Royal / Noble members of the Nazi party

[Principessa]

Franz Joseph Maria Ludwig Anton Thassilo Prinz von Hohenzollern-Emden (30 August 1891 – 3 April 1964) was a member of the Roman Catholic branch of the House of Hohenzollern. He was born as Prince Franz Joseph of Hohenzollern and adopted the surname Prinz von Hohenzollern-Emden in 1933. On 25 May 1921, Franz Joseph married his second cousin Princess Maria Alix of Saxony (1901–1990), a daughter of Friedrich August III of Saxony and Archduchess Luise, Princess of Tuscany. His twin brother was married to Maria Alix's sister, Princess Margarete Karola of Saxony (1900–1962). Franz Joseph and Maria Alix had four children

In 1933 Franz Joseph became a member of the SS (member number 276 691). On 1 April 1936, he became as full member of the Nazi party with membership number 3765580.[7] As a leading Roman Catholic nobleman and a near relative of the Habsburg, Bourbon, and Saxon dynasties, Franz Joseph did much to lend respectability to the Nazi party. From 1939 to 1944 Franz Joseph commanded a marine flak battery at the Cuxhaven naval base. In June 1944 he was released from active service. In November 1944 he was expelled from the SS together with other upper class Nazis whose devotion was becoming suspect in the face of Germany's, by then, near-certain defeat. In a letter to Heinrich Himmler dated 3 January 1945, Franz Joseph proclaimed his continued devotion to the Nazi cause and unsuccessfully begged to be readmitted to the SS

[Principessa]

Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Leopold Charles Edward George Albert, German: Leopold Carl Eduard Georg Albert)(19 July 1884 – 6 March 1954) was the last sovereign duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 30 July 1900 until 1918. A male-line grandson of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he was also until 1919 a Prince of the United Kingdom and from birth held the British titles of Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence and Baron Arklow.

Prince Charles Edward was born at Claremont House near Esher, Surrey. His father was Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, the eighth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. His mother was Princess Helen of Waldeck and Pyrmont, the fourth daughter of George Victor of Waldeck and Pyrmont and of his first wife Princess Helena of NassauAs his father had died before his birth, Prince Charles Edward succeeded to his titles at birth and was styled His Royal Highness the Duke of Albany.

In 1899 the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, urged by Kaiser Wilhelm II, decided on how to deal with the succession of Duke Alfred, who was in ill health. His only son, Prince Alfred ("Young Affie"), had died in February 1899. The Duke of Connaught, the Queen's third son, served in the British military, causing Wilhelm II to oppose him as a ruling prince of Germany. His son, Prince Arthur of Connaught attended Eton with Charles Edward. Wilhelm II demanded a German education for the boy, but this was unacceptable to the Duke of Connaught. Thus young Arthur also renounced his claims to the Duchy. Next in line was sixteen-year-old Charles Edward, who thus inherited the ducal throne of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, when his uncle Alfred died in July 1900.


Wilhelm II chose Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein, the niece of his wife, Empress Augusta Victoria, as Charles Edward's bride, who was his first cousin. She was the eldest daughter of Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, and Princess Karoline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. They married on 11 October 1905, at Glücksburg Castle, Schleswig-Holstein, and had five children


The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused Charles much concern and he watched anxiously during the ensuing power struggles between the left- and right-wing parties in Germany. On the morning of 9 November 1918, during the German Revolution, the Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Gotha declared him deposed. On 11 November, his abdication was demanded in Coburg. Only on 14 November, later than most other ruling princes, did he formally announce that he had "ceased to rule" in both Gotha and Coburg. He did not explicitly renounce his throne but no longer had a right to rule.

Effectively exiled from the United Kingdom and fearful of the communist threat, he started looking for a new political home. He also worked towards the restoration of the monarchy, thus supporting the nationalistic-conservative and völkisch right.

In 1919, his properties and collections in Coburg were transferred to the Coburger Landesstiftung , a foundation that still exists today. A similar solution for Gotha took longer, and only after legal struggles with the Free State of Thuringia was it set up in 1928/34. The Gotha foundation was expropriated by the Soviet authorities after 1945. After 1919, the family retained Schloss Callenberg, some other properties (including those in Austria), and a right to live at Veste Coburg. They also received substantial financial compensation for lost possessions. Some additional real estate in Thuringia was restored to the ducal family in 1925.

Now a private citizen, he became associated with various right-wing paramilitary and political organisations. He supported Hermann Ehrhardt both morally and financially after the Freikorps' commander's participation in the failed Kapp Putsch.

