Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia (; 13 September 1892 – 11 December 1980) was the only daughter and youngest child of Wilhelm II, and Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. Through her father, Victoria Louise was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Victoria Louise's 1913 wedding to Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover was the largest gathering of reigning monarchs in Germany since German unification in 1871, and one of the last great social events of European royalty before the First World War began fourteen months later. Upon marriage, she became the Duchess of Brunswick.

Early life and education

Victoria Louise was born on 13 September 1892 at the Marmorpalais in Potsdam, the seventh child and only daughter of German Emperor Wilhelm II and Empress Augusta Victoria. "After six sons, God has given us our seventh child, a small but very strong little daughter," the empress wrote in her diary soon after the birth. The princess was baptised in the Marble Gallery of the New Palace in Potsdam on 22 October, the birthday of the empress. It was hailed in the press as the end of the rift between the House of Hanover and House of Hohenzollern that had existed since the 1866 annexation. The Times described the union as akin to Romeo and Juliet, albeit with a happier ending. Despite press fixation on the union as a love match, whether the match was one of love or politics remains unclear; historian Eva Giloi believes that the marriage was more likely the result of Prussia's desire to end the rift, though Victoria Louise described it as a "love match” in one of her letters.

In a diplomatic gesture, Emperor Wilhelm invited almost all of his extended family. He also pardoned and released two imprisoned British spies, Captain Bertrand Stewart and Captain Bernard Frederick Trench, as a present to the United Kingdom. The wedding became the largest gathering of reigning monarchs in Germany since German unification in 1871, and one of the last great social events of European royalty before World War I began fourteen months later. Attendees included Wilhelm's cousins George V and Tsar Nicholas II, who were also cousins of Ernest Augustus through their mothers. The wedding feast included 1,200 guests. Empress Augusta Victoria took the separation from her only daughter badly and wept. In a 2003 documentary, Constantine II of Greece, a grandson of the couple, recounted that their wedding was "the last time all the heads of state of Europe met" before the start of World War I.

Husband and children

thumb|left|A [[German mark (1871)|5 Mark coin of Brunswick commemorating the accession of Ernest Augustus and Victoria Louise.]]

right|thumb|upright|Victoria Louise, c. 1918

The new duke and duchess of Brunswick moved into Brunswick Palace in the capital of Brunswick and began their family with the birth of their eldest son, Prince Ernest Augustus (1914–1987), less than a year after their wedding. They had four further children: Prince George William (1915–2006), Princess Frederica (1917–1981), Prince Christian Oscar (1919–1981), and Prince Welf Henry (1923–1997). Through Frederica, Victoria Louise was a great-grandmother of Felipe VI of Spain.

On 8 November 1918, her husband was forced to abdicate his throne along with the other German kings, grand dukes, dukes, and princes, and the duchy of Brunswick was subsequently abolished. The next year, he was deprived of his British peerages under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 as a result of his service in the German army during the war. Thus, when his father died in 1923, Ernest Augustus did not succeed to his father's British title of Duke of Cumberland.

Interwar years

thumb|upright|Victoria Louise with her daughter [[Frederica of Hanover|Frederica and granddaughter Sofia, the future Queen of Spain, 1939.]]

For the next thirty years, Ernest Augustus remained the head of the House of Hanover, living in retirement on his various estates with his family, mainly Blankenburg Castle in Germany and Cumberland Castle in Gmunden, Austria. He also owned Marienburg Castle near Hanover; however, the couple rarely lived there until 1945.

Several of Victoria Louise's brothers were early members of the Nazi party, including former Crown Prince Wilhelm and Prince August Wilhelm. While Ernest Augustus never officially joined the party, he donated funds and was close to several leaders.

As a former British prince, Ernest Augustus as well as Victoria Louise desired a rapprochement between the United Kingdom and Germany. Ostensibly desiring to pursue an alliance with the UK, in the mid-1930s, Adolf Hitler took advantage of their sentiment by asking the couple to arrange a match between their daughter Princess Frederica and the Prince of Wales. The Duke and Duchess of Brunswick refused, believing that the age difference was too great; Princess Frederica would have been around 18 years of age while Edward was over 22 years older. Following his brief reign as King Edward VIII in 1936 Edward, now Duke of Windsor, and his wife Wallis visited "the Cumberlands" at Cumberland Castle in Gmunden, Austria. Instead, in 1938 Princess Frederica married her second cousin, the future King Paul of Greece.

