german Houses: The Princely House of Schaumbug-Lippe

The Princely House of Schaumburg-Lippe

House of Lippe

All present members of the Princely Family bear the Title Prince/Princess zu Schamburg.Lippe and if in accordane with the House Laws the style of Hochfürstliche Durchlaucht (High Princely Serene Highness) (HSH).

Ancestor of the Family is Philipp, Count and Edler Lord zur Lippe, 5. and youngest son of Count Simon Vi. zur Lippe and his wife Elisabeth, née Countess of Holstein-Schaumburg. Schaumburg-Lippe was formed in 1647 by the division of the county of Schaumburg between the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel and the Count of Lippe. On 15. November 1640 died with the young and still childless Count Otto V. of Holstein-Schaumburg  the last male representative of his Family.  His inheritance was divided in the following years. Various agreements, the division was established in 1647 and in October 1648 confirmed in the Treaty of Westphalia. As a result of this division, there was one County of Schaumburg (hessian share) which was joined in a Personal-Union with with Hesse-Kassel from 1647 and the County of Schaumburg (Lippe share) in which a collateral line of the Countly House of Lippe ruled. This part was later commonly referred to as Schaumburg-Lippe. 

The existence of the small territory was difficult from the start. First major facilities were together with the Hessian part of the county Schaumburg, inhabited, as (short-term) the estates, especially the lucrative mining (Samtbergbau) of Bückeberge. Moreover, since the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel still remained lords of the Bückeburger, territorial independence was always at risk. As a result of these risks Count Wilhelm (reigned 1748-1777) developed   its specific form of national defense with an admittedly small in absolute terms, standing for the country but a large army of up to 1,000 men He also built the William Stone (Wilhelmstein) and the William Steiner field (Wilhelmsteiner Feld). Earlier, his grandfather, Count Friedrich Christian had questioned the existence of the County because of an unconventional policy. 

After the death of Count Wilhelm the junior line Schaumburg-Lippe-Alverdissen  inherited the County and therefore the Schaumburg-Lippe was reunited with Lippe-Alverdissen. The new Count Philipp Ernst inherited not only an Army  but also many debts who put him in a  deep internal crisis. After his death in 1787 Hesse-Kassel raiesed inheritance rights and occupied the country in 1787 in the Bückeburger dispute, but was forced to retreat by Hanoverian and Prussian intervention.  Afterwards a guardian was appointed for the young Hereditary Count Georg who excercised the regency together wth Georg's mother Countess Juliane, née Princess of Hesse-Philippsthal. After Count Georg Wilhelm (1784-1860)   took over the reign in 1707 he became Fürst on  18 April 1807 after  joining the Confederation of the Rhine. In 1815  the Principality joined  the German Confederation. Fürst Georg Wilhelm, who initially supported the domestic reforms (introduction of a modern estate tax 1812, estates with a peasant representation 1815) had had to find out  in the Congress of Vienna that the country could not expect an extension of territory and therfore there was a mediatization was to expect. Therefore, in the following years several large estates were bought in Southeast Europe, to establish a permanent basis that would ensure the Family. Among others he bought in 1842 the domination Nachod which was in 1856 given as entaile estate (Fideikomiss) to hiy younger son Wilhelm. In 1816 Fürst Georg Wilhelm issued a first feudal constitution  and  in 1854 the Principality joined the he Prussian customs territory. In 1848 he built the Wihelmstein near  Wölpinghausen. Fürst Georg Wilhelm was married to Princess zu Waldeck and Pyrmont. From the marriage there where 9 children. After his death in 1860 he was succeeded by his oldest son who became Fürst Adolf I.

Under the Regency of Fürst Aolf I. the Pricnipalty became in 1871 one of the federal states of the German Empire. Fürst Adolf I. was married to his first cousin Princess Hermine zu Waldeck and Pyrmont. Together they had 8 children.

• Hermine, married to Duke Maximilian of Württemberg
• Georg, who succeeded his father as Fürst
• Hermann
• Ida, married to Fürst Heinrich XXII. Reuß zu Greiz
• Otto Heinrich, he married Anna von Köppen, who was created Countess of Hagenburg. There are descendants of the marriage who bear the tlte Count/Countess of Hagenburg.
• Adolf, married to Princess Viktoria of Prussia one of the daughters of Friedrich III., German Emperor and King of Prussia

Fürst Adolf I.died in 1893 and was succeded by his oldest son Georg. From 1895-1905 Fürst Georg tried to assert his hereditary claims to the Principality of Lippe in a very historically significant dispute of succession, but he did not succeed. From 1906 to 1909 the poet Hermann Lons lived in Schaumburg-Lippe and summed up his negative experiences with the local particularism in the sharp satire "duodecimo" at ußischen customs territory. Fürst Georg was married to Princess Maria Anna of Saxe-Altenburg. The couple had 9 children.

