The Prince of Fürstenberg (1950-2024)

@Princely House of Fürstenberg

 HSH  Heinrich Maximilian Egon Karl Joachim Paul Felix Konrad Hubertus Eusebius Leo Maria Wilhelm Friedrich Alexius Martin, Prince of Fürstenberg died in Italy on July 11, 2024, after a long illness.  He was 73.

He was born on July 17, 1950, at Schloss Heiligenberg on Lake Constance, the eldest son and the third of six children of HSH Joachim Egon Maximilian Friedrich Leo Joseph Maria Hubertus, Prince of Fürstenberg and Countess Paula Maria Eusébia Júlia zu Königsegg-Aulendorf.   Prince Heinrich succeeded his father as head of the house on July 9, 2002.

Since the 1970s, he was involved in the family businesses.  He studied economics in Vienna.   On November 11, 1976, at Sant'Angelo d'Alife, he married HSH Princess Maximiliane Gratia Maria Leontine Friederika of Windisch-Graetz.

The couple were the parents of two sons, HSH Hereditary Prince Christian Joachim Maximilian Egon Hugo Eusebius Maria Hubertus (1977) and HSH Prince Antonius (1985).

Even the Princely family was not exempt from financial difficulties due to economic conditions in the 1990s and early 2000s. 

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 In 1993, Sotheby's auctioned the incunabula of the family's court library. A year later, Prince Heinrich sold the family's manuscript collection f to the state of Baden-Württemberg for 20 million Euros.   In 2001, a copy of the Nibelungenlied Manuscript C was sold to Baden-Württemberg for 20 million years.

Most of the family's print collection was also sold as well as numerous Old German masters to the Austrian businessman Roland Werth.  Hans Holbein the Elder's Grey Passion was sold to the State Gallery in Stuttgart.

In 2003,  Prince Heinrich and his family moved back into Schloss Donauschingen, but Heinrich's attitude led to issues with the public over access to the castle's park and the Danube River.   

"After the death of his highly respected, down-to-earth and fun-loving father Joachim ("Prince Joki"), Prince Heinrich of Fürstenberg has managed to become more unpopular in Donaueschingen in the town of 21,500 inhabitants at record speed than any potentate before him," wrote the Stuttgarter Zeitung in April 2006.

Prince Heinrich sold the family shares in the Fürstenberg brewery in 2004, which the family had owned since the thirteenth century.

There were also reports about drug use.  A district court in Constance in 2006 was unable "to prove that he possessed cocaine."  He was convicted, however of "jointly acquiring the drug."   He would later tell a reporter with Welt am Sonntag: "I can only warn against this drug, against any drug in fact -- it starts with the first joint.  I know what I am talking about."

He admitted to the reporter that he used cocaine to "party longer."

Heinrich;'s parents:  Prince Joachim Egon and Princess Paula

Several years before his death, Prince Joachim Egon transferred the family property to his elder grandson, Hereditary Prince Christian.  This was done for tax purposes.   After training to be a real estate agent, Christian enrolled in the European Business School in Berlin as he prepared to take over the family businesses,  which included forestry.  

In 2004 Christian said in an interview: "You can't run a royal family like any other business. You shouldn't try to make big money."

Prince Heinrich is survived by his widow, Princess Maximiliane, his two sons, and six grandchildren, Hereditary Prince Tassilo, Princess Maria Cecilia, Prince Tristan, Princess Leontine (children of Christian and his wife, Princess Jeanette) and Prince Karl Egon and Prince Alexander (sons of Prince Antonius and his former wife Mathilde Borromeo).  He is also survived by four of his siblings, Princess Marie-Antoinette, Countess Johannes of Schönborn-Wiesentheid, Prince Karl Egon and Prince Johannes of Fürstenberg and Princess Anna-Lucia, Frau Giraldo.