Everything about Rupprecht Crown Prince Of Bavaria totally explained
Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria or
Crown Prince Rupert of Bavaria (
German:
Kronprinz Rupprecht von Bayern) (
18 May 1869 –
2 August 1955) was the last
Bavarian
Crown Prince.
His full title was
His Royal Highness Rupprecht Maria Luitpold Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Bavaria, Duke of Bavaria, of Franconia and in Swabia, Count Palatine of the Rhine.. He was also the
Jacobite heir to the thrones of England, Ireland, Scotland, and France from the death of his mother in 1919.
Life
Childhood
Rupprecht was born in
Munich, the eldest son of
Ludwig III, the last
King of Bavaria, and of
Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria-Este, niece of
Duke Francis V of Modena. He was the oldest of thirteen children. His early education from the age of seven was conducted by Freiherr Rolf Kreusser, an Anglo-Bavarian. In his youth, he spent considerable time at
Schloß Leustetten,
Starnberg, and at the families villa near
Lindau,
Lake Constance, where he was able to develop a keen interest in sports. His education was traditional and conservative, but he became the first member of the royal house of Bavaria to spent time at a public school, when he was educated at the
Maximilian-Gymnasium in Munich, where he spent four years. Apart from his schooling and his training in horse riding and dancing, he was also obliged to learn a trade. His choice fell to
carpentry.
Pre-first world war
Rupprechts grandfather,
Luitpold, became de-facto ruler of Bavaria when King
Ludwig II and his successor
Otto both were declared insane in 1886. Rupprechts own position changed somewhat through these events as it became clear that he was likely to succeed to the Bavarian throne one day.
After graduating from high school, he entered the
Bavarian Infanterie-Leibregement as a
Second Lieutenant. He interrupted his military career to study at the universities of Munich and Berlin from 1889 to 1891. He rose to the rank of a
Colonel and became the commanding officer of the
2nd Infanterie Regiment Kronprinz but found enough opportunity to travel extensively to the
Middle East,
India,
Japan and
China. His early journeys were taken with his
Adjutant, Otto von Stetten. Later he was accompanied by his first wife.
At the age of 31, Rupprecht married the Duchess Maria Gabrielle, whom he'd five children with before her early death in 1912 at the age of 34.
In 1906, Rupprecht was made commander of the
Bavarian I Army Corps, with the rank of lieutenant general of the infantry, promoted to full general in 1913.
In 1912, Luitpold was succeeded in this position of
Prinzregent by his son
Ludwig. On 5 November 1913, Ludwig was made king by vote of the Bavarian Senate, becoming Ludwig III. This decision also made Rupprecht the crown prince of Bavaria.
First world war
He commanded the
German Sixth Army at the outbreak of
World War I in
Lorraine. The appointment to command of the Sixth Army was as a result of his royalty, but the level of study he'd performed before he took command was a factor behind his successful direction of the Sixth Army, and he proved to be a highly able commander. Rupprecht succeeded in holding back the French attack in August 1914, in the
Battle of Lorraine, and then launched a counteroffensive later that month. Rupprecht failed to break through the French lines and remained on the
Western Front during the stalemate that would last until the end of the war. He was in command of the 6th Army at
Ypres after this, facing the
British Expeditionary Force.
Rupprecht achieved the rank of
field marshal (
Generalfeldmarschall) in July 1916 and assumed command of Army Group Rupprecht on 28th August that year, consisting of the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th Army. Rupprecht has been considered by some to be one of the best Royal commanders in the Imperial German Army of World War I, possibly even the only one to deserve his command. Rupprecht came to the conclusion much earlier then most other German generals (towards the end of 1917), that the war couldn't be won, seeing an ever increasing material advantage of the allies. He also opposed the "scorched earth" policy during withdraws, but his royal position made a resignation on those grounds impossible for him, even though he threatened it. He eventually resigned from his command on 11th November 1918.
He got engaged to the much younger
Princess Antoinette of Luxembourg in 1918 but the German defeat made this marriage impossible and the engagement was canceled again.
Inter war years
Rupprecht lost his chance to rule Bavaria when it became a republic in the revolutions that followed the war. Although some royalists still referred to him as the King of Bavaria, the 738 years of Wittelsbacher rule ended in 1918. Rupprecht escaped to
Tyrol in fear of reprisals from the brief communist rule in Bavaria under
Kurt Eisner but returned in September 1919. While away from Bavaria, he succeeded his mother,
Maria Theresia of Austria-Este, the last Queen of Bavaria, as the
Jacobite heir. This occurred upon her death on 3 February 1919. As such, under his anglocized name he'd be King Robert I (
King of England) and IV (
King of Scotland), although he's never claimed these crowns.
