Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia

Georg Friedrich Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia[1][2][3][4][5][6] (born 10 June 1976 in Bremen, West Germany) is a German businessman who is the current head of the Prussian branch of the princely House of Hohenzollern, the former ruling dynasty of the German Empire and of the Kingdom of Prussia.[7][8] He is the great-great-grandson and historic heir of Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, who abdicated and went into exile upon Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918.

Georg Friedrich
Georg Friedrich (2014)
Head of the House of Hohenzollern
Tenure26 September 1994 – present
PredecessorLouis Ferdinand
Heir apparentCarl Friedrich
Born (1976-06-10) 10 June 1976
Bremen, West Germany
Spouse
​
​
(m. 2011)​
Issue
  • Carl Friedrich, Hereditary Prince of Prussia
  • Prince Louis Ferdinand
  • Princess Emma Marie
  • Prince Heinrich
Full name
Georg Friedrich Ferdinand Prinz von Preußen
HouseHohenzollern
FatherPrince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia
MotherCountess Donata of Castell-Rüdenhausen

Education and career

Georg Friedrich is the only son of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (1944–1977) and Countess Donata of Castell-Rüdenhausen (1950–2015). Born into a mediatised princely family, his mother later became Duchess Donata of Oldenburg when she married secondly Duke Friedrich August of Oldenburg, who had previously been married to her sister-in-law Princess Marie Cécile of Prussia. His only sister is Cornelie-Cécile (b. 1978).[4]

He attended grammar schools in Bremen and Oldenburg and completed his education at Glenalmond College near Perth, Scotland, where he passed his A-levels. He then served for a two-year commission in the Alpine troops of the Bundeswehr and was discharged after his term of service. Georg Friedrich earned his degree in business economics at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology.

Georg Friedrich works for a company specialising in helping universities to bring their innovations to market.[9] He also administered the Princess Kira of Prussia Foundation, founded by his grandmother Grand Duchess Kira of Russia in 1952, now administered by his wife.[10] In 2018 he moved from a house near Bremen, where he had also spent his childhood, to Babelsberg, a district of Potsdam, the capital city of the German state of Brandenburg.

He owns a two-thirds share of his family's original seat, Hohenzollern Castle, while the other share is held by the head of the Swabian branch, Karl Friedrich, Prince of Hohenzollern. He also owns the Princes' Island in the Great Lake of Plön. In 2017 he founded a beer trademark called Kgl. Preußische Biermanufactur (Royal Prussian Beer Manufactory) producing a Pilsner brand called Preussens.

Prince Georg Friedrich continues to claim compensation for land and palaces in Berlin expropriated from his family, a claim begun in March 1991 by his grandfather Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia under the Compensation Act (EALG).[11]

House of Hohenzollern

Georg Friedrich succeeded his grandfather, Louis Ferdinand, as Head of the Royal House of Prussia,[12] a branch of the House of Hohenzollern, on 26 September 1994. He stated that he learned to appreciate the history and responsibility of his heritage during time spent with his paternal grandfather, who often recounted to him anecdotes from the life in exile of his own grandfather, the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II.[13]

His position as sole heir to the estate of his grandfather was challenged by his uncles, Friedrich Wilhelm and Michael, who filed a lawsuit claiming that, despite their renunciations as dynasts at the time of their marriages,[4] the loss of their inheritance rights based on their selection of spouse was discriminatory and unconstitutional.[14] His uncles were initially successful, the Regional Court of Hechingen and the higher Regional Court of Stuttgart ruling in their favour in 1997 on the grounds that the requirement to marry equally[15] was "immoral".[16] However, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany overturned the original rulings in favour of Georg Friedrich's uncles, the case being remanded to the courts at Hechingen and Stuttgart. This time both courts ruled in favour of Georg Friedrich. His uncles then took their case to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany which overruled the previous court rulings in Georg Friedrich's favour.[14] On 19 October 2005, a German regional court ruled that Georg Friedrich was indeed the principal heir of his grandfather, Louis Ferdinand (who was the primary beneficiary of the trust set up for the estate of Wilhelm II), but also concluded that each of the children of Louis Ferdinand was entitled to a portion of the Prussian inheritance.[17]

Family
Georg Friedrich and his wife

On 21 January 2011, Georg Friedrich announced his engagement to Princess Sophie of Isenburg (born 7 March 1978).[18] The civil wedding took place in Potsdam on 25 August 2011,[9] and the ecumenical religious wedding took place at the Church of Peace in Potsdam on 27 August 2011, in commemoration of the 950th anniversary of the founding of the House of Hohenzollern.[19][20][21] The religious wedding was also broadcast live by local public television.[9] The dinner, which many members of German and European royal families attended, was held in the Orangery Palace at Sanssouci Park.

As a Protestant descendant of Queen Victoria, Georg Friedrich was in the line of succession to the British throne from his birth until his marriage in 2011. As he married a Roman Catholic, according to the Act of Settlement 1701, he was thus debarred from the British line of succession until the implementation in 2015 of the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, which restored any succession rights to British dynasts who had earlier forfeited them to marry Roman Catholics. Georg Friedrich is currently 170th in line to the British throne.[22]

On 20 January 2013, Georg Friedrich's wife, Sophie, gave birth to twin sons in Bremen, Carl Friedrich Franz Alexander and Louis Ferdinand Christian Albrecht. Carl Friedrich, the elder of the two, is his father's heir apparent.[23] Their third child, Emma Marie Charlotte Sofia, was born on 2 April 2015. On 17 November 2016, Sophie gave birth to Heinrich Albert Johann Georg, their fourth child.[24]

Property claims

In mid-2019 it was revealed that Georg Friedrich had filed claims for permanent right of residency for his family in Cecilienhof, or one of two other former Hohenzollern palaces in Potsdam, as well as return of the family library, 266 paintings, an imperial crown and sceptre, and the letters of Empress Augusta Victoria.[25] This sparked a public debate about the legitimacy of these claims and the role of the Hohenzollern during and before the Nazi regime in Germany, specifically Crown Prince Wilhelm's involvement.[26][27]

In June 2019, a claim made by Georg Friedrich that Rheinfels Castle be returned to the Hohenzollern family was dismissed by a court. In 1924, the ruined castle had been given to the town of St Goar, under the proviso it was not sold. In 1998 the town leased the ruins to a nearby hotel. His case made the claim that this constituted a breach of the bequest.[28]

Ancestry

References
  1. In 1919 royalty and nobility were mandated to lose their privileges in Germany, hereditary titles were to be legally borne thereafter only as part of the surname, according to Article 109 of the Weimar Constitution. Styles such as majesty and highness were not retained. Archived 24 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Eilers, Marlene. Queen Victoria's Descendants. Rosvall Royal Books, Falkoping, Sweden, 1997. pp. 16-17, 123, 172. ISBN 91-630-5964-9
  3. Willis, Daniel. The Descendants of King George I of Great Britain. Clearfield, Baltimore, US, 2002, pp. 688-689. ISBN 0-8063-5172-1
  4. Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser Band XIV. "Haus Preussen". C.A. Starke Verlag, 1991, p. 123, 146. ISBN 3-7980-0700-4
  5. de Badts de Cugnac, Chantal. Coutant de Saisseval, Guy. Le Petit Gotha. Nouvelle Imprimerie Laballery, Paris 2002, pp. 77-79, 99, 106, 108-111. (French) ISBN 2-9507974-3-1
  6. Regarding personal names: Prinz was a title before 1919, but now is regarded as part of the surname. It is translated as Prince. Before the August 1919 abolition of nobility as a legal class, titles preceded the full name when given (Graf Helmuth James von Moltke). Since 1919, these titles, along with any nobiliary prefix (von, zu, etc.), can be used, but are regarded as a dependent part of the surname, and thus come after any given names (Helmuth James Graf von Moltke). Titles and all dependent parts of surnames are ignored in alphabetical sorting. The feminine form is Prinzessin.
  7. "George Frederick The Prince of Prussia" preussen.de
  8. "Germany 1815-90; Vol II 1852-71". Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  9. "Heir to Prussian throne to get televised wedding". Expatica.com. 25 August 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  10. "George Frederick The Prince of Prussia". Archived from the original on 21 June 2010. Retrieved 27 August 2011.
  11. "Preußen-Prinz bittet Berlin zur Kasse". Südwest Presse Online. 16 December 2014. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  12. DeMarco, Anthony (29 February 2012). "A 35-Carat Diamond of Royal Historical Significance Will Be Sold at Sotheby's". Forbes. Retrieved 18 November 2012. After the death of Prince Louis Ferdinand, the diamond was inherited as part of the estate by his grandson, Georg Friedrich (1976-), Prince of Prussia and current head of the Royal House of Prussia
  13. Majesty. Interview, March 2009.
  14. Francois Velde. "The Hohenzollern Succession Dispute". Heraldica.org. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  15. For further details, see the German-language Wikipedia article Ebenbürtigkeit.
  16. Andrew Gimson, "Kaiser's rule on marriage still applies to heirs", The Telegraph (18 December 1998).
  17. Royal news: October 2005 Archived 8 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  18. "Prinz Georg Friedrich von Preußen Er hat sich mit Sophie verlobt!". 22 January 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2011.
  19. "George Friedrich Prince of Prussia and Sophie Princes: German set for Its Own Royal ?Wedding," Spiegel, 26 August 2011.
  20. "Verlobung im Haus Hohenzollern". Preussen.de. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  21. "Prinz von Preußen heiratet in Potsdam". Charivari.de. 1 January 2016. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  22. "British line of succession 1-300".
  23. "Official Website of the House of Hohenzollern: Prinz Georg Friedrich von Preußen". Archived from the original on 18 February 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  24. "BUNTE.de verrät: So heißt ihr Baby-Prinz!".
  25. Derek Scally, The fall of the House of Hohenzollern, The Irish Times, 25 July 2019
  26. Jan Böhmermann, der Aufklärer, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 15.11.19, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/boehmermann-hohenzollern-neo-magazin-royale-1.4683275
  27. Historian Christopher Clark on the Hohenzollern Dispute, Speigel Online, 26.10.19, https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/historian-christopher-clark-on-the-hohenzollern-dispute-in-germany-a-1293369.html
  28. Josie Le Blond, Kaiser's descendant loses court battle to regain 13th-century castle, The Guardian, 25 June 2019

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