Victoria Louise | |||||
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Duchess of Brunswick Princess of Hanover |
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Photograph of Princess Victoria Louise in 1910
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Born |
Marble Palace, Potsdam |
13 September 1892||||
Died | 11 December 1980 Hanover, West Germany |
(aged 88)||||
Burial | Berggarten Mausoleum, Hanover, West Germany | ||||
Spouse | Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick | ||||
Issue |
Ernest Augustus, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick Prince George William Frederica, Queen of the Hellenes Prince Christian Oscar Prince Welf Henry |
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House | Hohenzollern | ||||
Father | Wilhelm II, German Emperor | ||||
Mother | Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein |
Full name | |
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Victoria Louise Adelaide Matilda Charlotte |
Victoria Louise of Prussia (Viktoria Luise Adelheid Mathilde Charlotte; 13 September 1892 – 11 December 1980) was the only daughter and the last child of German Emperor Wilhelm II and Empress Augusta Victoria. She was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria through her father. Her 1913 marriage to Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover was the largest gathering of reigning monarchs in Germany since German unification in 1871, and one of the last great social events of European royalty before World War I began fourteen months later.
Shortly after the wedding, she became the Duchess of Brunswick by marriage. Through her daughter Frederica, Princess Victoria Louise was the maternal grandmother of Queen Sophia of Spain (mother of Felipe VI, King of Spain) and the former King Constantine II of Greece.
Princess Victoria Louise Adelheid Mathilde Charlotte was born on 13 September 1892, the seventh child and only daughter of German Emperor Wilhelm II and Empress Augusta Victoria. "After six sons, God has given us our seventh child, a small but very strong little daughter," the empress wrote in her diary soon after the birth. The young princess was christened on 22 October, and was named after her paternal great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, and her paternal great great grandmother, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Known officially as Victoria Louise, she would be nicknamed "Sissy" by her family.
Historian Justin C. Vovk writes that Victoria Louise was intelligent like her paternal grandmother Empress Frederick, stately and dignified like her mother, but imperious and willful like her father. She enjoyed being the center of attention, and was her father's favourite. According to her eldest brother Crown Prince Wilhelm, Victoria Louise was "the only one of us who succeeded in her childhood in gaining a snug place" in their father's heart. In 1902, her English governess Anne Topham observed in their first meeting that the nine-year-old princess was friendly, energetic, and always quarreling with her next eldest brother, Prince Joachim. Anne later noted that the "warlike" emperor "unbends to a considerable extent when in the bosom of his family," and is the "dominating force of his daughter's life. His ideas, his opinions on men and things are persistently quoted by her."