Louise Marie Elisabeth was born on 3 December 1838 to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and his wife Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

[1] While Wilhelm showed some outward affection to his only son, he lavished attention on Louise, and often his unexpected visits to her schoolroom resulted in them playing together on the floor.

[1] As the only daughter of the Prussian crown prince (and later emperor), their marriage caused Baden to gain a great deal of importance, and even more so once the German Empire was founded.

[7] Though friends as young girls, Louise and her sister-in-law Victoria, Princess Royal ("Vicky") always had a "none-too-friendly rivalry", particularly when comparing their children: while Vicky's eldest son Crown Prince Wilhelm was born with a deformed arm, Louise apparently could not resist bragging that her three children were healthier and bigger at the same age.

[1] Often supporting him against his parents, her and Wilhelm's close relationship would carry on to his adulthood, and he would later write in his memoirs that Louise "possessed considerable political ability and a great gift for organisation, and she understood excellently how to put right men in the right place and how to employ their strength serviceably for the general benefit".

He continued that his aunt "learned admirably to combine the Prussian element with the Baden character, and she developed into a model sovereign princess".

The Austro-Prussian War caused a degree of friction between Baden and Prussia, as the former, despite their close familial connections to Berlin, chose to support the Austrians.

[1] Her father's strongly anti-Catholic chancellor Otto von Bismarck disliked Baden however, as it was one of Germany's most important Catholic states; he saw its religion as threatening the stability of the new German Empire.

She helped found a welfare charity for women called the Baden Frauenverein, which focused on providing hospitals and homes to children.

[8] Louise maintained a correspondence with Florence Nightingale, who believed the grand duchess' letters could have been written by "any administrator in the Crimean War".

Vicky, now Dowager Empress Frederick, took sympathy on Louise and persuaded her mother to confer Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, First Class, on her.

Louise, now Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden, lived to see her duchy become absorbed into the new state of Germany under the Revolution of 1918-19 that took place at the end of World War I.