• Adolf II., who succeeded his father as Fürst
• Moritz
• Wolrad, who succeeded his childless brother Adolf as Fürst
• Stephan, married to Duchess Inegborg Alix of Oldenburg. Their daughter Marie-Alix married Duke Peter of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg
• Heinrich, married  to Countess Maria-Erike of Hardenberg. They had one daughter  Dagmar
• Friedrich Christian, first he married Countess Alexandra zu Castell-Rüdenhausen. after her death he married Princess Marie-Luise zu Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and in 1969 he married Hélène Mayr. From his firt marriage he had 2 children a daughter Princess Christine and a son, Prince Albrecht-Wolfgang who is married and has decendants.  

In 1911 Fürst Georg died and his oldest son succeeded him as Fürst Adolf Ii. In the few years of his reign several building proejcts where realized. The construction of the massive mausoleum Bückeburg should be the beginning of the building of a large museum and art site in Bückeburg and Bad Eilsen. Executed where  Princely craft school, which later became the Prince Adolf Workshop for Ceramic Art, and the Princely  Music school in  Bückeburg, later Army Music School. Her most famous schoolboy was James Last. Further plans thwarted by the First World War. The health resort of Bad Eilsen near Bückeburg benefits until today from the construction program, which began in the First World War. All great still existing and occupied buildings were completed by the early 1920s and established the reputation of Bad Eilsens as bad of Princes and Kings in the famous Golden Twenties. On 15.November 1918 Fürst Adolf II. abdicated. He married in 1920 the actress Ellen Bischoff-Korthaus, a divorced Princess zu Bentheim and Steinfurt. The marriage was a  morganatic marriage  but i remained childess. On 26.03.1936 Fürt Adolf Ii. and ghis wife where killed in an plane crahs in Zumpango, Mexico. 
Successor of Fürst Adolf II. as Head of the Princely House was his younger brother Wolrad.  Prince Wolrad asked in November 1936 the them prussian Prime Minister Hermann Goebbels to change his name to Fürst which was against the Weimarer constituin from 1919. Goerrgin referred him to the Wilhelm Frich, the prussian and Reichs Minister of the interior. On 1 September 1936 Fürst Wolrad  submitted a backdated application for inclusion in the NSDAP,  who was endorsed by Rudolf Hess on the 7th December: The admission to the NSDAP was backdated to 1928 In 1937 Fürst Wolrad held the post of leader of the SA storm (Reiterstandarte the SA 65-Detmold). From 1940, he secured the General gouvernemt  in Cracow and Lemberg with the 365th Division replenishment leader On 14 April 1942 he became commander of the supply rod zbV (special use) 365 This supply headquarters remained the senior field commander (OFK) assumed the 365th On 1 August 1941, the OFK 365 was moved from Krakow to Lemertg. It acted there in an area that was not operational area of the Army. In the denazification process he was represented by Bruno Penny, General Counsel Main Trusteeship Office East (HTO) which had been founded by Hermann Goerging. A passing place pf the HTO had been transferred to Bückeburg in early. Task of the HTO was to seize particular Jewish and Polish land in the General Government. In 1949 Fürst Wolrad  was ranked in the category IV. which means that he has supported Nazism. Already before the Second World War his major source of income was the mildly radioactive sulfur and mud Eilsen close to Bückeburg where especially gout, rheumatism and metabolic disorders found healing which was in his posession. It was mostly attended by the german aristocraty. In 1945 it was seized as German headquarters of the Royal Air Force. It was evacuated by the British in 1955, Eilsen subsequently fell back into possession of the Family and in  1957 it was sold  with all the bathing facilities, the big hotels in the resort area and the spa at the regional insurance agencies Berlin and Hannover. 
Fürt Wolrad was married to his distant cousin Princess Bathilds zu Schaumburg-Lippe. Together the had 4 children

• Georg Wilhelm, who fell in 1945
• Philipp-Ernst, who succeeded his father as Head of the Princely House
• Konstantin, who was first married to Sigrid Knape and in second marriage to Petra Maas. From his first marriage he has 2 children, York and Tatiana and from his second marriage a son, Oliver
• Viktoria Luise, married first to Count Karl-Georg of Stackelberg, and after his death in second marriage to Jürgen von Goerne.

