Figure 1.--

The last king of Saxony was Friedrich August III. He was born in 1865 and acceded to the throne in 1904. His father was King George of Saxony (1832- ). His mother was Maria Anna of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1843- ). He married Louise Habsburg-Lotharingen in 1891, but they divorced in 1903. They had one child, Prince Ernest Henry (Werrin) of Saxony (1896- ). He married Sophie von Nassau in 1921 and they had three children. Friedrich-August was deposed on November 12, 1918 in the aftermath of World War I. When the deposed king journeyed through Saxony after the 1918 revolution, Saxon people waved to him at railway stations. Whereupon the deposed king is supposed to have said in broad Saxon dialect: "You’re a fine lot of Republicans." He died in 1932. Saxony and other German states still had broad power within the Weimar Republic, but with the NAZIs seizure of power state authority was centraliized. After the NAZI defeat in World War II, Saxony fell within the Soviet zone of occupation and until unification in 1989 was a part of the German Democratic Republic (DDR), East Germany.

Created: October 3, 2002
Last updated: October 3, 2002