Figure 1.--We believe this may be a portrait of Prince Frederich. A note with this portrait says that this Prince Federich was born in 1924, but we can find no Hohenzollern Prince Frederich born in 1924. |
Prince Frederick was born in 1911. We have little information about his life. He appears to have moved to England, but I am
not sure just when. He married Lady Brigid Katherine Rachel Guinness in England (St.Cecilia's Church, Little Hadham, Herts.)
after World War II in 1945. They had five children which were born in England. Frederick assumed the surname Mansfield
says Weir, but in Debrett's he has the surname of Von Preussen. He dissapeared on April 19, 1966 and his drowned body was
found on May 1 at Reinhartshausen.
He was the son of Crown Prince Wilhelm and Empress ??.
Fredericks Father was Crown Prince Frederich Wilhelm of Prussia and
the German Empire. He was the son of Wilhelm II and Empress Auguste-Victoria. The Crown Prince was raised to be the Kaiser like his father, but the Hohenzollern family would be deposed as a result of
World War I and Frederich Wilhelm would never rule.
Princess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin came to the attention of the Kaiser and his wife as a possible bride for their son. The Crown Prince attended the wedding of Friedrich Franz IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin with Princess Alexandra of Hanover on July 4, 1904. There he met the 17-year-old sister of the bridegroom, Princess Cecilie. The beauty of the girl left an overwhelming impression on the Crown Prince. After his return to Potsdam he could not hide his affection. Pretty soon, arrangements were under way for the upcoming nuptials. Princess Cecilie was the perfect dynastic match for the Crown Prince. She was the daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III and his wife the Grand Duchess Anastasia Michailowna Romanov, a niece of Tsar Alexander II. She was born on September 20, 1886 at the Palace in Schwerin. She was the younger sister of Alexandrine who married the future King Christian X of Denmark. Her father was ill and the family spent 6 months of the year in the South of France in warmer climate trying to improve his health. Cecilie learned to speak French fluently, as well as German, English, and Russian.
Crown Prince Friederich-Wilhelm and Cecilie had six children. At this time we have only limited information about them, although the photographic record gives us considerable information about how they were dressed. Two of the boys joined the Wehrmacht.
Wilhelm was the oldest child. He was brought up in the pomp and cerremony of the royal family. No one could have conceived when he was a younger child that he would not father his grandfather and eventually father to be Kaiser of Germany. He was 12 years old when Germany had to sue for peace and his Grandfather was forced to abdicate. After the War, Kaiser Wilhelm II, insisted that Prince Wilhelm renounce his rights of succession when he mairred a commoner, Dorothea von Salviati in 1933. Wilhelm Frederich was in many ways a typical Hohenzollerens. Like many of his ancestors, he pursued a military career and was every inch a Prussian soldier. He joined the NAZI Party, mistakingly believing like his father and uncles that the NAZIs would reinstante the Hohenzollerens. He died in battle during World War II in 1940.
When his older brother renounced his rights of succession, Louis Ferdinand became the Hohenzolleren heir apparent, taking responsibility of family affairs for several decades.
I know very little about Prince Hubertus. Like his father and uncles, Hubertus and his brithers were largely dressed in sailor suits as boys. This was true even after his Grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated.
Prince Frederick was the fourth son and born in 1911.
Cecilie was of course named after her mother.
I have little written information on how the children of Crown Prince Frederich Wilhelm were dressed, but a variety of available images provide quite a bit of information. Their mother clearly like to dress them all in identical outfits, despite the differences in their age. They were outfitted in dresses as babies, but it looks like the boys were breeched at a fairly early age. I'm not sure about the Crown Prince, but photographs of his younger brothers show them wearing short pants by about 3 years of age. Several of the available photographs show the boys wearing identical satin short pants outfits, with matching blouse and short pants. The blouse has an open square cut neck without a collar. It is worn with a matching belt and knee-length shorts. With this outfit the boys wear three-quarter length socks and white strap shoes with little boys. Their mother must have liked this outfit because several pictures show the boys wearing it at different ages.
Princes Cecilie appears to have liked dressing her sons identically. Many photographs show the boys wearing identical outfits even when their was considerable differences in the ages of the boys. This contrasts with the practices in England where gradual small distinctions were made in the outfits worn by the princes to mark differences in ages. The outfits of the German royals, however, appear much more fashonable, in contrast to their English cousins who after breeching, almost always were dressed in sailor suits or kilts.
The children of the Crown Prince all have short hair styles, even as younger boys. There are some hair styles, however, that are difficult to describe. Some of the boys at a very very young age had a kind of spiked hair styles. As somewhat olders boys they had their hair styled in a a kind of rolled-top fashion. It was, however, kept quite short on the side.
We have little information about his life. We are not sure if Frederick remained in Germany after the NAZI takeover in 1933. He appears to have moved to England, but I am not sure just when. Frederick assumed the surname Mansfield says Weir, but in Debrett's he has the surname of Von Preussen.
Frederick was about 28 years old when German invaded Poland initiaiting World War II. Frederick's older brother Wilhelm was killed in France in 1940. We are not sure what Frederick did during the War.
Frederick married Lady Brigid Katherine Rachel Guinness in England (St.Cecilia's Church, Little Hadham, Herts.) after World War II in 1945. Her father was Rupert Edward Cecil Lee Guinness, Earl of Iveagh (1874- ). Her mother was Lady Gwendolen Florence Mary Onslow (1881- ).
They had five children which were born in England.
He dissapeared on April 19, 1966 and his drowned body was found on May 1 at Reinhartshausen.
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