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Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine

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Ludwig
Prince of Hesse and by Rhine
Louis in the 1920s
Head of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt
Tenure16 November 1937 – 6 June 1968
PredecessorGeorg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse
SuccessorPhilip, Landgrave of Hesse (as Head of the House of Hesse)
Born(1908-11-20)20 November 1908
Darmstadt, German Empire
Died20 May 1968(1968-05-20) (aged 59)
Frankfurt, West Germany
Burial6 June 1968
Neues Mausoleum, Park Rosenhöhe, Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1937)​
Names
Ludwig Hermann Alexander Chlodwig
HouseHesse-Darmstadt
FatherErnest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse
MotherPrincess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich
Grand Ducal Family of
Hesse and by Rhine
Ernest Louis
Children
Princess Elisabeth
Hereditary Grand Duke Georg Donatus
Prince Louis
Grandchildren
Prince Ludwig
Prince Alexander
Princess Johanna
Unnamed boy

Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine (Ludwig Hermann Alexander Chlodwig, 20 November 1908 – 30 May 1968) was the youngest son of Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse by his second wife, Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich. He was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria.

Life

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After studying archeology and art history, Louis was appointed as an attaché at the German Embassy in London.[1]

At the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Louis met Margaret Campbell Geddes, daughter of Sir Auckland Campbell Geddes, later created first Baron Geddes. They were married on 17 November 1937 at St Peter's Church, Eaton Square, dressed in mourning, as on the day before Louis's older brother Georg Donatus, the last Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, his mother Grand Duchess Eleonore, his sister-in-law, and his nephews, were all killed in the Sabena OO-AUB Ostend crash, on their way to the wedding. The couple swiftly travelled to Darmstadt for the funerals.[2]

As a result of his brother's death in the Sabena air crash, Louis succeeded him as head of the formerly grand-ducal House of Hesse-Darmstadt.[2]

The couple had no children. Soon after the death of Georg Donatus and his wife, Louis adopted his one-year-old niece Princess Johanna,[3] who was left as the nominal heiress of the Grand-Ducal House of Hesse and by Rhine,[4][5] but the little girl died of meningitis in 1939.[6]

During the Second World War, Louis was drafted into military service. Soon after, however, he was eliminated from the Wehrmacht along with other members of formerly ruling houses, because of "political unreliability" according to the Prinzenerlass, although he had joined the Nazi Party as a precaution to protect his position and property.[7] He then withdrew to his estate Schloss Wolfsgarten near Frankfurt with his wife, who aroused suspicion because of her British origins.[8] They made Wolfsgarten available as a military hospital of the German Red Cross during the Second World War. Louis and his wife adopted and took care of the younger children of Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse, after the latter had been arrested first by the Nazis and then by U.S. forces, while his wife Princess Mafalda of Savoy had died in the Buchenwald concentration camp after it was bombed by the Allies.[9]

After the end of the war, the couple helped with the reconstruction of Darmstadt, in art, museums, and charitable institutions such as the Alice Hospital, the Eleonora Home, and the German Red Cross, of which Margaret was a board member for two decades from 1958.[10]

Louis's sister-in-law Cecilie of Hesse, Princess of Greece and Denmark who had died in the Sabena plane crash, was a sister of the future Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. As a result, a close friendship developed between the Hessian royal couple and Elizabeth II and her husband Philip.[11] They are credited with helping the British royal family to reestablish connections with their German relations after the Second World War.[12] The royal couple paid a visit to Louis (called Lu) and Margaret (called Peg) at their home in Wolfsgarten on 20 May 1965.[13]

Schloss Wolfsgarten

As a lover of classical music, Louis promoted the Ansbach Bach Festival and the Aldeburgh Festival. He translated texts for his friend Benjamin Britten (1913–76) and had the English composer come to Wolfsgarten, where parts of his opera Death in Venice, published in 1973, were written. He introduced Britten to the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), and Britten dedicated his song cycle Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente (1958) to Prince Louis.[14]

In 1964, he stood as godfather to Prince Edward. In 1960, Prince Louis adopted his distant cousin, Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse.[15][16] With the death of Prince Louis in Frankfurt in 1968, he was succeeded by Moritz's father, Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse (died 1980) as head of the house. Moritz (died 2013) in turn was succeeded by his son, Donatus (born 1966).

Ancestry

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References

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  1. ^ "Fifty years ago, Ludwig, Prince of Hesse and the Rhine, died". Wiesbadener Kurier (in German). 26 May 2018.
  2. ^ a b "Prince Louis And Bride Inspect Air Crash Scene". The Daily News. 18 November 1937. Retrieved 25 October 2019 – via Trove.
  3. ^ Farah, Michael (10 November 2020). Children Of The Empire. Troubador Publishing Limited. p. 83. ISBN 9781800468078.
  4. ^ Like some former German realms of the Holy Roman Empire, the succession in the Hessian lands was semi-Salic (reiterated through the Constitution of 1820), with the nearest female kinswoman of the last male inheriting the crown upon extinction of the dynasty of Hesse-Darmstadt.
  5. ^ Velde, Francois. "Succession laws of Hesse". Heraldica.org. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  6. ^ Cope, Rebecca (12 April 2021). "Who are Prince Philip's German relatives?". Tatler. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
  7. ^ Louis joined the NSDAP on 1 May 1937 (membership number 5,900,506).
  8. ^ Manfred Knodt: Die Regenten von Hessen-Darmstadt (The regents of Hesse-Darmstadt) (Darmstadt: Schlapp, 1977), pp. 160–161
  9. ^ Jonathan Petropoulos, Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 325.
  10. ^ Manfred Knodt, Die Regenten von Hessen-Darmstadt (The regents of Hesse-Darmstadt), Darmstadt: Schlapp, 1977, p. 163.
  11. ^ Eleanor Doughty, "The historic family ties that prompted the Queen to invite German royalty to Prince Philip's funeral", The Telegraph, 17 April 2021, accessed 11 March 2024 (subscription required), archived at archive.ph
  12. ^ Mansel, Philip (30 January 1997). "Obituary: Princess Margaret of Hesse and the Rhine", The Independent. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
  13. ^ "Visit by Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to Wolfsgarten Castle". Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (in German). 20 May 1965. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
  14. ^ Carpenter, Humphrey (1992). Benjamin Britten: A Biography. London: Faber and Faber. p. 388. ISBN 0-571-14324-5.
  15. ^ Urbach, Karina (2008). Royal Kinship. Anglo-German Family Networks 1815-1918. Walter de Gruyter. p. 148. ISBN 9783598441233. Retrieved 5 December 2022. The first two branches united in 1997 of the result of the last prince and princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, who were childless, adopting the current head of the House of Hesse-Cassel, Landgrave Moritz. This took place in 1960, and the death of Margaret ("Peg") von Hessen-Darmstadt in 1997 (Ludwig died in 1968) left Landgrave Moritz as the head of both houses.
  16. ^ "Moritz Landgraf von Hessen". darmstadt-stadtlexikon.de. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine
Born: 20 November 1908 Died: 30 May 1968
Titles in pretence
Preceded by — TITULAR —
Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine
1937–1968
Reason for succession failure:
Grand Duchy abolished in 1918 		Succeeded by
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