Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria

Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria (Albrecht Luitpold Ferdinand Michael; 3 May 1905 – 8 July 1996^[1]) was the son of the last crown prince of Bavaria, Rupprecht, and his first wife, Duchess Marie Gabrielle in Bavaria. He was the only child from that marriage that reached adulthood. His paternal grandfather was Ludwig III of Bavaria, the last king of Bavaria, who was deposed in 1918.

Life

Following the

In September 1943, the German Army occupied Italy and the former crown prince went into hiding in Florence. In October 1944, after Germany had occupied Hungary in March, Albrecht and his family were arrested by the Gestapo in the Erdődy mansion in Doba, Hungary, and deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.^[1] Together with his wife, his four children and three of his half-sisters, they were held captive as “special prisoners” and then transported to the Flossenbürg and Dachau concentration camps. Albrecht almost died of dysentery. Badly hit by hunger and disease, the family barely survived. His son Franz writes in his memoirs that they only received one slice of bread, often moldy, per person per day as food. Despite the dramatic situation, according to him, his parents behaved “completely confidently from the start”. “My father used his aggressiveness as his only weapon and attacked anyone who came too close to him.”^[3]

Towards the end of the war, they were interned with other special prisoners, including the family of

Since 1949 Albrecht lived at Berg Palace (Bavaria), 20 kilometres (12 mi) southwest of Munich on Lake Starnberg, in relative seclusion until the end of his life. His son Franz remembers: “He came back after being away for many years, having previously experienced a decade of severe disappointments - including on a human level. He came back to a country where almost all of his real friends had been murdered or fallen. And he had mostly bad memories of some of the people who had survived and whom he met back then... For him, many places were contaminated by the Nazi era. He came back to a Bavaria that was no longer his Bavaria. The resulting isolation accompanied him throughout his life.”^[5]

Albrecht became head of the deposed royal family of Bavaria with the death of his father on 2 August 1955. As head of the House of Wittelsbach, Albrecht was also Grand Master of the Wittelsbach

The Duke appeared in public on important occasions. In order to remain present, he established the annual receptions by the head of the House of Wittelsbach at Nymphenburg Palace, which are still held today, to which around 1,500 guests from state politics, municipalities, churches and sciences, art and medicine as well as friends and relatives are invited.^[6]

In 1959 Albrecht, in an official ceremony, returned the Greek crown jewels (originally made for a Bavarian prince who reigned as Greece's first modern monarch, King Otto) to the Greek nation, accepted by King Paul of Greece. Together with his son Franz and a daughter, he had taken part in the ship tours organized by King Paul of Greece and Queen Frederica in 1954 and 1956, which became known as the “Cruises of the Kings” and were attended by over 100 royals from all over Europe.^[7]

In 1980 Albrecht presided over sumptuous ceremonies in Bavaria celebrating the 800th anniversary of the ascension of the House of Wittelsbach to the Bavarian throne.^[8]

Albrecht was a prolific hunter and deer researcher, collecting 3,425 sets of antlers, now partially shown in a permanent exhibition on his research activities in the former royal castle at Berchtesgaden. He also wrote two books on "the habits of deer"^[1] for which he (and his second wife) received honorary doctorates by the biological faculty of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. While visiting Brazil in 1953, where he acquired a facenda in the rainforest, he encountered Brazilian Mastiffs and took some to Germany, introducing the dog breed to Europe.

Albrecht died on 8 July 1996, aged 91, at Berg Palace. His funeral at

On 21 April 1971 in Weichselboden, Albrecht married Countess Marie-Jenke Keglevich of Buzin (23 April 1921 in Budapest – 5 October 1983 in Weichselboden), daughter of Count Stephan Keglevich de Buzin and Countess Klára Zichy of Zich and Vásonkeö. They had no children.^[12]

At the time of his death, Albrecht had four children from his first marriage, fifteen grandchildren and twenty-six great-grandchildren. His children are:

• Princess Marie Gabrielle (b. 1931), married 1957 Georg, Prince von Waldburg zu Zeil und Trauchburg (1928-2015)
• Princess Marie Charlotte (1931-2018), married 1955 Paul, Prince von Quadt^[13] zu Wykradt und Isny (1930-2011)
• Franz, Duke of Bavaria
  (b. 1933)
• Prince Max, Duke in Bavaria (b. 1937), married 1967 Countess Elisabeth Douglas (b. 1940), great-granddaughter of Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg

Albrecht was styled Prinz von Bayern (Prince of Bavaria) at birth.[14] After the death of his father in 1955 he changed his style to Herzog von Bayern (Duke of Bavaria).^[15]

As head of the House of Wittelsbach, Albrecht was traditionally styled as His Royal Highness the Duke of Bavaria, of

• Württemberg Royal Family: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of the Crown, Special Class^{[citation needed]}
• Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Family: Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 1953^[18]

Foreign honours

•  Vatican: Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre^[19]
•  Liechtenstein: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Principality of Liechtenstein, Grand Star^{[citation needed]}

Ancestry

References