He met Adolf Hitler for the first time on 14 October 1922, at the Nazis' second Deutscher Tag  held at Coburg. In 1923, he joined the Bund Wiking  as Oberbereichsleiter in Thuringia. When the Wiking joined Der Stahlhelm, Charles Edward became a member of the Stahlhelm's national board.[

In 1932, Charles Edward's daughter Sibylla married Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten, the eldest son of the Crown Prince of Sweden and second-in-line to the Swedish throne. The marriage meant that Sibylla would, in the normal course, become Queen of Sweden. The engagement was announced on 16 June 1932 and the wedding was celebrated on 19 October 1932. That same year (1932), Charles Edward took part in the creation of the Harzburg Front, through which the German National People's Party became associated with the Nazi Party. He also publicly called on voters to support Hitler in the presidential election of 1932. Charles Edward formally joined the Nazi Party in March 1933 and that same year became a member of the SA (Brownshirts), rising to the rank of Obergruppenführer by 1936. From 1936 to 1945, he served as a member of the Reichstag representing the Nazi Party, and was president of the German Red Cross from December 1933 to 1945. By the time he took over that position, the German Red Cross had already been under the Nazis' control.]

In 1934, he visited Japan, where he attended a conference on the protection of civilians during war and delivered Hitler's birthday greeting to the Emperor. By 1936, he had agreed to be a spy for Hitler while attending the funeral of George V at Sandringham, but he was unreliable, according to a historian, "telling them what they wanted to hear". Records indicate that Charles Edward received a monthly payment from the Führer of 4,000 Reichsmark (worth about £16,000 in 2015). Hitler sent Charles Edward to Britain as president of the Anglo-German Friendship Society. His mission was to improve Anglo-German relations and to explore the possibility of a pact between the two countries. He attended the funeral of his first cousin, George V, as Hitler's representative in the uniform of a Sturmabteilung (SA), complete with a metal helmet, his British uniforms having been taken away when he was stripped of his British titles. The Prince sent Hitler encouraging reports about the strength of pro-German sentiment among the British aristocracy and about the possibility of a Britain-Germany pact. Hitler also used him to encourage the pro-Nazi sentiments of the Duke of Windsor and his wife. After the Abdication Crisis, he played host to the former King-Emperor and his wife during their private tour of Germany in 1937.

In 1940, Charles Edward travelled via Moscow and Japan to the US, where he met President Roosevelt at the White House. In 1943, at Hitler's behest, Charles Edward asked the International Red Cross to investigate the Katyn massacre

Although Charles Edward was too old for active service during World War II, his three sons served in the Wehrmacht. His second son, Hubertus, was killed in action in 1943 in a plane crash near Mosty.

When World War II ended, the American Military Government in Bavaria, under the command of General George S. Patton, placed Charles Edward under house arrest at his family's vast Veste Coburg, because of his Nazi sympathies, which had been made obvious when he joined the SA. As well, "Carl Edward's British network was very useful for Hitler," according to the German historian Karina Urbach, a senior fellow of the Institute of Historical Research. In a discussion with a journalist, Urbach said that she found evidence of Carl Edward donating generously to the Nazi party for years, financing political murders and being aware of the death camps in Buchenwald. In 1945, the Führer ordered that he not be allowed to be captured because of the great deal of inside information that he possessed. According to The Guardian he was aware of the death camps' work and the programme that killed 100,000 disabled people.

He was later imprisoned with other Nazi officials. His sister, Princess Alice, learning of his incarceration, came to Germany with her husband, the Earl of Athlone (then Governor General of Canada), to plead for his release with his American captors. They dined with the American generals holding her brother, who declined to release him.

Charles Edward was imprisoned until 1946 and was originally charged with crimes against humanity. Although, at his trial, he was exonerated of complicity in war crimes, he was judged to have been "an important Nazi". In 1950 (or August 1949, according to his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry), after several appeals, Charles Edward was sentenced by a denazification court as a Mitläufer and Minderbelasteter (roughly: follower and of lesser guilt).

Charles Edward also lost significant property as a result of his participation in World War II. Gotha was part of Thuringia and was therefore situated in the Soviet occupation zone. The Soviet Army confiscated much of the family's property in Gotha. However, Coburg had become part of Bavaria in 1920 and was occupied by American forces. The family were able to retain the substantial property located there, and in other parts of Germany and abroad.

