Does Hitler have plans to revive the Empire?

November 23, 1935

The dream of a "Holy German [Roman] Empire under a Germanic-Saxon kaiser" has been revived in Germany, according to Sigrid Schultze of the Chicago Tribune Press Service.

Reichsführer Hitler "personally granted permission" to the children of the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick to call themselves "princes and princesses of Hanover."
"Bestowing this new title" on Princess Victoria Luise's five children is "of extraordinary importance." It is only "one of a number of developments" where many believe that the German Empire will be restored.

The Duke of Brunswick is a direct descendant of Henry the Lion, "who fired the imagination of his countrymen in the twelfth century." The Nazis "have been glorifying Henry the Lion and the culture connected with him." The city of Brunswick has been referred to as the "holy site of the true Germanic idea."

Victoria Luise is the only daughter of the former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who lives in exile in Doorn. In May 1913, she married Prince Ernst August of Cumberland, whose father, the Duke of Cumberland, was the de jure King of Hannover, which was absorbed by Prussia in 1866. The marriage between the Kaiser's daughter and the heir to Hanover and the duchy of Brunswick ended a nearly 40 year feud between the Hohenzollerns and the Guelphs.

Until 1917, Ernst August and his family also bore the title Prince or Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

 
The "ambitious" Victoria Luise is "firmly convinced that her son will be made the emperor by Hitler."
Victoria Luise's oldest brother, Crown Prince Wilhelm, is next in line to the old German throne.
At a recent Nuremberg Nazi party convention, Victoria Luise "stood in the pouring rain" so she could "salute Hitler."

 
Her second, Prince Georg Wilhelm, was recently a member of the Schutz Staffel (hand-picked guards, until he joined the German army earlier this month.

Postcards of Victoria Luise's only daughter, 18-year-old Princess Frederika Luise, can be bought in Brunswick shops. The young woman is wearing the uniform of the Nazi Association of Girls, and the photograph has the caption, "the Princess of Hanover."

The Hanoverians know that "Hitler is eager for British friendship," and the "new title is seen as a new Nazi bid for British official sympathy."