Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz

Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz
A photograph of Heinrich XXXII in uniform.
Born	(1878-03-04)4 March 1878 Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Died	6 May 1935(1935-05-06) (aged 57) Bad Tölz, Germany
Spouse	Princess Marie Adelheid of Lippe
Full name German: Heinrich XXXII Prinz Reuss zu Köstritz
House	House of Reuss
Father	Prince Heinrich VII Reuss of Köstritz
Mother	Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz (4 March 1878 – 6 May 1935) was the eldest surviving son of Prince Heinrich VII Reuss of Köstritz and his wife Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

As Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was childless for the first eight years of her marriage, Heinrich XXXII was third-in-line to the Dutch throne, after the claims of his cousin William Ernest, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Princess Marie Alexandrine, who was Wilhelmina's cousin, William Ernest's aunt and Heinrich's mother. William Ernest had made it clear however that he would not give up his title of Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach if that was a requirement for becoming king of the Netherlands. Furthermore, Marie Alexandrine was elderly and prone to sickness. Thus it was assumed that she would give up her claim in favor of her eldest son, Heinrich XXXII. Consequently, Heinrich was for all intents and purposes the heir presumptive to the Dutch throne until the birth of the future Queen Juliana in 1909.

Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz was born on 4 March 1878 in Constantinople, where his father, who had previously been ambassador to Vienna, was German ambassador. The House of Reuss was one of Europe's oldest royal families, and Heinrich belonged to a younger branch of the family. The House of Reuss practises an unusual system of naming and numbering the male members of the family, every one of which for centuries has borne the name "Heinrich". While most royal and noble houses give numbers only to the reigning head of the house, and that in the order of his reign, the Reuss Younger Line used a numbering sequence for all male family members which began and ended roughly as centuries began and ended. In consequence of this naming system, certain heads of the Reuss Younger Line have had the highest numbers attached to their name of any European nobility.

Through his maternal grandmother Princess Sophie of the Netherlands, Heinrich XXXII could claim descent from William II of the Netherlands. As such, he was a second cousin of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, whose childless marriage was increasingly causing speculation about the succession to the Dutch throne.