Princess Regina | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Crown Princess of Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia and Lodomeria | |||||
Born |
Würzburg, Weimar Republic |
6 January 1925||||
Died | 3 February 2010 Pöcking, Germany |
(aged 85)||||
Burial | 1) 10 February 2010, Heldburg Fortress 2) 16 July 2011, Imperial Crypt, Capuchin Church, Innere Stadt, Vienna, Austria |
||||
Spouse | Otto, Crown Prince of Austria | ||||
Issue Detail |
Archduchess Andrea, Hereditary Countess of Neipperg Archduchess Monika, Duchess of Santangelo Archduchess Michaela Archduchess Gabriela Archduchess Walburga Archduke Karl Archduke Georg |
||||
|
|||||
House | Saxe-Meiningen | ||||
Father | Georg, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen | ||||
Mother | Countess Klara Maria von Korff genannt Schmissing-Kerssenbrock | ||||
Religion | Roman Catholic |
Full name | |
---|---|
Regina Helene Elizabeth Margarete |
Styles of Crown Princess Regina of Austria |
|
---|---|
Reference style | Her Imperial and Royal Highness |
Spoken style | Your Imperial and Royal Highness |
Alternative style | Ma'am |
Archduchess Regina, Crown Princess of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia (6 January 1925 – 3 February 2010) née Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen (Regina Helene Elizabeth Margarete Prinzessin von Sachsen-Meiningen) was a member of the House of Wettin.
She was born in Würzburg, the youngest of four children born to the marriage of Georg, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen and Countess Klara Maria von Korff genannt Schmissing-Kerssenbrock. Regina was the only one of her siblings to have children: of her two older brothers, Anton Ulrich died aged twenty, killed in action during World War II, and Frederick Alfred became a Carthusian monk who renounced his succession rights. Her only sister, Marie Elisabeth, died aged three months in 1923, before Regina's birth.
Regina was a second cousin of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and a great-great-granddaughter of Princess Feodora of Leiningen, half-sister of Queen Victoria.
Although the Saxe-Meiningen dynasty was Protestant, she was raised in the Roman Catholic faith of her mother. Regina grew up in the Veste Heldburg which overlooks the Heldburger Land in south Thuringia. Her father, a judge in Meiningen and Hildburghausen, died a captive at the Soviet POW camp at Tschernpowetz on her 21st birthday in 1946. Her mother had fled with her to West Germany. There, while working at a Caritas home for Hungarian refugees, Regina met her future husband.
On 10 May 1951 she married Otto von Habsburg, eldest son of Emperor Charles I of Austria and former crown prince, in the Church of Saint-François-des-Cordeliers in Nancy, capital city of Lorraine, her husband's paternal ancestral lands, with the blessing of Pope Pius XII. After her marriage she used the names Regina, Crown Princess of Austria or Regina von Habsburg. From 10 May 1954 until her death Regina and Otto lived together at his official residence in the Villa Austria, also called the Kaiservilla, in Pöcking near Lake Starnberg.