Princess Margaret of Prussia - Family Tragedies

Family Tragedies

Margaret's elder sons, Friedrich Wilhelm and Maximilian, were killed in action during World War I. Prince Maximilian, Princess Margaret's second and favorite son, was serving near Aisne when he was seriously wounded by machine gun fire in October 1914. He died soon afterward and his body was secretly buried in the village of Caestre by the local people, who learned he was the Kaiser's nephew. The priest refused to identify the grave until the Germans had left Belgium and a compensation was paid. Max's younger brother Wolfgang appealed for help to the British authorities, and eventually, after an enquiry was made, Maximilian's body was returned to his family. Princess Margaret's oldest son, Friedrich Wilhelm died on 12 September 1916 at Kara Orman in Romania. He was killed in close fighting; his throat was slit by an enemy bayonet.

Two other sons, Philipp and Christoph, embraced Nazism, hoping that Hitler would one day restore the German monarchy. Philipp married Princess Mafalda, daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Due to his close relations with the King of Italy, Philipp was appointed in 1939 to Hitler's personal staff, since he could be a useful channel of communications between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. When he realised the reality of Nazism, he tried to resign, but he was not able to do so. He used his position and his money to provide passports for Jews and help them to escape to the Netherlands. Publicly, he continued with his duties and occasionally he made private missions in Italy for Hitler. When Italy capitulated, he personally informed Hitler. Hitler's revenge recoiled on Philipp, who was imprisoned in a concentration camp for political prisoners. Mafalda was taken to Buchenwald, where she died of a haemorrhage caused by the amputation of her arm, which had been mangled in a bombing raid on the camp.

Landgravine Margaret's fifth son, Christoph, was a staunch supporter of the German war effort, but after the Battle of Stalingrad, he became frustrated by the limitations placed on his own role in the conflict, and increasingly critical of the German leadership. The Nazi regime turned against his family and he was planning to leave the Nazi party when, in 1943, he died in a plane crash. He was married to Princess Sophie of Greece, a sister of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II's husband.

Landgravine Margaret also lost another one of her daughters-in-law during the war. Wolfgang's wife, Princess Marie Alexandra, when she and seven other women who were aid workers were killed in a bomb attack on Frankfurt on 29–30 January 1944. The cellar in which they had taken refuge collapsed under the weight of the building, rendering Marie Alexandra's body barely recognisable.

Landgravine Margaret, very much the matriarch, was at the centre of her large and dynamic family. During and after World War II, she took care of many of her grandchildren and tried to preserve a centre at Friedrichshof as their parents faced various tribulations.