she married Friedrich, the Landgraf of Hesse, as his second wife. (His first wife, Grand Duchess Alexandr, died in childbirth in 1844.)

Anna and her husband had six children: Friedrich Wilhelm (who died at sea in 1888), Elisabeth (who married Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau), Alexander Ferdinand (who renounced his rights as head of the House in 1925, when he married morganatically), Friedrich Karl (who succeeded Alexander as head of the House in 1925), Marie (who died at age 10 in 1882), and Sybille (who is divorced from Baron von Vincke).

Princess Anna was the daughter of Prince Karl of Prussia and Princess Marie of Saxe-Weimar. She died in 1918 at the age of 82.

Prince Friedrich Karl was married to the Kaiser's sister, Margarete. 

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