Fürst Wolrad died in 1962 and his second born son Philipp-Ernst became the new Head of the Family. Until 1993 Fürst Philipp-Ernst was the Head of the Princely Court Chamber (Hofkammer) in which the private wealth of the Princely Family is managed, among other Bückeburg Castle. Fürst Philipp-Ernst was married to Baroness Benita of Tiele-Winckler. There where 2 sons from this marriage. Hereditary Prince Georg-Wilhelm who died in 1983 in an motorcycle accident, and the present Fürst Alexander. Fürst Philipp-Ernst died in 2003 after a longer illness. 


TSH Fürst Alexander and
Fürstin Nadja Anna

The new Fürst Alexander had already been since 1993 the General Manager of the Princely Court Chamber. In the same year he married Prince Marie-Louise (Lily) zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg but the marriage was not successfull and was divorced in 2002. In 2007 Fürst Alexander married second the lawyer from Munich Nadja Anna Zsoeks. 
As a patron, or in other capacities Fürst Alexander operates  for several German  and German-Israeli  non-profit organizations. He is a member of the FDP, for which he is engaged in newspaper articles and political campaigns. He was a deputy member of the 14th Federal Assembly on 30 June 2010 [11] and a member of the 15th Federal Assembly.  Thus he participated in  18 March 2012 in the election of the German President


HSH Hereditary Prince
Heinirch Donatus

 Fürst Alexander has 3 children

from his first marriage

• Heinrich Donatus

and from his second marriage:

• Felipa
• Philomena

There is also a junior line of the Princely Family the so called Nachoid line descending from Prince Wilhelm. In 1856 Fürst Georg Wilhelm gave the domination Nachod who also incldued the Castle Ratiboritz as entaile estate (Fideikomiss) to his youngest son Wilhelm.  Prince Wilhelm was married to Princess Bathildis of Anhalt-Dessau. The couple had 9 children

• Charlotte (1864-1946), married to King Wilhelm II. of Württemberg
• Franz Josef (1865-1881)
• Friedrich (1868-1945), succeeded his father as owner of Nachod
• Albrecht (1869-1942), married to Duchess Elsa of Württemberg, thiir oldest son Prince Max was an german-austrian racing driver. Albrecht's daughter Bathildis married her distant cousin, Fürst Wolrad zu Schaumburg-Lippe
• Maximilian (1871-1904), married to Duchess Olga of Württemberg
• Bathilids (1873-1962, married to Fürst Friedrich zu Waldeck and Pyrmont
• Adelheid (1875-1971), married to Duke Ernst II. of Saxe-Atleberg, The marriage was later divorced
• Alexandra (1879-1949)

Prince Wilhelm oldest Friedrich son was thje last owner of the domination Nachod. As a german citizen he had to leave Nachod after the Second World War on 12. May 1945. He then went to Sackisch in Austria who he died in 1945. 

Prince Friedrich was first married to Prince Louise of Denmark, a daughter of the later King Frederik VIII. who died in 1906 at meningitis. Three years later he married Princess Antoinette of Anhalt.
children from his first marriage. 

• Princess Marie Luise married to Princess Sigismund of Prussia
• Prince Christian, married to Princess Feodora of Denmark
  • Prince Wilhelm, married to Ilona Hentschel von Gilgenheim, they have 2 children, Prince Christian married to Lena Giese and Princess Desiree who is married to Michael Iuel, from danish nobility.  
  • Prince Waldemar, he was first married to Anne-Lise Johansen, a danish court photograper. Afterwards he had to shortliving marriages and in 2008 he married Gertraud Antonia Wagner-Schöppl a former austiran politican. he adopted her son Mario-Max from a previous marriage. Since 2008 he calls himsel Fürst zu Schaumburg-Lippe-Nachod
  • Princess Marie Louise
  • Prince Harald
• Princess Stephanie, married to Fürst Viktor Adolf zu Bentheim and Steinfurt

children from his second marriage:

• Prince Leopold
• Prince Wilhelm

TSH Prince Wilhelm, Princess Ilona and
Prince Christian