Germansplaining: The House of Hohenzollern, a dynasty fit for a Netflix drama

New European

20-05-2025

This near-century-long dispute could be a Netflix series featuring imperial palaces, royal corpses, Spanish snuff, a Prussian prince, the Nazis and commies, and a few plot twists.
Some conflicts last for ever. One has just been wrapped up after only 99 years: German authorities and the noble House of Hohenzollern have buried the hatchet, though not in each other, which is progress.
Previously on Hohenzollern Unrestored: from the 18th century, the dynasty supplied Prussia with monarchs, and from 1871 it also provided the new Reich with a few Kaisers. That all came to a screeching halt when the Weimar Republic was declared, and Wilhelm II flounced off into exile in the Netherlands. Family assets were confiscated.
A 1926 law settled who got what, but legal ambiguities remained. They wrangled through the Third Reich, then through the GDR, and even persisted in reunified Germany, long after Prussia itself had been officially dissolved by the allies in 1947. Prussia, which had made up two-thirds of German territory before the war, remained a historical problem area.
At last, this month the federal culture secretary and Prinz Georg Friedrich von Preussen, great-great-grandson of the last emperor Wilhelm II, announced an agreement. The saga, it seems, has a finale.
Georg Friedrich had inherited the legal headache in 1994, aged just 18, when he became head of the once-royal house. By that point, the family had spent decades trying to claw back property and compensation. They even asked the GDR for the right to reside in Potsdam's Cecilienhof Palace (as if the Berlin Wall was just a garden fence). And communist-in-chief Erich Honecker offered 'His Imperial Highness' a proper burial for the Prussian kings Frederick William I and his son, Frederick II 'The Great', at Schloss Sanssouci.
The royal coffins had been taken from Potsdam in 1943, stored in a potash mine in Thuringia, then transferred to Marburg in Hesse (West Germany) and finally to Hechingen near Stuttgart, to the ancestral castle of the Hohenzollern. For the corpses, considering the bumpy journey, RIP must have stood for 'rest in one piece'.
In the end, it was chancellor Helmut Kohl (and not Honecker) who attended the final burial of 'Old Fritz', aka Friedrich II, on the terrace of Sanssouci Palace.
The public authorities refused to pay compensation for Hohenzollern palaces expropriated under Soviet rule – as this is legally denied to anyone who 'significantly aided and abetted' the Nazis. And, well, Kaiser Wilhelm II's oldest son, another Wilhelm, wasn't exactly resistance material.
To bolster their claim, the Hohenzollern family commissioned an expert report from Cambridge historian Christopher Clark. According to Clark, Wilhelm Jr had expressed admiration for Hitler and the Nazis. The ex-crown prince was, however, too insignificant to have 'significantly supported' them.
'As if!', thought the Bundesrepublik, and provided two counter-experts. Both added incriminating facts to Clark's list, emphasizing Wilhelm's enthusiasm for Italian fascism and his PR for the regime. A fourth historian – Team Prussia again – came up with the creative twist that supporting the Nazis may have just been a ruse to restore the monarchy.
A draw. And in 2023, the Hohenzollern finally dropped the lawsuits and returned to negotiations, focusing on movable goods – 27,000 of them, to be precise – including memorabilia, furniture, textiles, paintings, library and archive collections, some of considerable value and historical significance.
Most have been in public museums in Berlin and Brandenburg. And thanks to the new deal, the majority will stay there. Highlights include a Lucas Cranach the Elder portrait of Joachim I of Brandenburg, baroque ivory furniture and the table service for the Breslau City Palace, acquired by Frederick II in 1750.
A newly created non-profit, Hohenzollern Art Foundation, will oversee the collection. The family gets three board seats, but the public sector has a majority say.
Some disputed pieces are returned to Hohenzollern property, however, including seven tabatiers – fancy tobacco tins Frederick the Great used for Spanish snuff. One of them, legend has it, saved his life in the seven years' war by deflecting an enemy bullet.
Two tabatiers will remain in museums on permanent loan, but the other five may soon appear at auctions. So if you've got a few million pounds lying around and a taste for fancy antiques, you're in luck.