Wilhelm Heinrich Michael Louis Ferdinand Friedrich Franz Wladimir Prinz von Preussen (22 March 1940 – 3 April 2014) was a member of the

Hohenzollern dynasty The House of Hohenzollern (, also , german: Haus Hohenzollern, , ro, Casa de Hohenzollern) is a German royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenb ...

which ruled

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

until the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. His great-grandfather

Wilhelm II , house = Hohenzollern , father = Frederick III, German Emperor , mother = Victoria, Princess Royal , religion = Lutheranism (Prussian United) , signature = Wilhelm II, German Emperor Signature-.svg Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor ...

was the

German Emperor The German Emperor (german: Deutscher Kaiser, ) was the official title of the head of state and hereditary ruler of the German Empire. A specifically chosen term, it was introduced with the 1 January 1871 constitution and lasted until the offi ...

and

King of Prussia The monarchs of Prussia were members of the House of Hohenzollern who were the hereditary rulers of the former German state of Prussia from its founding in 1525 as the Duchy of Prussia. The Duchy had evolved out of the Teutonic Order, a Roman C ...

until 1918. Although Kaiser Wilhelm died in exile and his family was stripped of much of its wealth and recognition of its rank and titles by the German Republic, Michael spent nearly all of his life in Germany.

Biography

Michael was the second son of

Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia (german: Louis Ferdinand Victor Eduard Adalbert Michael Hubertus Prinz von Preußen; 9 November 1907 – 26 September 1994) was a member of the princely House of Hohenzollern, which occupied the Prussian and G ...

, and

Grand Duchess Kira Kirillovna of Russia Grand Duchess Kira Kirillovna of Russia (9 May 1909 – 8 September 1967) was the second daughter of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She married Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia ...

. Both of his parents lived their early years as members of ruling imperial families that were deposed before they reached adulthood,Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser XIV. "Haus Preußen". C.A. Starke Verlag, 1991, pp. 123, 133-134, 145-146. (German). . leaving them to adjust to life in straitened circumstances, in exile or under surveillance, and sometimes in flight from their ancestral nations. Valynseele, Joseph. ''Les Prétendants aux Trônes d'Europe''. Saintard de la Rochelle. 1967. France. pp. 47-51, 58, 61-63, 65 The Kaiser lived in the Netherlands under banishment from Germany when Michael was born. However, by the time Michael was ten years old, both his great-grandfather and grandfather had died, leaving his father as the Hohenzollern ''

pater familias The ''pater familias'', also written as ''paterfamilias'' (plural ''patres familias''), was the head of a Roman family. The ''pater familias'' was the oldest living male in a household, and could legally exercise autocratic authority over his ext ...

'', whom German monarchists recognized as their rightful emperor and king. Michael was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, but grew up in Bremen. He studied in

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

and worked later for several multinational corporations. He also wrote several history books. Having made the decision to contract a

non-dynastic A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A d ...

marriage, he submitted to his father (then head of the family) a renunciation on behalf of himself and his future descendants to the family's claim to the defunct thrones of Imperial Germany and Royal Prussia, executed at Bremen on 29 August 1966. On 23 September 1966, he married in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...

Roman Catholic commoner Jutta Jörn (born in

Gießen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univers ...

, 27 January 1943), an administrative assistant. The couple had two daughters together prior to divorcing on 18 March 1982. * Michaela Marie of Prussia (born 5 March 1967); married, on 14 February 2000, Jürgen Wessoly, with whom she has two children. * Nataly Alexandra Caroline of Prussia (born 13 January 1970,

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

) On 23 June 1982, he married secondly in

Bad Soden am Taunus Bad Soden (; also: ''Bad Soden am Taunus'') is a town and spa in the Main-Taunus-Kreis, Hessen, Germany. It had a population of 22,563 , up from 21,412 in 2005. Information Bad Soden is a residential town for commuters working in Frankfurt am ...

, again non-dynastically, to Roman Catholic commoner Brigitte Dallwitz-Wegner (born in Kitzbühel, Austria, 17 September 1939 – 14 October 2016), granddaughter of German

aeronautical engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is sim ...

Richard Wegner von Dallwitz (1873–1945),Bibliography of Aeronautics. 329, Dallwitz, R. Wegner von. ''Die beste Tragdeckform und der Luftwiderstand''. Rostock i. M., C. J. Volckmami, E. Nachfolger (Ewette), 1910, pp. 1-72, ill. Noted in: Wien. also known as ''Richard von Dallwitz-Wegner''.Wielen, Roland und Wielen, Ute, ''August Kopff, the Theory of Relativity, and Two Letters from Albert Einstein to Kopff'', The Archives of the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Heidelberg 2013, p. 181 (German). The couple had no children. Along with his elder brother, Michael eventually repudiated the implications of his renunciation claiming, in a lawsuit against his nephew

Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia Georg Friedrich Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia (born 10 June 1976) is a German businessman who is the current head of the Prussian branch of the House of Hohenzollern, the former ruling dynasty of the German Empire and of the Kingdom of Prussia. ...

, that the forfeiture of an equal share with his siblings in the family's remaining fortune, the bulk of which had been placed in a trust for William II's heir, was discriminatory.Welt. Oswald, Andreas. Der Taggespiege
Adelshochzeit in Potsdam: Wenn das der Kaiser wüsste
26 August 2011. retrieved 11 May 2016. Michael was the godfather of

. He died on 3 April 2014, aged 74. Two years later, his widow, Brigitte, died by suicide.Brigitta von Preußen - Die Trauer war zu groß: Sie hat sich das Leben genommen
- website of German magazine

Bunte ''Bunte'' (company's preferred spelling in capital letters) is a German-language weekly celebrity gossip magazine published by Hubert Burda Media. The first edition was published in 1948 under the name ''Das Ufer''. Under the leadership of Hube ...

Books in German

* Ein Preußenprinz zu sein, Munich 1986 * Auf den Spuren der deutschen Monarchien, Cologne 2008 * Zu Gast bei Preußens Königen, Cologne 2009 * Die Staufer: Herrscher einer glanzvollen Epoche, Cologne 2010 * Die Preußen am Rhein: Burgen, Schlösser, Rheinromantik, Cologne 2011 * Friedrich der Große, Cologne 2011

Ancestry

References

External links

Michael of Prussia
(German)

(English) {{DEFAULTSORT:Prinz von Preussen, Michael 1940 births 2014 deaths House of Hohenzollern Prussian princes German male writers People from Bremen