Princess Irmingard of Bavaria - Early Life

Early Life

Irmingard was born at her father's residence, Schloss Berchtesgaden. She spent her childhood between Berchtesgaden and her father's other residences, the Leuchtenberg Palais in Munich, Schloss Leutstetten, and Schloss Hohenschwangau. In 1936 she was sent to England to be educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton (later Woldingham School) where several of her cousins, princesses of Luxembourg, were also enrolled.

In early 1940 Irmingard and her siblings were allowed to go to Italy and join their father who had left Germany in order to avoid conflict with the Nazi authorities. She spent the rest of the war mostly in Rome, Florence, and Padua.

In September 1944 Irmingard was arrested by the Nazis who had been unsuccessful in trying to find and arrest her father. She fell ill from typhus and was sent to a prison hospital in Innsbruck. When she recovered, she was sent to the concentration camp at Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen, where she was reunited with other members of her family who had also been arrested. Later they were transferred to the concentration camps at Flossenbürg and Dachau, before being freed by the Third American Army, April 30, 1945.

Irmingard and her sisters sought refuge in Luxembourg, where their mother's sister Charlotte reigned. After a brief return to Germany, she went to the United States for a year, where her uncle Prince Adolf of Schwarzenberg had a ranch in Montana.