Adelheid was born the second daughter of Ernst I, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg by his wife Princess Feodora of Leiningen, who was the older, maternal half-sister of the British Queen Victoria.

In 1852, not long after Napoléon III became Emperor of the French, he made a proposal of marriage to Adelheid's parents after he had been rebuffed by Princess Carola of Sweden.

As it turned out, the proposal horrified Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who preferred not to confer such hasty legitimacy upon France's latest "revolutionary" regime — the durability of which was deemed dubious — nor to yield up a young kinswoman for the purpose.

[2] They were parents to seven children: Via her daughters Karoline Mathilde and Augusta Victoria, Adelheid is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Felipe VI of Spain, respectively.

With her husband, the Duchess first resided at Dolzig, in Lower Lusatia, but in 1863 moved to Kiel when Duke Frederick became legitimate heir to the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein.