Prince Heinrich XXXIII Reuss of Köstritz
| Prince Heinrich XXXIII Reuss of Köstritz | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||
| Born |
26 July 1879 Mauer | ||||
| Died |
15 November 1942 (aged 63) Stonsdorf, Germany | ||||
| Spouse |
Princess Victoria Margaret of Prussia Allene Tew Hostetter Burchard | ||||
| Issue |
Princess Marie Luise Reuss zu Köstritz Prince Heinrich II Reuss of Köstritz | ||||
| |||||
| House | House of Reuss | ||||
| Father | Heinrich VII, Prince Reuss of Köstritz | ||||
| Mother | Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach | ||||
Prince Heinrich XXXIII Reuss of Köstritz (26 July 1879 – 15 November 1942) was the son of Prince Heinrich VII Reuss of Köstritz and his wife Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.[1]
Family and early life
Prince Heinrich XXXIII Reuss was the son of the Prince Heinrich VII Reuss of Köstritz and Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Through his mother, Prince Heinrich XXXIII was heir to the throne of the Kingdom of the Netherlands until the birth of the Crown Princess Juliana, daughter of Queen Wilhelmina.
Prince Reuss was trained as a doctor, and passed all his medical examinations; he entered the army subsequently and took a commission in the 2nd Dragoon Guards, and afterwards served in the diplomatic service. It was Prince Reuss before whom the two English doctors, Dr. Elliot and Dr. Austin, who were arrested as spies in Belgium when tried. The question to be decided by the Prince was whether they were doctors or not, and he had to put them through a severe examination in medicine. They were acquitted, and the Prince reportedly said "he thought those two English doctors two of the finest and most honest men he had ever met."
Dutch succession
Prince Heinrich XXXIII Reuss was seen as the most probable heir to the Dutch throne in the event that Queen Wilhelmina remained childless. Thus until 1909 he could be considered as an heir although he had severe competition from the Wied family (Princess Marie of Wied was a daughter of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands and very popular in the Netherlands). Prince Heinrich XXXIII was the younger son of Marie Alexandrine (daughter of Princess Sophie of the Netherlands) and Prince Heinrich VII Reuss of Köstritz. The firstborn son, prince Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz was not considered seriously as a candidate for the Dutch throne. He was supposedly ugly and not very intelligent.
A contemporary report said "Prince Henry XXXII of Reuss, who is next in order to the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, is said to have no ambition in the direction of the Dutch throne, and to be willing to "renounce" in favour of Prince Henry XXXIII, now employed at the Berlin foreign Office, and until a year ago a member of the German Embassy in Paris. Early last year Prince Henry XXXIII was the guest of the Queen at The Hague, and was made much of at the Court and in social circles, so that he came to be generally regarded as "first favourite" in the succession. He is a man of varied talents; as a sculptor and as a painter he has produced ivories which have been accorded favourable criticism."
Marriage
He married, firstly, Princess Victoria Margaret of Prussia, daughter of Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia and Princess Louise Sophie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg,[1][2] on 17 May 1913 at Neues Palais, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany. He and Viktoria Margarete Elisabeth Marie Ulrike Prinzessin von Preußen were divorced on 14 July 1922.[1]
The courtship between the Princess Margarethe and the Prince was conducted under difficulties. Both the Prince and Princess Leopold (her parents) objected very strongly to Prince Reuss. In the first place, they did not regard his rank as at all equal to their own, and they expected their daughter would make a better match; but I think they also disliked him because they saw that the Princess was really fond of him. It was just in accordance with the character and disposition of the Prince and Princess Leopold that they should dislike the Prince for this reason. When the Prince came to Potsdam to see the Princess he found great difficulty in doing so. He was not asked to stay at Klein Glienicke. He stayed with the Prince zu Wied, and came over to Klein Glienicke occasionally, but was given very little encouragement to come there, especially by Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia. When the Princess Leopold asked Prince Reuss to dinner, Prince Leopold refused to meet him, and the dinner had to be served in the private rooms of the Princess Margarethe. When the Princess Leopold was unable to be present at dinner, as happened on one or two occasions, the Princess was chaperoned by Fräulein von Stromberg. I doubt if the marriage would ever have come off only for the fact that the Kaiser liked Prince Reuss, and generally approved of the idea of the marriage between him and his niece.
He married, secondly, Allene Tew (1872-1955), daughter of Charles Henry Tew and Janet Smith, on 10 April 1929 at Paris, France. He and Allene Tew were divorced on 31 October 1935 at Paris, France.[1] He is a member of the second limb of the younger branch of the House of Reuss, and his son, born 1916, is Heinrich II. He is not to be confused with the head of his branch of the house, his cousin Prince Heinrich XXXIX, who married the Countess of Castell-Castell (at Castell) and whose sons are Heinrich IV, Heinrich VI and Heinrich VII.
In 1936, Princess Heinrich XXXIII of Reuss, the former Arlene Tew of Jamestown, and Count Paul De Kotzebue, Russian nobleman, married in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday. The marriage would be the fifth for the princess, described as one of the wealthiest of American women, and the first for the count. Shortly after the ceremony they were to come to the United States bringing with them young Prince Heinrich of Reuss, whose guardian the princess had become. Princess Heinrich inherited a fortune from her first husband, Theodore R. Hostetter of Pittsburgh. Her divorce from the prince was said to have been caused by his espousal of the Nazi cause.[3]
He died on 15 November 1942 at age 63 at Stonsdorf. He gained the title of Prinz Reuss zu Köstritz.[1]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Lundy, Darryl. "The Peerage: Heinrich XXXIII Prinz Reuss zu Köstritz". Retrieved 19 September 2010.
- ↑ Lundy, Darryl. "The Peerage: Viktoria Margarete Elisabeth Marie Ulrike Prinzessin von Preußen". Retrieved 15 January 2010.
- ↑ Paul Kotzebue was born 20 February 1884 in Kremenetz, and died in Paris 13 September 1966