Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz is dead

February 25, 1918

The news dispatch about the sudden death of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich VI of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was received in Amsterdam by Atlantic Cable and the Associated Press. The Duke, who was born in 1882, died at Neu Strelitz. He succeeded his father in 1914.

According to the New York Times, which reports that the Grand Duke's death was announced in a dispatch from Neu Strelitz. Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich committed suicide. His body was "found in a small lake, "with a gunshot wound in the breast." The Berlin Lokal-Anzeiger stated: "Sad experiences, about which, as about everything, the Grand Duke was silent and reserved, affected him perhaps more deeply than his entourage imagined."

The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz left his castle on Saturday for a walk. When he did not return, a search was made, and his body was found.

Adolf Friedrich was the third child and first son of Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich V and Princess Elisabeth of Anhalt. The late Grand Duke has two older sisters, Marie, who is the wife of Prince Julius zur Lippe, and Jutta, who is married to the exiled King Danilo of Montenegro. A younger brother, Karl Borwin, was killed in a duel with Princess Marie's first husband, Count Jametel, whom she divorced later that year.

The succession to the Grand Duchy will now be in question. The Grand Duke's father's first cousin, Duke Georg Alexander, who was the son of Duke Georg and Grand Duchess Catherine of Russia, married a Russian commoner, Natalia Vanljarskaya, who was created, Countess von Carlow.

Georg Alexander died in 1909. His marriage is considered morganatic, and his son, who is also named Georg Alexander, is not eligible to succeed to the Grand Ducal title.