Prince Christoph of Hesse

Prince Christoph Ernst August of Hesse (14 May 1901 – 7 October 1943) was a nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm II. He was a German SS officer and was killed on active duty in a plane crash during World War II. His brother-in-law, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, fought on the British side and married the future Queen Elizabeth II after the war.[1]

Prince Christoph of Hesse
Born(1901-05-14)14 May 1901
Frankfurt, German Empire
Died7 October 1943(1943-10-07) (aged 42)
Forlì, Italian Social Republic
Spouse
IssuePrincess Christina Margarethe
Princess Dorothea Charlotte Karin
Prince Karl Adolf Andreas
Prince Rainer Christoph Friedrich
Princess Clarissa Alice
HouseHesse-Kassel
FatherPrince Frederick Charles of Hesse
MotherPrincess Margaret of Prussia
Military career
Allegiance Nazi Germany
Service/branch Schutzstaffel
RankSS-Oberführer

Birth

Prince Christoph of Hesse was born in Frankfurt, the fifth son of Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse and Princess Margaret of Prussia. His father, Frederick Charles, a scion of the House of Hesse, was elected King of Finland in 1918, when Finland declared its independence after the collapse of the Russian Empire.[2] However, the overwhelming Republican victories in the 1919 Finnish parliamentary election effectively ended any ambitions for a Finnish monarchy.[2]

Christoph's mother was the daughter of Emperor Frederick III and of Victoria, Princess Royal. Prince Christoph was thus a great-grandson of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.[3] Christoph had several brothers, including Prince Philipp and Prince Wolfgang.[4] His two eldest brothers, Friedrich Wilhelm and Maximilian, both died in World War I.

Career

Prince Christoph was a director in the Third Reich's Ministry of Air Forces, Commander of the Air Reserves, and held the rank of Oberführer in the SS.[5] His brother Prince Philipp joined Hitler's SA.[4] They were certainly not the only family members to embrace Nazism; their mother "Mossy" (a sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II) invited Adolf Hitler to tea and flew the swastika from her home at Schloss Kronberg.[6]

The historian Hugo Vickers claims that Prince Christoph was "disenchanted" with the Nazi Party by the time of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.[7] He told his mother: "The death of a certain dangerous and cruel man is the best news I had in a long time."[8]

Prince Christoph served in the Luftwaffe Research Office[9] and in 1942 he joined the staff of the Jagdgeschwader (fighter squadron) 53.[7] He was primarily based in Tunisia and Sicily, with missions to Malta.[7] After the Allied Invasion of Italy, he was recalled to Germany, but never made it home.[7]

On 7 October 1943, he was killed when his plane, a Siebel 104, collided with a hill in the Apennine Mountains near Forlì, Italy.[7] His body and the body of his copilot were found two days later and they were buried on the site.[7]

Family

Christoph married his second cousin, once removed Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark on 15 December 1930 in Kronberg im Taunus, Germany.[5] Princess Sophie was the youngest daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, and the sister of the future Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.[7]

They had five children:[10][11]

  • Princess Christina Margarethe of Hesse (10 January 1933 – 22 November 2011), married Prince Andrew of Yugoslavia (1929–1990) on 2 August 1956 and divorced in London in 1962. They had two children and two granddaughters. She remarried Robert Floris van Eyck (1916–1991) on 3 December 1962 and had two further children and two granddaughters.
  • Princess Dorothea Charlotte Karin of Hesse (24 July 1934 – 29 March 2002), married Prince Friedrich Karl zu Windisch-Grätz (7 July 1917 – 29 May 2002) on 31 March 1959 and had two daughters, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
  • Prince Karl Adolf Andreas of Hesse (born 26 March 1937) married Countess Yvonne Margit Valerie Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár (born 4 April 1944 in Budapest) on 26 March 1966 and had two children.
  • Prince Rainer Christoph Friedrich of Hesse (born 18 November 1939), unmarried and without issue.
  • Princess Clarissa Alice of Hesse (born 6 February 1944) married Jean-Claude Derrien (born 12 March 1948) on 20 July 1971 and was divorced in 1976. She has a daughter.

Ancestry
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References
  1. Eade, Philip (2011). Prince Philip: The Turbulent Early Life of the Man Who Married Queen Elizabeth II (Kindle ed.). New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 9781429961684.
  2. Tillotson, H.M. (June 1993). Finland at Peace and War 1918-1993 (First ed.). Michael Russell. ISBN 978-0859551960.
  3. Hoelterhoff, Manuela. "`Royals and the Reich' Reveals Fateful History of Nazi Princes". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 13 December 2017.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  4. Petropoulos, Jonathan (2008). Royals and the Reich (First ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195339277.
  5. Almanach de Gotha. Gotha, Germany: Justus Perthes. 1944. pp. 61–62.
  6. Philip, Mansel. "The Prince and the F". The Spectator (UK). Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  7. Vickers, Hugo (2013). Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece (Kindle ed.). St Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0312288860.
  8. Landgravine Margaret of Hesse-Kassel, June 1942. (Archives of Hessische Hausstiftung, Schloss Fasanerie, Eichenzell). Vickers, Hugo. Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece. St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.
  9. Judd, Denis (1981). Prince Philip: A Biography (First American ed.). New York: Atheneum. ISBN 0-689-11131-2.
  10. Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh (editor). Burke's Guide to the Royal Family, Burke's Peerage, London, 1973, pp. 284-285 ISBN 0-220-66222-3
  11. Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser XVIIII. "Haus Hessen". C.A. Starke Verlag, 2007, pp. 34-35. (German). ISBN 978-3-7980-0841-0.
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