In April 1946, his daughter Sibylla gave birth to a son, the future King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, who became, upon birth, third-in-line to the Swedish throne. In January 1947, Sybilla's husband died in a plane crash, and in October 1950, King Gustaf V of Sweden died, at which point Charles Edward's grandson became the Crown Prince of Sweden


He spent the last years of his life in seclusion, forced into poverty by the fines he had been required to pay by the denazification tribunal and because much of his property had been seized by the Soviets. In 1953, he watched the coronation of his cousin's granddaughter, Elizabeth II, at a local cinema.

Charles Edward died of cancer in Coburg in his flat in Elsässer Straße on 6 March 1954 as a "penniless criminal" according to one report. He was the penultimate ruling prince of the German Reich to die; only Ernst II of Saxe-Altenburg outlived him  He is buried at the Waldfriedhof Cemetery (Waldfriedhof Beiersdorf) near Schloss Callenberg, in Beiersdorf near Coburg

[Principessa]

Wikipedia - Former German nobility in the Nazi Party

https://en.wikipedia.org/...obility_in_the_Nazi_Party

[Gemsheal]

Charles Edward really fell for the Nazis, hook line & sinker ... what a despicable character.   

[Principessa]

German Empire / Prussia:

Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert)(27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941)  was the last German Emperor (Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Wilhelm II was the son of Prince Frederick William of Prussia and Victoria, Princess Royal. His father was the son of Wilhelm I, German Emperor, and his mother was the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Wilhelm and his first wife, Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein (22 October 1858 – 11 April 1921), were married on 27 February 1881. They had 7 children.Empress Augusta, known affectionately as "Dona", was a constant companion to Wilhelm, and her death on 11 April 1921 was a devastating blow. It also came less than a year after their son Joachim committed suicide. The following January, Wilhelm received a birthday greeting from a son of the late Prince Johann George Ludwig Ferdinand August Wilhelm of Schönaich-Carolath. The 63-year-old Wilhelm invited the boy and his mother, Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, to Doorn. Wilhelm found Hermine very attractive, and greatly enjoyed her company. The couple were wed in Doorn (the Netherlands; the exile place of Wilhelm II) on 9 November 1922. Hermine remained a constant companion to the aging former emperor until his death.


Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, Crown Prince of Prussia (Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst)(6 May 1882 – 20 July 1951) was the eldest child and heir of the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II and Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein and the last Crown Prince of the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Wilhelm married Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (20 September 1886 – 6 May 1954) in Berlin on 6 June 1905. Cecilie was the daughter of Grand Duke Frederick Francis III, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1851–1897) and his wife, Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia (1860–1922). The couple had 6 children. After the fall of the German monarchy, at the end of World War I, Cecilie and her husband lived mostly apart. During the Weimar Republic and the Nazi period, Cecilie lived a private life mainly at Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam.


Prince Wilhelm Friedrich Franz Joseph Christian Olaf of Prussia (4 July 1906 – 26 May 1940) was the eldest child of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, and Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. At his birth, he was second in line to the German throne and was expected to succeed to the throne after the deaths of his grandfather, Emperor Wilhelm II, and his father, Crown Prince Wilhelm. Both, however, outlived him. While a student at Bonn, Wilhelm fell in love with a fellow student, Dorothea von Salviati (10 September 1907 – 7 May 1972). Her parents were Alexander Hermann Heinrich August von Salviati and Helene "Ella" Crasemann Wilhelm's grandfather did not approve of the marriage of a member of the minor nobility with the second in line to the German throne. At the time, the former Kaiser still believed in the possibility of a Hohenzollern restoration, and he would not permit his grandson to make an unequal marriage. However, Wilhelm was determined to marry Dorothea. He renounced any rights to the succession for himself and his future children in 1933. Wilhelm and Dorothea married on 3 June 1933 in Bonn. They had two daughters. In 1940, the ex-Emperor recognized the marriage as dynastic and the girls were accorded the style of Princesses of Prussia, although their father was not restored to his former place in the putative line of succession, At the beginning of World War II, Wilhelm was among a number of princes from the former German monarchies who enlisted to serve in the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Germany.In May 1940, Wilhelm took part in the invasion of France. He was wounded during the fighting in Valenciennes and died in a field hospital in Nivelles on 26 May 1940.


Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia (German: Louis Ferdinand Victor Eduard Adalbert Michael Hubertus Prinz von Preußen) (9 November 1907 – 26 September 1994) was the 2nd son of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, and Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Louis Ferdinand was educated in Berlin and deviated from his family's tradition by not pursuing a military career. Instead, he travelled extensively and settled for some time in Detroit, He held a great interest in engineering. Recalled from the United States upon his brother's renunciation of the throne, he became involved in the German aviation industry, but was barred by Hitler from taking any active part in German military activities. Louis Ferdinand dissociated himself from the Nazis after this. He was not involved in the 20 July Plot against Hitler in 1944 but was interrogated by the Gestapo immediately afterwards. He was released shortly afterwards. He married his second cousin once removed, Grand Duchess Kira Kirillovna of Russia, in 1938 in first a Russian Orthodox ceremony in Potsdam and then a Lutheran ceremony in Huis Doorn, Netherlands Kira was the second daughter of Grand Duke Kyril Vladimirovich and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.The couple had four sons and three daughters.


Prince Hubertus Karl Wilhelm of Prussia (30 September 1909 – 8 April 1950) was the third son of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany and Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He joined the army in 1934 (infantry regiment 8 in Frankfurt/Oder) and participated in the Invasion of Poland in 1939. One year later he was dismissed from the army by Hitler's Prinzenerlaß, following the death of his elder brother Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, who was wounded in France on 23 May 1940 and died in a Field hospital in Belgium three days later. On 29 December 1941, he married Baroness Maria Anna von Humboldt-Dachroeden (9 July 1916 – 24 September 2003) They divorced a little over a year later in early 1943 (the same year she would later give birth to Hubertus' cousin, Ernest Augustus', illegitimate son) and on 5 June of that year, he married again to Princess Magdalena Reuss of Köstritz (20 August 1920 – 10 October 2009). They had two daughters.


Prince Frederick George William Christopher of Prussia (German: Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Christoph Prinz von Preußen; 19 December 1911 – 20 April 1966), also known as Friedrich von Preussen in the United Kingdom, was the fourth son of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany and Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He was studying at Cambridge and lived incognito as the Count von Lingen when war broke out in September 1939. He was arrested and interned in May 1940. He was held in Britain for several months and sent to internment camps near Quebec City and soon afterwards in Farnham, Quebec. In both camps, he was elected camp leader by fellow inmates.Frederick married on 30 July 1945 at Little Hadham, Lady Brigid Guinness. They had five children. He renounced his German citizenship in 1947.[2] He was naturalised as a British citizen in October 1947 under the name Friedrich von Preussen (having also been known during residence in the UK as "George Mansfield"). This naturalisation was controversial, in part because being a descendant of Sophia of Hanover, and having rights under the Act of Settlement 1701, as amended by the Sophia Naturalisation Act 1705, he had a claim to British citizenship from birth. His status in context of his claim for compensation for property seized in Poland was debated in Parliament and the law courts until 1961. He was the owner of Reinhartshausen Palace at Erbach, Germany. While staying there in 1966, he went missing and was found two weeks later after he had drowned in the Rhine. Whether it was suicide or an accident could not be determined.


In the early 1930s, Wilhelm II apparently hoped the successes of the German Nazi Party would stimulate interest in a restoration of the monarchy, with Crown Prince William's son as the fourth Kaiser. After Crown Prince Wilhelm joined the Stahlhelm which merged in 1931 into the Harzburg Front, Adolf Hitler visited the former Crown Prince at Cecilienhof three times, in 1926, in 1933 (on the "Day of Potsdam") and in 1935. In May 1940, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the son of Crown Prince Wilhelm, nominated by Wilhelm as the fourth Kaiser, took part in the invasion of France. He was wounded during the fighting in Valenciennes and died on 26 May 1940. The service drew over 50,000 mourners. His death and the ensuing sympathy of the German public toward a member of the former German royal house greatly bothered Hitler, and he began to see the Hohenzollerns as a threat to his power. In 1940 Hitler issued the Prinzenerlass, prohibiting princes from German royal houses from military service in the Wehrmacht


