German nobility
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the German Empire had a policy of expanding his political base by ennobling nouveau riche industrialists and businessmen who had no noble ancestors.
Many younger sons were positioned in the rapidly growing national and regional civil service bureaucracies, as well as in the officer corps of the military.
[2] In August 1919, at the beginning of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), Germany's new constitution officially abolished royalty and nobility, and the respective legal privileges and immunities appertaining to an individual, a family or any heirs.
In Germany, nobility and titles pertaining to it were recognised or bestowed upon individuals by emperors, kings and lesser ruling royalty, and were then inherited by the legitimate, male-line descendants of the ennobled person.
Noble rank was usually granted to men by letters patent (see Briefadel), whereas women were members of nobility by descent or by marriage to a nobleman.
In the cases of the former kings/queens of Saxony and Württemberg, the ducal title borne by non-ruling cadets of their dynasties before 1919, or Herzog/Herzogin for the six deposed grand dukes (i.e., the former rulers of Baden, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg, and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach) and their consorts were retained.
Traditional titles exclusively used for unmarried noblewomen, such as Baronesse, Freiin and Freifräulein, were also transformed into parts of the legal surname, subject to change at marriage or upon request.
Many German states, however, required a marriage to a woman of elevated social status in order for a nobleman to pass on his titles and privileges to his children.
Upwardly mobile German families typically followed marriage strategies involving men of lower rank marrying women of higher status who brought a major dowry.
[10] Particularly between the late 18th and early 20th century when an increasing number of unlanded commoners were ennobled, the "von" was typically simply put in front of a person's surname.
The Commission's rulings are generally non-binding for individuals and establish no rights or privileges that German authorities or courts would have to consider or observe.
Persons who bear a noble or noble-sounding surname without belonging to the historical nobility according to Salic law are classified as Nichtadelige Namensträger, 'non-noble name-carriers'.
The inflation of fake nobility is one of the major concerns of the Adelsrechtsausschuss, and it is up to the commission to determine whether a person should be considered noble or non-noble.
For instance, the German-American businessman Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt was born as Hans Robert Lichtenberg in Germany.
When a person is granted a dispensation by the Adelsrechtsausschuss, he becomes the progenitor of a new noble family, which consists of all of his legitimate male-line descendants in accordance with nobiliary law.
These were the families of kings (Bavaria, Hanover, Prussia, Saxony, and Württemberg), grand dukes (Baden, Hesse and by Rhine, Luxembourg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach), reigning dukes (Anhalt, Brunswick, Schleswig-Holstein, Nassau, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen), and reigning princes (Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Liechtenstein, Lippe, Reuss, Schaumburg-Lippe, Schwarzburg, and Waldeck-Pyrmont).
The Hochadel also included the Empire's formerly quasi-sovereign families whose domains had been mediatised within the German Confederation by 1815, yet preserved the legal right to continue royal intermarriage with still-reigning dynasties (Ebenbürtigkeit).
The exiled heirs to Hanover and Nassau eventually regained sovereignty by being allowed to inherit, respectively, the crowns of Brunswick (1914) and Luxembourg (1890).
Higher-ranking noble families of the Niederer Adel bore such hereditary titles as Edler (lord), Ritter (knight), Freiherr (or baron) and Graf.
There were also some German noble families, especially in Austria, Prussia and Bavaria, whose heads bore the titles of Fürst (prince) or Herzog (duke); however, never having exercised a degree of sovereignty, they were accounted members of the lower nobility (e.g., Bismarck, Blücher, Putbus, Hanau, Henckel von Donnersmarck, Pless, Wrede).
