Early Life
Adolphus Frederick George Ernest Albert Edward of Mecklenburg was born in Neustrelitz, the third child and eldest son of Adolphus Frederick V, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, and his wife Princess Elisabeth of Anhalt. He attended a gymnasium school in Dresden and later studied jurisprudence in Munich along with serving in the army. He became heir apparent with the title Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz following the death of his grandfather Grand Duke Frederick William on 30 May 1904.
Adolphus Frederick and his brother Duke Karl Borwin are said to have agreed that Adolphus Frederick could devote his life to his painting, while Karl Borwin would marry and continue the dynasty. Ultimately, this could never be realised, as Karl Borwin was killed during a duel with Count George Jametel in 1908. Adolphus Frederick was subsequently reported to be engaged to various European princesses, including Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia the only daughter of the German Emperor William II and his consort, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein.
He succeeded as Grand Duke on his death of his father on 11 June 1914, just a few months before the outbreak of World War I. Adolphus Frederick was reported to have married morganatically with attempts made to force him to divorce his wife and conduct an equal marriage, but he was reported to have refused. Recent research has disproved claims that the operatic soprano Mafalda Salvatini, an Italian by birth, but raised mainly in Paris, and a star at the Berlin State Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, had been his mistress from 1908 until his suicide in 1918 and that her two sons, the set and costume designer and painter Rolf Gérard and Charles E. (Horst) Gérard were illegitimate children of the Grand Duke.
Read more about this topic: Adolphus Frederick VI, Grand Duke Of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)
“That poor little thing was a good woman, Judge. But she just sort of let life get the upper hand. She was born here and she wanted to be buried here. I promised her on her deathbed she’d have a funeral in a church with flowers. And the sun streamin’ through a pretty window on her coffin. And a hearse with plumes and some hacks. And a preacher to read the Bible. And folks there in church to pray for her soul.”
—Laurence Stallings (1804–1968)