Princess Joachim gets her son back

Marlene Eilers Koenig Collection

October 13, 1921

Princess Joachim of Prussia has regained custody of her own child, Prince Karl Franz Joseph, reports the New York Times.  She was awarded custody "despite the fact " she ran away from her husband and child once, and despite servants' testimony against her."  This decision, in a Berlin court, was "the first test of the House of Hohenzollern laws versus the laws of the new republic."

The Princess' brother-in-law, Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia, took custody of the young prince after Prince Joachim committed suicide.  He claimed, "the right to custody" because the former Kaiser "issued an edict placing the Hohenzollern powers in Eitel's hands."

The court declared Wilhelm II's action to be illegal.  

Prince Joachim, the Kaiser's youngest son, married Princess Marie Auguste of Anhalt on March 11, 1916.  She gave birth to Prince Karl Franz Joseph Wilhelm Friedrich Eduard Paul on December 15, 1916.

The marriage between Joachim and Marie Auguste was not a love match, but an arrangement. He suffered from depression and other mental health issues and may have been an abusive husband, The princess fled the marital home.   Prince Joachim found it difficult to live in a post-Hohenzollern world and took his own life in 1921.    He filed for divorce, but the divorce was not finalized before his death.
Prince Joachim's true love was Princess Elisabeth of Urach, but she was not of equal rank, and he was not allowed to marry her.