I'm reading a biography about Queen Marie-José of Italy, née Princess of Belgium, who married Mafalda's brother Umberto II (last King of Italy). Marie-José was intended to wed Umberto since she was a child, and both their families met regularly (she was educated in Italy etc.). On the other hand, Giovanna and Mafalda, Umberto's sisters, were intended for Marie-José's brothers, Leopold (future Leopold III) and the regent Charles-Théodore, but the negotiations came to nothing, and Giovanna became Queen of Bulgaria (don't know why yet, still haven't finished the book), and Mafalda as we know married the Hessian prince. Mafalda's mother-in-law, Margarethe of Prussia, had the unenviable quality of losing many members of her family to a cruel end. Her two eldest sons were killed in action in WWI, another died in 1943 in action too (he was married to the Duke of Edinburgh's sister). Another died childless and unmarried and another died married but also childless. This one, by name Wolfgang, lost his wife, marie Alexandra of Baden, on January 29th 1944 during an air raid of Frankfurt. They never ahd any children. He later remarried a commoner. Mafalda was married to Margarethe's third son, Philipp (Wolfgang's twin brother). Apparently he participated actively with the Nazis, as did many members of his maternal family, like several of his Hohenzollern uncles and cousins. When Hitler was done with dealing with royalty he locked them up in Concentration Camps. Mafalda was severely injured during an air raid performed by the Allied Forces (I think Americans) which damaged her arm. Gangrene set in and they had it amputated, but she had also been beaten up and tortured by the SS, so she died on August 28th 1944 in Buchenwald C.C. Her sons were the heirs of the Hesse-Darmstadt line since they died in 1937 in the plane crash (and little Johanna of Hesse in 1939 of Meningitis). All I know for now....
