The Hesse-Cassel family

[grandduchessella]

GDElla do you have any more info on Anna of Preussen?  You are usually pretty well up on everyone!

Not yet, though I can look. (Don't forget my original info debacle!   ).

Your guess at the coloring of the portrait was pretty dead on--blue pelisse draped over the chair, etc...Good going!  

[Martyn]

Not yet, though I can look. (Don't forget my original info debacle!   ).

Your guess at the coloring of the portrait was pretty dead on--blue pelisse draped over the chair, etc...Good going!  

Thanks but it wasn't just a lucky guess.  I took a look at the website for Schloss Fasanerie and there was a small image of this painting that gave some indication of the colouring; I should have said.
I think that I got carried away when I actually saw the toilette in colour, as it is a very rare type of dress, and as I said previously, not many examples survive in costume galleries due to the fragile composition of the fabrics.  The overdress is of ivory silk tulle over a pink foundation; most of Winterhalter's paintings show these dresses as being white on white so it was a real treat to see the actual colour of Anna's costume.  I had no idea that it would be pink.  From what Thomas has said it also hangs in the Pink Boudoir, entirely appropriate!

[bluetoria]

Please could anyone explain to me who QV is writing about here:
27 February 1858 'Poor Marianne, how v. unfortunae to a have a third girl...."
It is obviously the third daughter of Fritz Karl & Marianne of Anhalt. I have as their daughters:
Elizabeth (b. 1857) and Louise (1860). Could anyone tell me of the other daughters, please?

[Svetabel]

Please could anyone explain to me who QV is writing about here:
27 February 1858 'Poor Marianne, how v. unfortunae to a have a third girl...."
It is obviously the third daughter of Fritz Karl & Marianne of Anhalt. I have as their daughters:
Elizabeth (b. 1857) and Louise (1860). Could anyone tell me of the other daughters, please?

The other daughters were Maria (1855- 88  ) and Anna (1858 -died the same year).Maria married previously to ugly Prince of Holland and then  - to Prince Albert of Saxe-Altenburg.

[bluetoria]

Thank you very much, Svetabel! So it must have been poor little Anna she meant. How tragic & cruel to be unwanted and then to die so soon!

[kmerov]

Does anyone know where Anna and Friedrich lived after they got married?
Two pictures of Anna (would love to see more of her and Friedrich).

[Svetabel]

Kmerov, the photos are just wonderful! never seen them.Thanks!

[Eric_Lowe]

Hi, Want to know more about Landgrave Moritz's uncle Prince Richard of Hesse (1901-1969), son of Margaret of Prussia. Anyone ?

[grandduchessella]

Listed in the 1944 Almanach de Gotha as ""NSKK Obergruppenfuhrer". He had been promoted from NSKK Gruppenfuhrer (1941) to SA Obergruppenfuhrer (1944). The NSKK was the National Socialist Motor Corps. It was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party that existed from 1931 to 1945. Membership didn't require any knowledge of automobiles and it was known to accept persons for membership without drivers' licenses. The NSKK did adhere to racial doctrine and screened its members for Aryan qualities. In 1945, the NSKK was disbanded and the group was declared a "condemned organization" at the Nuremberg Trials (although not a criminal one). This was due in part to the NSKK’s origins in the SA and its doctrine of racial superiority required from its members.

I've always been bothered by the length of time the Hesse boys (grandsons of Vicky and Fritz afterall) were involved with the Nazi regime--past the point that many royalties were who might've been attracted by the anti-communism platform. Contrasted with the Bavarian princes it's just really shameful. Marlene would probably know more about this--based on research on his brothers maybe she knows something more in depth on Richard.

[grandduchessella]

 I still wonder if anyone knows more about Richard? The only other thing I can add is that he didn't marry and, to the best of my knowledge, didn't have any children.

Also that so many of the children of Mossy, raised in the most liberal traditions of Vicky & Fritz, turned to Nazism--it just puzzles me. They weren't just casual, 'oh it was the time' members either--they were pretty serious. I wonder what Mossy thought of her sons involvement?

[rita]

I think they had have the still hope to make a new career. And most of them underestimated the nazis.
This was also the problem of Stauffenberg and others. They went to the army without an exactly look to the regime

[Rebecca]

Didn't prince Richard adopt his nephew prince Rainer, son of his twin brother prince Christoph? I think I've read that somewhere, and that it happened some time in the 1950's. Does anyone know the reason for the adoption? Maybe the reasons were financial (just guessing)?

Until I joined this discussion board and learned so many facts about all kinds of royals, I didn't know that the Hesses were so infected (I know it's a strong and perhaps unappropriate word) by the Nazis. Of course I knew that prince Christoph was killed in action (in Italy, I believe), but the fact that more or less all of them were so deeply involved with the Nazis was news to me.

[grandduchessella]

I think they had have the still hope to make a new career. And most of them underestimated the nazis.
This was also the problem of Stauffenberg and others. They went to the army without an exactly look to the regime

It's the extent that bothers me. They were quite involved throughout--even when some of the intent of the Nazis was known. Many royals became disenchanted and dropped out in the 30s but not the Hesses.

I just can't help but compare them, unfavorably, to those such as CP Rupprecht and Ludwig Hesse (Darmstadt) who were anti-Nazi at great risk to themselves.

[grandduchessella]

Prince Christoph died in a plane explosion during WW2.

Philip's wife Mafalda, discussed on another thread, died in Buchenwald after her father, King Vittorio Emmanuel of Italy broke with the Nazis.

Another Hesse wife, Marie-Alexandra of Baden, died in an air raid on Frankfurt.

[Eric_Lowe]

Would like to see some photos of Richard, if one can find any of his later years...