Hermine Reuss of Greiz
Hermine Reuss of Greiz (German: Hermine, Prinzessin Reuß zu Greiz;[1][2] 17 December 1887 – 7 August 1947) was the second wife of Wilhelm II, German Emperor. They were married in 1922, four years after he abdicated. Wilhelm was her second husband; her first husband, Prince Johann of Schönaich-Carolath, had died in 1920. She was called Empress Hermine by some supporters of the Hohenzollern dynasty.
Hermine Reuss of Greiz
17 December 1887
Greiz, Principality of Reuss-Greiz, German Empire
7 August 1947 (aged 59)
Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany
15 August 1947
- Prince Hans Georg of Schönaich-Carolath
- Prince Georg Wilhelm of Schönaich-Carolath
- Princess Hermine Caroline of Schönaich-Carolath
- Prince Ferdinand Johann of Schönaich-Carolath
- Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath
Princess Hermine was married on 7 January 1907 in Greiz to Prince Johann George Ludwig Ferdinand August of Schönaich-Carolath (11 September 1873 – 7 April 1920).
They were the parents of five children:
Later life[edit]
Following the death of Wilhelm, Hermine returned to Germany to live on her first husband's estate in Saabor, Lower Silesia. During the Vistula–Oder Offensive of early 1945, she fled from the advancing Red Army to her sister's estate in Rossla, Thuringia. After the end of the Second World War, she was held under house arrest at Frankfurt an der Oder in the Soviet occupation zone, and later imprisoned in the Paulinenhof Internment Camp. On 7 August 1947, aged 59, she died of a heart attack in a small flat in Frankfurt an der Oder while under guard by the Red Army occupation forces. She was buried in the Antique Temple of Sanssouci Park, Potsdam, in what would become East Germany. Some years earlier, it was the resting place of several other members of the Imperial family, including Wilhelm's first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein.
Dramatic representation[edit]
In 2017, Janet McTeer played a fictional Empress Hermine in The Exception alongside Christopher Plummer as Kaiser Wilhelm II.