Prince August Wilhelm Heinrich Günther Viktor of Prussia (29 January 1887 – 25 March 1949), called "Auwi," was the fourth son of Wilhelm II, German Emperor by his first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. He was a vocal supporter of Nazism and of Adolf Hitler. Prince August Wilhelm married his cousin Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (21 April 1887  – 15 April 1957) on 22 October 1908 at the Berliner Stadtschloss. The couple had planned to take up residence in Schönhausen Palace in Berlin, but changed their mind when August Wilhelm's father decided to leave his son the Villa Liegnitz in the Sanssouci Park. On 26 December 1912 their only child, Prince Alexander Ferdinand of Prussia (died 12 June 1985), was born. August Wilhelm joined the conservative nationalist veterans group Der Stahlhelm (English: "The Steel helmet"). In the following years he had increasing contact with the NSDAP. To the unease of his family and against his father's will, he joined the "dangerous, revolutionary"[according to whom?] NSDAP on 1 April 1930, whereupon he received the low membership number 24, for symbolic reasons. In November 1931, he was accepted into the paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) with the rank of Standartenführer. His involvement with the NSDAP and his adoration of Adolf Hitler made August Wilhelm often the subject of mockery by the left-wing press (who gave him the nickname Braunhemdchen Auwi, or "Auwi the Little Brown Shirt"), politicians (French Ambassador André François-Poncet called him Hanswurst "Hans the Brown Sausage") and from the National Socialists themselves (Joseph Goebbels referred to him as a "good-natured but slightly gormless boy"). As a representative of the erstwhile Hohenzollern Dynasty, August Wilhelm was deliberately used by the party to gain votes in elections such as bring its the lead candidate for election to the Prusian Parliament in April 1932 or as an election speaker alongside Hitler, whom he accompanied on flights across Germany at the same time. Through his appearances at the party's mass rallies of, he addressed himself to sections of the population that were lukewarm towards National Socialism and convinced them "that Hitler was not a threat, but a benefactor of the German people and the German Empire".He was identified (in an investigation in the 1960s) as one of those that pulled the trigger in the execution of Albrecht Höhler in 1933.

In 1933, August Wilhelm was given a position within the Free State of Prussia and became a member of the German Reichstag. However, after the abolition of the Weimar Republic after the passing of the Enabling Act of 1933, and the establishment of the dictatorship of the Third Reich, the party no longer needed the former prince, who had secretly hoped "that Hitler would one day hoist him or his son Alexander up to the vacant throne of the Kaiser". Thus, in spring 1934 he was denied direct access to Hitler and by the summer after the Night of the Long Knives found himself in the wilderness politically, but that did not reduce his adoration of Hitler.  One high-profile visit took August Wilhelm to the Passau Hall of the Nibelungs (Nibelungenhalle). On 30 June 1939 he was made an SA-Obergruppenführer, the second highest rank in the SA, but he made derogatory remarks about Joseph Goebbels in private and so he was denounced in 1942. From then on, he was completely sidelined and was banned from making public speeches. In early February 1945, in the company of the former Crown Princess Cecilie, August Wilhelm fled the approaching Red Army by going from Potsdam to Kronberg to take refuge with his aunt Princess Margaret of Prussia, a sister of his father.At the end of the Second World War, on 8 May 1945, August Wilhelm was arrested by the U.S. Army and imprisoned in Ludwigsburg. At his denazification trial (Spruchkammerverfahren) in 1948, he was asked if he had since repudiated National Socialism, and replied: "I beg your pardon?" He was thus categorized as "incriminated" by the denazification process and sentenced to two and a half years' hard labour. However, as he had been confined in the Ludwigsburg internment camp since 1945, he was considered to have served his sentence. Immediately after his release, new proceedings were instituted against August Wilhelm. A court in Potsdam, in the Soviet occupation zone, issued an arrest warrant against him, but soon after that he became seriously ill and died at a hospital in Stuttgart at the age of 62. He was buried in Langenburg in the cemetery of the princes of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

Prince Alexander Ferdinand was the only son of Prince August Wilhelm and his wife Princess Alexandra Victoria. In 1939, Prince Alexander was a first lieutenant in the Air Force Signal Corps. Like his father, Prince August hope that Hitler "would one day hoist him, or his son, up to the vacant throne of the Kaiser". Prince Alexander and his fathers support for the Nazis, caused disagreements among the Hohenzollerns, with Wilhelm II urging them both to leave the Nazi party. In 1933, Prince Alexander quit the SA and became a private in the German regular army. In 1934, Berlin leaked out that the prince quit the SA because Hitler had chosen 21-year-old Alexander Ferdinand to succeed him as "head man in Germany when he [Hitler] no longer can carry the torch". The report said Joseph Goebbels was expected to oppose the prince's nomination.Unlike many princes untrusted and removed from their commands by Hitler, Prince Alexander was the only Hohenzollern allowed to remain at his post.