The changed political situation however allowed him to finally marry the Princess Antoinette of Luxembourg on 7 April 1921. The ceremony was carried out by the
papal nuncio to Bavaria, Eugenio Pacelli, the later Pope
Pius XII.
Shortly after the 1922
Washington Naval Conference, he made a statement regarding the possible ban of
aerial bombing,
poison gas, sea blockades and long range guns, blaming them for a majority of civilian casualties during the last war. He also advocated Germanys participation in future peace conferences and dismissed claims, that
Kaiser Wilhelm II was to blame for the first world war.
While opposed to the
Weimar Republic and never having renounced his rights to the throne, Rupprecht envisioned a
Constitutional monarchy for Bavaria. Upon his fathers death in October 1921, Rupprecht declared his claim to the throne since his father had never formally renounced his crown. While never crowned king, he did become the head of the House of Wittlesbach after his fathers death. He formed the
Wittelsbacher Ausgleichfond in 1923, which was an agreement with the state of Bavaria leaving the most important of the Wittelsbach palaces, like
Neuschwanstein and
Linderhof, to the Bavarian people.
He was never enticed to join the far right in Germany, despite Hitlers attempts to win him over through
Ernst Röhm and promises of royal restoration. Hitler confided in private to a personal dislike of the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince in turn confessed to
King George V at a lunch in London in the Summer of 1934 that he considered Hitler to be insane.
With the worsening of the
Great Depression in 1932, a plan was floated to give Rupprecht dictatorial powers in Bavaria under the title of
Saatskommissar. The plan attracted support from a wide coalition of parties, including the
SPD and the post-war Bavarian
Minister-President (
First Minister)
Wilhelm Hoegner but the legal appointment of Hitler as
Reichskanzler in 1933 by
Hindenburg and the hesitant Bavarian government under
Heinrich Held ended all hopes for the idea.
Rupprecht continued to believe that restoration of the monarchy was possible, an opinion he voiced to the British ambassador
Eric Phipps in 1935.
Second world war
Rupprecht was forced into exile in Italy in December 1939 (the last straw being the confiscation of
Schloß Leustetten by the Nazis) where he stayed as a guest of King
Victor Emmanuel, residing mostly in
Florence. He and his family were barred from returning to Germany. He continued to harbor the idea of the restoration of the Bavarian monarchy, in a possible union with Austria as an independent Southern Germany. In a memorandum in May 1943, he voiced his opinion that Germany would be completely defeated in the war and hoped to spare the German people from the worst when the Nazi regime finally fell. He even mentioned his ambition for the German crown, which had been held by the House of Wittelsbach in the past.
In October 1944, when Germany occupied Hungary, Rupprechts wife and children were captured, while he, still in Italy, evaded arrest. They were first imprisoned in the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp at
Oranienburg,
Brandenburg. In April 1945 they were moved to the
Dachau concentration camp, where they were liberated by the United States Army. Crown Princess Antoinette never recovered completely from the captivity, and died a few years later in
Switzerland, having vowed never to return to Germany after her ordeal. She was buried in
Rome but her heart was, complying with Wittelsbach tradition, enshrined in the
Gnadenkapelle (Chapel of the Miraculous Image) at
Altötting.
Post war
Rupprecht continued to advocate the restoration of the Bavarian monarchy upon his return but found no support from the US occupation authorities, who treated him courteously never the less. General
Eisenhower provided a special plane to fly him back to Munich in September 1945 and he returned to
Schloß Leustetten.
It is estimated that he'd the support of 60 to 70% of the Bavarian population in his goal to restore the monarchy in the post-war years. Of the 170 members of the Bavarian parliament, 70 declared themselves to be monarchists in September 1954, a clear sign of support for the Crown Prince.
Death
Upon his death in 1955 at the age of eighty-six, he was treated like a deceased monarch, receiving a state funeral. He is buried in the crypt of the
Theatinerkirche in
Munich near his grandfather
Prince Luitpold and great-great-grandfather
King Maximilian I, between his first wife Duchess Maria Gabrielle and his oldest son Prince Luitpold.
Children
Rupprecht married twice and had a total of eleven children:
Princess Antoinette of Luxembourg, daughter of William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg — (7 October, 1889 – 31 July, 1954), married on 7 April, 1921 in Lenggries
Honours
Among others, Rupprecht received the following Medals and Orders:
Prussia:
Austria:
Bavaria:
Military ranks (selection)
Second Lieutenant: 1886
Lieutenant General: 1906
General: 1913
Field Marshal: 1916
Retired from service: 11 November 1918Further Information
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