Early Life
Princess Michael of Kent was born on 15 January 1945, in Karlsbad, in the then-German-populated Sudetenland, now known as Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, near the family estates of her Austrian maternal grandmother, Princess Hedwig von Windisch-Graetz, just prior to the defeat and the end of Nazi Germany and of World War II in Europe, and the following expulsion of the German population later that year. Princess Michael is the only daughter of Baron Günther Hubertus von Reibnitz (of German descent) and his Hungarian wife, Countess Maria Anna Carolina Franziska Walpurga Bernadette Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár, a daughter of Count Friedrich Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, who served as an ambassador in Saint Petersburg at the outbreak of World War I. The Princess's father also had a daughter named Margarita, born on 18 January 1924, from his first marriage to Margherita, Countess von Seherr-Thoß.Dated Anthony Dalzell in her earlier years.
Through her mother, the Princess is a descendant of Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II of France, and Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France (his wife), and also of painter Peter Paul Rubens. Her father was a Nazi party member who had held the rank of Sturmbannführer or Major in the SS during the Second World War. He moved to Maforga, Mozambique after divorcing. Marie Christine, her mother, and her brother, Baron Friedrich (Fred) von Reibnitz (now living in Canberra), moved to Australia, where her mother ran a beauty salon. Friedrich became an Australian Government official.
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