Nazi Era
Ernst Heinrich opposed the Nazis after they formed a government on 30 January 1933. However, he failed to read the political situation correctly. He believed that Hitler could be stopped by the conservative political opposition and in the spring of 1933, he joined the Stahlhelm, hoping he could escape the influence of the Nazis. On 1 July 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives, he was arrested. He was interned in the concentration camp in Hohnstein for five days.
After his release, Ernst Heinrich retired to Moritzburg Castle in Saxony. He was an avid hunter and had to keep in touch with Nazi leaders such as Hermann Göring, who, as Master of the Hunt, was interested in the forests owned by the Wettins, and Martin Mutschmann, the Nazi governor of Saxony. In 1938, he received King Carol II of Romania in his castle, and in 1939 he had extensive political discussions with Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, who had been mayor of Leipzig and was later active in the German resistance. A few weeks before the outbreak of World War II, Ernst Heinrich was drafted into the Abwehr group IV in Dresden.
In 1943, he openly expressed doubts that the death of his brother Georg, Crown Prince of Saxony had been an accident. The Gestapo then arrested and questioned him. However, there were no further personal consequences, as the Nazis were still reluctant to confront a member of a former royal family.
Ernst Heinrich was an admirer of the art of Käthe Kollwitz. After she lost her home when Berlin was bombed in 1943, he invited her to move to Moritzburg, where she lived and worked at the Rudenhof in the immediate vicinity of the castle, until she died in April 1945.
In February 1945, nearby Dresden was bombed. In March 1945, Ernst Heinrich fled to Sigmaringen to escape the advancing Red Army. Before he left, Ernst Heinrich and his sons buried most of their valuables in 40 crates in the Königswald forest. Most of this treasure was found by the Red Army and carried off to the Soviet Union. However, three crates full of treasure were rediscovered in 1995.
Read more about this topic: Prince Ernst Heinrich Of Saxony, Life
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