Cousins at play

Marlene A Eilers Koenig Collection

This postcard shows Princess Marie Alexandra and Prince Berthold of Baden with their cousins, Princess Gustaf Adolf and Sigvard, and their younger sister, Princess Ingrid, of Sweden.

The photo was taken in Baden in early May 1911. Little Ingrid was just a few weeks short of her 1st birthday.

On May 4, 1911, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria arrived in Karlsruhe to join King Gustaf V and Queen Victoria of Sweden as guests of Grand Duke Friedrich. The Swedish monarchs were returning from Rome and were en route to Stockholm. The Grand Duke was Victoria's older brother. His marriage to Princess Hilda of Nassau was childless so the heir to the Grand Duchy was Friedrich's first cousin, Maximilian, who was married to Princess Marie Louise of Cumberland. They were married in 1900 and were the parents of two children: Marie Alexandra (1902-1944) and Berthold (1906-1963).

The Swedish children photographed here were the children of Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf and his first wife, Princess Margaret of Connaught. The Crown Prince and Crown Princess were married in 1905. Their first child, Gustaf Adolf, was born in 1906, Sigvard in 1907, and Ingrid in 1910.

What happened to these children?

In 1931, Prince Gustaf Adolf married Princess Sibylla of Sweden. The couple were the parents of four daughters and a son, Carl Gustaf, who was the reigning King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. Prince Gustaf Adolf was killed in an air crash in 1947.

Prince Sigvard ceased to be a royal and a prince when he married a German commoner in 1934. He was married three times and was the father of one son, Michael. In 1951, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg created Sigvard as Count of Wisborg, He died in 2002.

Princess Ingrid was married in 1935 to the future King Frederik IX of Denmark. They were the parents of three daughters, Queen Margrethe II, Princess Benedikte, and Princess Anne Marie.

Thirteen years after this photo was taken, Princess Marie Alexandra married Prince Wolfgang of Hesse. They had no children. Marie Alexandra was killed in an air raid on Frankfurt-am-Main in January 1944.

Prince Berthold married in 1931 to Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark, the second of five children of Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark. They had three children, Margarita, Max, and Ludwig. Prince Berthold died in 1963. His son, Max, is the current of the house of Baden.