Prince Claus of the Netherlands, Jonkheer van Amsberg (né Claus George Willem Otto Frederik Geert van Amsberg, born Klaus-Georg Wilhelm Otto Friedrich Gerd von Amsberg; 6 September 1926 – 6 October 2002), was the husband of Queen Beatrix, and the Prince Consort of the Netherlands from Beatrix's ascension in 1980 until his death in 2002.

Claus was born Klaus-Georg Wilhelm Otto Friedrich Gerd von Amsberg, on his family's estate, Schloss Dötzingen, near Hitzacker, Germany on 6 September 1926. His parents were Claus Felix von Amsberg and Baroness Gösta von dem Bussche-Haddenhausen. His father, a member of the untitled German nobility, operated a large farm in Tanganyika (formerly German East Africa) from 1928 until World War II. From 1938 Claus and his six sisters grew up on their maternal grandparents' manor in Lower Saxony; he attended the Friderico-Francisceum-Gymnasium in Bad Doberan from 1933 to 1936 and a boarding school in Tanganyika from 1936 to 1938.

Claus was a member of such Nazi youth organisations as Deutsches Jungvolk and the Hitler Youth (membership in both was mandatory for all fit members of his generation). From 1938 until 1942, he attended the Baltenschule Misdroy.

In 1944, he was conscripted into the German Wehrmacht, becoming a soldier in the German 90th Panzergrenadier Division in Italy in March 1945. He was taken prisoner of war by the American forces at Meran before taking part in any fighting. After his repatriation, he finished school in Lüneburg and studied law in Hamburg. He then joined the German diplomatic corps and worked in Santo Domingo and Ivory Coast. In the 1960s, he was transferred to Bonn.

...
Wikipedia