Former German nobility in the Nazi Party
In appeasement of such losses, Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, and other Nazi leaders, frequently appealed to these (former) princes, and especially to Wilhelm II and his families from the former Prussian kingdom, by expressing sympathy for a restoration of their abolished monarchies, and such lost inheritances.
The Berlin list named 90 direct senior heirs, to their 22 abolished princedoms,[3] and also included claimants to the (former) Imperial Crown of Wilhelm II.
[7] In 1933, with Hitler and the Nazi Party in power, Göring was appointed as Minister of the Interior for Prussia,[8] for which he established a Prussian police force called the Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo.
[9] The headquarters of Reich Security Main Office, SD, Gestapo and SS in Nazi Germany (1933–1945), was symbolically housed at Prinz Albrecht-Strasse, off Wilhelmstraße, in Berlin.
In the early 1930s, Wilhelm II apparently hoped the successes of the German Nazi Party would stimulate interest in a restoration of the monarchy, with Crown Prince William's son as the fourth Kaiser.
Hesse and Hitler, like Göring, held a shared belief in the stab-in-the-back myth, that Germany's loss in WWI was caused by a conspiracy of Jews and Bolsheviks rather than a military defeat.
At the outbreak of World War I, Ludwig III received a petition from Adolf Hitler, asking for permission to join the Royal Bavarian Army.
On 12 November 1918, King Ludwig gave Prime Minister Dandl the Anif declaration, releasing all government officials, soldiers and civil officers from their oath of loyalty to him.
[25] Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria – Ludwig's son and heir did not join the far right in Germany, despite Hitler's attempts to win him over through Ernst Röhm and promises of royal restoration.
[27][full citation needed] In a memorandum in 1943, Prince Rupprecht even mentioned his ambition for the German crown, (of the Kaiserreich), which had been held by the House of Wittelsbach in the past.
When cheered by a crowd in a railroad station several years after his abdication, he stuck his head out of the train's window and shouted, "You're a fine lot of republicans, I'll say!
"[28] After his father's abdication in 1919, Georg, Crown Prince of Saxony, the king's first-born son and heir, renounced his rights on the Saxon throne to become a Catholic priest.
As a leading Roman Catholic nobleman and near relative of the Habsburg, Bourbon, and Saxon dynasties, Prince Franz Joseph did much to lend respectability to the Nazi party.
Prince Max was married to Princess Marie Louise of Hanover, eldest daughter of Ernest Augustus II and Thyra of Denmark.
In July 1918, roughly sixteen months after the February Revolution, which forced his brother-in-law, Nicholas II from his throne, Ernst's two sisters in Russia, Elizabeth, who had become a nun following the assassination of her husband, Grand Duke Sergei, in 1905, and Alexandra, the former tsarina, were killed by the Bolsheviks.
Friedrich Franz abdicated the grand ducal throne on 14 November 1918 following the German Empire's defeat in World War I; the regency ended at the same time.
Although he was the senior male-line great-grandson of George III, the Duke of Cumberland was deprived of his British peerages and honours for having sided with Germany in World War I.
The wedding was the last great gathering of European sovereigns; German Emperor and Empress, Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, George V and Queen Mary of the UK, and Tsar Nicholas II attended.
On page 96, Neubecker stated that; "The reigning royal family in Great Britain goes back to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, husband of Queen Victoria.
[citation needed] In 1919, most, if not all of these Saxe-Coburg Gotha princes lost their titles and royal status, in accordance with the Weimar Constitution, which abolished their German monarchy.
Although according to Neubecker; the princes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha were excluded from the British royal family in 1893[citation needed], the labels chosen independently by them were not recognized in England.
Charles Edward held the same rank as Prince Josias of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Rudolf Hess, von Ribbentrop, Martin Bormann, and Reinhard Heydrich.
Ernst II, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, was a German aristocrat, and the Regent of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha during the minority of his wife's cousin, Duke Charles Edward, from 1900 to 1905.
A nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm II,[citation needed][62] Georg was the eldest son of Prince Frederick Johann of Saxe-Meiningen (1861–1914) and Countess Adelaide of Lippe-Biesterfeld (1870–1948).
[67] Some German states provided a proportionally higher number of SS officers, including Hesse-Nassau and Lippe, Marie Adelheid's birthplace.
[67] In 1921, Marie Adelheid became employed as an aide to the Nazi Minister of Food and Agriculture, Richard Walther Darré (a friend of her third husband's).
Prince Ernst's main task as a party aide, was to act as a liaison between the Reich Office, for country people in Munich and in Berlin.
[77][full citation needed] Friedrich Christian was a speaker for the Nazi Party in 1929, and worked vigorously to gain the support of other noble families behind Hitler.
[83] Viewed as an "old-line party member" who made propaganda excursions to many foreign countries on Goebbels' behalf, Friedrich Christian was the last of the four to testify.
[39][page needed] Wittekind, who served in the German Armed Forces as a Lieutenant Colonel, succeeded as head of the House of Waldeck and Pyrmont when his father died on 30 November 1967.