Prince Oskar Karl Gustav Adolf of Prussia (27 July 1888 – 27 January 1958) was the fifth son of German Emperor Wilhelm II and Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. Prinz Oskar was married on 31 July 1914 to Countess Ina-Marie Helene Adele Elise von Bassewitz (27 January 1888 – 17 September 1973). On 27 July 1914, prior to the wedding, Ina Marie was granted the title "Countess von Ruppin". Both the civil and religious ceremonies took place at Schloß Bellevue near Berlin, Prussia. Initially the union was a morganatic marriage, but on 3 November 1919 was decreed to be dynastic in accordance with the house laws of the Royal House of Hohenzollern. Henceforth, from 21 June 1920, his wife was titled "Princess of Prussia" with the style Royal Highness. The couple had four children. The Johanniterorden (The Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg)) was a favorite of the Hohenzollerns, historically, and of Prince Oskar’s immediate family specifically. His father and uncle were members, and his brother, Eitel Friedrich, served as its Master of Knights (Herrenmeister), from 1907 to 1926. Prinz Oskar served as the thirty-fifth Master of Knights from Eitel Friedrich's resignation in 1926 until his death in 1958. Modern historians credit Prinz Oskar for saving the ancient order from oblivion during the cultural purges of the Nazi regime. It is from this struggle that he held his anti-Nazi sentiments. After his death in 1958, his youngest son, Prinz Wilhelm Karl, became his permanent successor. Prinz Oskar's grandson and namesake, Dr. Oskar Hohenzollern, is the current (thirty-seventh) Master of Knights. During the 1930s, when the Hohenzollern family attempted to test the waters for a return to power through Nationalist Socialism, Oskar appears to have played along, and eventually was commissioned at Generalmajor zur Verfügung (rank equivalent to brigadier general, "available for assignment"), circa 1 March 1940. As the family fell out of favor with Hitler (with the exception of Oskar’s middle brother, August Wilhelm), it became evident that there would be no restoration of the monarchy through the Nazis.With the early battlefield deaths of Oskar’s son (also named Oskar, killed in Poland, September 1939) and his nephew (Wilhelm, son of the Crown Prince, died of wounds received in France, May 1940) the German people harbored a newfound sentiment for the royal family amidst the totalitarian regime that was Nazi Germany. As a consequence, the majority of royals serving in the German Armed Forces appear to have had their commissions canceled, including Prinz Oskar.


Prince Oskar Wilhelm Karl Hans Kuno of Prussia (12 July 1915 – 5 September 1939); eldest child and son of Prince Oskar and Countess Ina-Marie. He died in active service during World War II in Poland


Prince Karl Franz Josef Wilhelm Friedrich Eduard Paul of Prussia (15 December 1916 – 23 January 1975) was the only child of Prince Joachim of Prussia (17 December 1890 – 18 July 1920)  and his wife Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt (10 June 1898 – 22 May 1983). Prince Joachim was the youngest son and sixth child of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, by his first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. He committed suicide at age 29. After his father's suicide, Karl Franz was taken into custody by his paternal uncle Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia. As the legal head of the House of Hohenzollern, he claimed this right because Emperor Wilhelm had issued an edict placing Hohenzollern powers in Eitel's hands.This was later declared to have been illegal, and his mother was given full custody of him in 1921. She was given this right despite the fact that she had run away from her husband and that there had been numerous servants testifying against her. In 1926, his mother remarried to Johannes-Michael, Baron von Loën. They were divorced in 1935. On 5 October 1940, Karl Franz married Princess Henriette Hermine Wanda Ida Luise of Schönaich-Carolath. She was a daughter of Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, who had been the second wife of Karl Franz's grandfather Emperor Wilhelm II since 1922 (Henriette was thus Kaiser Wilhelm's stepdaughter). They had three children. Karl Franz married secondly, morganatically,[clarification needed] on 9 November 1946, to Luise Dora Hartmann (5 September 1909- 23 April 1961 ). The couple were childless and divorced in 1959.Prince Karl married lastly, on 20 July 1959 in Lima, Peru Doña Eva Maria Herrera y Valdeavellano (10 June 1922 – 6 March 1987). They were married until Prince Karl's death and had two daughters. n World War II, Karl Franz served as a lieutenant in an armoured car division, and at one point was stationed on the Polish front. He was awarded the Iron Cross.

[CyrilSebastian]

The extraordinary story of Prince Charles Edward of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha     
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtqbXDgyFF0

[CyrilSebastian]

In the years preceding World War II Princess Alexandra of Hohenlohe-Langenburg was an early supporter of the Nazi Party, which she joined on May 1, 1937.