World War II

In May 1941, her father fell ill from an intestinal blockage, and Victoria Louise traveled to Doorn to visit him, as did several of her brothers. Wilhelm recovered enough for them to feel able to depart, but soon relapsed. Victoria Louise returned in time to be at her father's bedside, along with nephew Louis Ferdinand and stepmother Hermine, when he died on 4 June 1941 of a pulmonary embolism. By the time of the war's ending in Europe in April 1945, Victoria Louise was living with her husband at Blankenburg Castle. A few days before Blankenburg was handed over to the Red Army by British and U.S. forces in late 1945, to become part of East Germany, the family was able to move to Marienburg Castle, at the time located in the British Occupation Zone, with all their furniture, transported by British Army trucks, on the order of .

Later life

thumb|upright|The Duchess signing her autobiography (1970)

After the war, Victoria Louise spent much of her time attending public events in Lower Saxony, supporting palace restoration projects, high-society parties, hunting, and the showing of horses. She also spent time helping with philanthropic causes, for instance supporting a holiday estate for low-income children. Her husband died at Marienburg on 30 January 1953. When her eldest son made Marienburg a museum in 1954 and moved himself to Calenberg Estate nearby, she became at odds with him, although he had offered her several other manor houses to move into. There was also a rivalry between them about her popularity and public appearances. Instead, she moved back to Brunswick, occupying a house which had been offered to her by a wealthy industrialist and a circle of fans called "Braunschweiger Freundeskreis" (circle of Brunswick friends). She lived there until her death.

In 1965 she published her autobiography Life as Daughter of the Emperor, and thereafter several other books, including biographies of her mother and of her sister-in-law Cecilie, the last crown princess of Germany. It is however believed that her publisher Leonhard Schlüter served as her ghostwriter.

She is buried next to her husband in front of the Royal Mausoleum in the Berggarten at Herrenhausen Gardens in Hanover, which is the burial chapel of Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover, and his wife and, since his reburial after World War II, also of George I of Great Britain.

Publications

thumb|Graves of Ernst August and Victoria Louise in front of the Berggarten mausoleum in Hanover

Approximate translations of the titles into English are given in parentheses.

  • Ein Leben als Tochter des Kaisers ("Life as a Daughter of the Emperor")
  • Im Strom der Zeit ("In the River of Time")
  • Bilder der Kaiserzeit ("Images from the Imperial Period")
  • Vor 100 Jahren ("100 Years Ago")
  • Die Kronprinzessin ("The Crown Princess")
  • Deutschlands letzte Kaiserin ("Germany's Last Empress")

Legacy

David Jones records in his prose-poem In Parenthesis a fragment of song from the Western Front"I want Big Willie's luv-ly daughter"implying (as Jones notes) "that the object of the British Expedition into France was to enjoy the charms of the Emperor's daughter".

A number of vessels were named after the princess:

  • , protected cruiser launched 29 March 1897, scrapped in 1923.
  • Prinzessin Victoria Luise, launched 29 June 1900; wrecked off Jamaica, 16 December 1906.
  • Viktoria Luise, launched 10 January 1900, as the Deutschland; refitted and renamed Viktoria Luise, 1910; renamed Hansa 1921; sold for scrap, 1925.<!--citation must show that the ship was named after the princess-->
  • The Zeppelin LZ 11 of the Verkehrsluftschiff der Deutschen Luftschifffahrts Aktiengesellschaft (DELAG) was named Viktoria Luise.

Honours

  • 50px Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle (Kingdom of Prussia)
  • 50px Dame, 1st Class, of the Order of Louise (Kingdom of Prussia)
  • 50px Dame of the Royal Order of Saint George (Hanoverian Royal Family)
  • 50px Order of the Medjidie, Special Class for Ladies (Ottoman Empire)
  • 50px Dame Grand Cross of the Imperial Austrian Order of Elizabeth, 1911 (Austria-Hungary)

Regimental commissions

  • Regimentschefin (Regimental Chief) and Oberst à la suite (Honorary Colonel), 2. Leib-Husaren Regiment Königin Victoria von Preußen Nr. 2, c. 1909

Issue

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! Name

! Birth

! Death

! Notes

|-

| Prince Ernest Augustus

| 18 March 1914

|

| married first 1951, Princess Ortrud of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg; had issue.

married second 1981, Countess Monika zu Solms-Laubach; no issue.

|-

| Prince George William

| 25 March 1915

|

| married 1946, Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark; had issue.

|-

| Frederica, Queen of the Hellenes

| 18 April 1917

|

| married 1938, Paul of Greece; had issue.

|-

| Prince Christian Oscar

| 1 September 1919

|

| married 1963, Mireille Dutry (b. 10 January 1946); divorced 1976; had issue.

|-

|

| 11 March 1923

|

| married 1960, Princess Alexandra of Ysenburg and Büdingen; no issue.

|}

Ancestry

References

; Works cited

  • <small>- Total pages: 544 </small>
  • Historical footage of the marriage of Victoria Louise in May 1913, filmportal.de

|-