He was born in Dresden, as the second son of King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony and his wife Archduchess Luise, Princess of Tuscany.

He was very gifted linguistically and was sent on diplomatic missions to King Alfonso XIII of Spain, to Sultan Mehmed V of Turkey and to Emperor Charles I of Austria.

[1] On 13 November of that year, his father abdicated following the German Empire's defeat in the World War I. Friedrich Christian led the Saxon army home from Belgium and France to Germany, where they demobilized in Fulda.

The subject of his PhD thesis was Nicholas of Cusa, who contributed significantly to the development of canon law in the late Middle Ages.

Here, he met Elisabeth Helene (1903-1976), a daughter of Albert, 8th Prince of Thurn and Taxis and his wife Archduchess Margarethe Klementine of Austria.

Friedrich Christian thus became heir apparent, and when his father died on 12 February 1932, he succeeded as Head of the Royal House of Saxony In 1937, the family moved to Wachwitz Castle in Dresden-Wachwitz, where they lived until 1945.

In 1955, their relatives in the Thurn und Taxis family helped them find a new home in the Harlaching borough of Munich.