Figure 1.--Here is a family photograph with Prince Louis-Ferdinand, his wife Kira and seven children. The photograph is undated, but we estimate was taken in 1952.
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Figure 1.--Here is a family photograph with Prince Louis-Ferdinand, his wife Kira and seven children. The photograph is undated, but we estimate was taken in 1952. |
Louis-Ferdinand and Kira had seven children: four sons and three daughters. The Children were all born in Germany, during the difficult era of World War II and post-War era. We do not know much about the children at this time.
The eldest child, Prince Friedrich Wilhelm was born in 1939. In 1967 he
renounced his rights to marry a commoner, the shock of this action has been
rumored to have caused Kira's death.
The second son, Prince Michael, was born in 1940. He also renounced his rights to the succession to marry a commoner.
The third child, married Duke Friedrich of Oldenburg in 1965. The couple divorced in 1989 and Friedrich remarried to Donata, the widow of Marie-Cecilia's brother, Prince Louis-Ferdinand.
The fourth child was Princess Kira of Prussia, who also
married a commoner.
Louis-Ferdinand's dynastic heir was his
third son and namesake, Prince Louis-Ferdinand who was born in 1944. He
married Countess Donata of Castell-Rudenhausen, a daughter of Siegfried,
Fourth Prince of Castell-Rudenhausen, in 1975. The couple had two children, Prince
Georg-Friedrich and Princess Cornelia-Cecilia. Prince Louis-Ferdinand II was a reserve officer, he died unexpectedly in 1977 during military maneuvers. In 1991, Donata remarried to Duke Friedrich of Oldenburg, her sister-in-law's ex-husband. Prince Georg-Friedrich became the head of the Prussian imperial family upon his grandfather's death in 1994.
The sixth child of Louis-Ferdinand
and Kira was Prince Christian-Sigismund, born in 1946. He was designated
to act as tutor to his orphaned nephew Georg-Friedrich and also to serve as temporary head of the family if Louis-Ferdinand died while his grandson
was a minor. Christian-Sigismund
married a member of the minor German nobility, but since his father authorized the marriage both Christian-Sigismund and his son continue to
hold their rights as members of the Hohenzollern family.
The seventh child of Louis-Ferdinand's was Princess Xenia who was born in 1949. Xenia also married a commoner, whom she divorced within 5 years of their wedding. She had always suffered from frail health and died as a result of a violent asthma attack in 1992.
The portrait here shows a phenomenon. known as age grading. Notice that the youngest boy wears H-barsshorts, the next boy wers suspender shorts, and the two oldest boys wear regular shorts. a HNC reader provides another insight, "I noticed that there is an age progression in the facial expressions of the children and adults. The older people have expressions that were fashionable at the time. Prince Louis-Ferninand has an expression that reminds one of the faces of the 1920s or even earlier, while Fredrich Wilhelm has a more mid-century look. The faces of the younger children, being less acculturated to their era, are more timeless."
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