[4] On 7 October 1943, when Christina was ten years old, her father was killed in an airplane crash in the Apennine Mountains near Forlì, Italy.

Her childhood homes included her paternal grandmother's palace of Friedrichshof in Taunus, a family castle at Panker in Holstein,[5] and her parents' residence in Berlin-Dahlem.

[3] Christina participated in the 1953 coronation of her aunt at Westminster Abbey, walking in the procession led by her maternal grandmother, Princess Alice.

[8] They had two children:[9] Soon after their marriage, Princess Christina and her first husband had purchased The Hollands, a commercial farm at Langton Green in Kent, England,[5] which did not prove a profitable venture.

[4] In 1961 Christina left her husband to live with an abstract artist from the Netherlands, Robert Floris van Eyck.