Prince Alexander Ferdinand of Prussia
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Prince Alexander Ferdinand Albrecht Achilles Wilhelm Joseph Viktor Karl Feodor of Prussia (26 December 1912 – 12 June 1985) was the only son of
Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia Prince August Wilhelm Heinrich Günther Viktor of Prussia (29 January 1887 – 25 March 1949), nicknamed "Auwi", was the fourth son of German Emperor Wilhelm II by his first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. He was a vocal supporter ...
and his wife
Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg '' , house = Glücksburg , spouse = , issue = Prince Alexander Ferdinand , image = Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.jpg , image_size = , caption = , birth_date = , birth_place = Grünholz Castle, ...
.


Family and early life

Prince Alexander of Prussia was born on 26 December 1912 to
Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia Prince August Wilhelm Heinrich Günther Viktor of Prussia (29 January 1887 – 25 March 1949), nicknamed "Auwi", was the fourth son of German Emperor Wilhelm II by his first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. He was a vocal supporter ...
and his wife
Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg '' , house = Glücksburg , spouse = , issue = Prince Alexander Ferdinand , image = Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.jpg , image_size = , caption = , birth_date = , birth_place = Grünholz Castle, ...
. August Wilhelm was a younger son of
Kaiser Wilhelm II Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and List of monarchs of Prussia, King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until Abdication of Wilhelm II, his abdication on 9 ...
.de Badts de Cugnac, Chantal. Coutant de Saisseval, Guy. ‘’Le Petit Gotha’’. Nouvelle Imprimerie Laballery, Paris 2002, pp. 78, 93, 96-97 (French). His parents divorced in 1920 and his mother remarried less than two years later; custody of the young prince was awarded to Alexander's father. Alexander attended the 1932 wedding of the Swedish prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten with
Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Sibylla Calma Marie Alice Bathildis Feodora; 18 January 1908 – 28 November 1972) was a member of the Swedish royal family and the mother of the current king of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf. Born into the Ho ...
in the former duchy of
Coburg Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it was ...
; it was the first time that a member of the German imperial family had entered the duchy since it became a republic, or specifically a part of Bavaria in November 1919 after the ruling duke, Carl Eduard, had ended his reign on 14 November 1918.


Nazi Party and military career

As of November 1939, Prince Alexander was a first lieutenant in the
Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...
Signal Corps, stationed in
Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...
. Like his father, who became a prominent supporter of the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
, Alexander became an early supporter. Prince August had secret hopes that Chancellor
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
"would one day hoist him or his son Alexander up to the vacant throne of the Kaiser". The support that father and son gave to the emerging party caused strong disagreements among the Hohenzollerns, with Wilhelm II urging them both to leave the party. In 1933, Alexander quit the SA and became a private in the German regular army. In 1934,
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
reports leaked out that the prince quit the SA because Hitler had chosen 21-year-old Alexander to succeed him as "head man in Germany when he itlerno longer can carry the torch". The report went on to say however that
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
was expected to oppose the prince's nomination. Unlike many other German princes, who became the targets of Hitler's mistrust and were removed from their commands in the military, Alexander was the only Hohenzollern allowed to remain at his post.


Marriage

On 19 December 1938 in the
Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
garrison church, Alexander non-dynastically married Armgard Weygand (22 August 1912 – 3 December 2001), daughter of Major Friedrich Weygand and Karla Franziska Oheim. She was the widow of a
major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...
in the German Air Force, and was originally from Wiesbaden, where Alexander Ferdinand was stationed. As the marriage had not been dynastically approved, none of his relatives attended the ceremony, but fellow officers served as witnesses. They had one son: *Prince Stephan Alexander Dieter Friedrich of Prussia (30 September 1939 – 12 February 1993); he married Heide Schmidt (born 6 February 1939) on 28 February 1964 and they were divorced in 1976. They have one daughter. He remarried Hannelore-Maria Kerscher (born 26 October 1952) on 19 June 1981. **Princess Stephanie Viktoria-Luise of Prussia (21 September 1966); she married Amadi Mbaraka Bao (born in 1958 in Tanzania) on 19 April 1991. They were divorced on 20 July 1999.


Death

Prince Alexander Ferdinand died on 12 June 1985 at Wiesbaden.


Ancestry


References


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander Ferdinand Of Prussia 1912 births 1985 deaths House of Hohenzollern Prussian princes Royalty in the Nazi Party