Picking Up Pieces and Making Do
Even a revolution cannot continue endlessly. Once the situation in Germany calmed down, a wealthy, quiet life settled in for Prince and Princess Henry von Preussen for most of the 1920's. A sailing yacht rode in the estate harbor, touring cars waited in the stables, and a biplane sat nearby, which the Prince used into his final year.
The lifestyle was clearly due to a settlement between the shaky Weimar Republic and the Hohenzollerns. Documentation shows, that "AMERICAN newspapers have recently allusions to the smuggling securities and other property out of by members of the Hohenzollern family The incident has developed into a public scandal ....”
The rather erratic translation from original German goes on to note that in the Reichstag, "Count Westarp, the leader [of the conservative delegates] observed Representative Miiller has ... has attacked and insulted the Kaiser, referring haughtily to His Majesty the Kaiser The debate is important to the world outside Germany as betraying the recovered and aggressive attitude of defenders of the old regime."
Nonetheless, the German public did not hold any of this against at least one member of the family - Prince Henry. No doubt, losses of close family members for both Princess Irene and Prince Henry made them as close to millions of fellow Germans as a former Imperial prince could be.
The horrendous murders by Bolshevik revolutionaries, of two of Princess Irene’s sisters - Tsaritsa Alexandra and Grand Duchess Ella of Russia - were wretched enough. The equally brutal murders of the four young daughters and 14 year old son of the former Princess Alix von Hessen, were nearly unbelievable.
Finally, there was the murder of Tsar Nicholas II, brother-in-law of Princess Irene and Prince Henry. At least a decade before his death, Nicholas unintentionally wrote a partial memorial. Having tried on and hiked vigorously in a version of the new uniform soon to be issued to his Imperial Army, he filled out the ordinary tag that would come along with each uniform. On the line asking "Service Finished?" Henry's brother-in-law wrote simply, "When I am in my grave."
Reminders of Revolution; The Story Ends
A slight resumption of terror broke the relative calm. A July, 1920 New York Times blared: "Prince Henry of Prussia Kicked, Beaten and Held Prisoner by Riotous Laborers." Relying on a story told to a reporter by a source from the "family circle," the Times recorded that "... a gang of 60 men, led by a private in a Hussar's uniform ... invaded the Hemmelmark estate ...."
Prince Henry was forced to literally run the gauntlet of this gang, during which he was kicked and punched repeatedly. The paper notes that "many other Schleswig-Holstein landowners have been victims of assault by armed gangs."
In 1929 "Henry died on 20 April ... of throat cancer at Gut Hemmelmark at the age of 67 and is buried there." Prince Heinrich von Preussen succumbed to the same cancer that killed his father, Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm. Princess Henry lived until 1953, relocating to a manor house owned by the von Hessen family. As for Kaiser Wilhelm and Prince Henry, two brothers raised in the same atmosphere could hardly have been more different.
Additional Sources:
Littell, Eliakim and Robert S. Littell, The Making of America Project, Allerlei From Germany, ["Allerlei" is German for "jumble"] in The Atlantic Monthly,. Boston, 1928, 1929, 1930
Wilhelm II von Hohenzollern Relaxing in Exile at Huis Doorn, Netherlands, Huis Doorn, 2011
Massie, Robert K, Nicholas and Alexandra, Athenaeum Publishers, New York, 1967.
Prince Henry of Prussia Kicked, Beaten and Held Prisoner by Riotous Laborers, in The New York Times, The New York Times Company, New York, July 12, 1920
Time Magazine, in Milestones April 19, 1929, Time Inc., New York, 2011
Larry Slater - I have been writing for publication for 35 years -literary magazines, and articles on historic homes, nonprofit boards and antiques In ...
