Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia
Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia (German: Viktoria Luise Adelheid Mathilde Charlotte; 13 September 1892 – 11 December 1980) was the only daughter and the last child of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, and Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. Through her father, Victoria Louise was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia
1 November 1913 – 8 November 1918
13 September 1892
Marble Palace, Potsdam, German Empire
11 December 1980 (aged 88)
Hanover, West Germany
20 December 1980
- Ernest Augustus, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick
- Prince George William
- Frederica, Queen of the Hellenes
- Prince Christian Oscar
- Prince Welf Henry
Victoria Louise's 1913 wedding to Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover was the largest gathering of reigning monarchs in Germany since German unification in 1871, and one of the last great social events of European royalty before the First World War began fourteen months later. Shortly after the wedding, she became the Duchess of Brunswick by marriage.
Victoria Louise in 1902, aged 10
Victoria Louise in 1909, as Honorary Colonel of the II. Prussian Life Hussars Regiment
Victoria Louise and Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick (before 1918)
Princess Victoria Louise was born on 13 September 1892 at the Marmorpalais in Potsdam, the seventh child and only daughter of German Emperor Wilhelm II and Empress Augusta Victoria.[1] "After six sons, God has given us our seventh child, a small but very strong little daughter," the empress wrote in her diary soon after the birth.[2] The princess was baptised in the Marble Gallery of the New Palace in Potsdam on 22 October, the birthday of the empress.[1][3] She was named Victoria after her paternal great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, and Luise after her paternal great-great-grandmother, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.[4] Known officially as Victoria Louise, she was nicknamed "Sissy" by her family.[5]
Historian Justin C. Vovk writes that Victoria Louise was intelligent like her paternal grandmother Empress Frederick, stately and dignified like her mother, but imperious and willful like her father. She enjoyed being the center of attention[6] and was her father's favourite.[7][8] According to her eldest brother Crown Prince Wilhelm, Victoria Louise was "the only one of us who succeeded in her childhood in gaining a snug place" in their father's heart.[9] In 1902, her English governess, Anne Topham, observed in their first meeting that the nine-year-old princess was friendly, energetic, and always quarreling with her next eldest brother, Prince Joachim.[10] Anne later noted that the "warlike" emperor "unbends to a considerable extent when in the bosom of his family," and is the "dominating force of his daughter's life. His ideas, his opinions on men and things are persistently quoted by her."[11]
The family resided at Homburg Castle,[12] and Victoria Louise and Joachim would often visit their cousins – the children of the Prussian princesses Margaret and Sophia – at nearby Kronberg Castle.[13] In 1905, the princess studied music with concert pianist Sandra Droucker. For one week in May 1911, Victoria Louise traveled to England aboard the royal yacht Hohenzollern with her parents, where they visited their cousin George V, for the unveiling of a statue of Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace.[14] The princess's confirmation took place at Friedenskirche in Potsdam on 18 October 1909.[15]
World War II[edit]
In May 1941, her father fell ill from an intestinal blockage, and Victoria Louise traveled to Doorn to visit him, as did several of her brothers. Wilhelm recovered enough for them to feel able to depart, but soon relapsed. Victoria Louise returned in time to be at her father's bedside, along with nephew Louis Ferdinand and stepmother Hermine, when he died on 4 June 1941 of a pulmonary embolism.[34] By the time of the war's ending in Europe in April 1945, Victoria Louise was living with her husband at Blankenburg Castle.[35] A few days before Blankenburg was handed over to the Red Army by British and U.S. forces in late 1945, to become part of East Germany, the family was able to move to Marienburg Castle, at the time located in the British Occupation Zone, with all their furniture, transported by British Army trucks, on the order of George VI.[36]
Approximate translations of the titles into English are given in parentheses.
David Jones records in his prose-poem In Parenthesis a fragment of song from the Western Front – "I want Big Willie's luv-ly daughter" – implying (as Jones notes) "that the object of the British Expedition into France was to enjoy the charms of the Emperor's daughter".[40]
A number of vessels were named for the princess:
