Konrad, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen

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John Frederick Konrad Charles Edward Horst Arnold Matthew, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, German: Johann Friedrich Konrad Carl Eduard Horst Arnold Matthias Prinz zu Sachsen-Meiningen (b. Ziegenberg, 14 April 1952) is the current head of the ducal family of Saxe-Meiningen and nominal Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and Hildburghausen.

He is the son of late Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and his second wife Baroness Vera Schäffer of Bernstein. Frederick Konrad was the second son of Bernhard but the headship of the house of Saxe-Meiningen passed to him on his father's death in 1984 because his older brother Frederick was born as a result of a morganatic marriage.

Duke Konrad is unmarried.

There has been talk that he will make his nephew Frederick Constantin (b. 1980), the only son of his late elder half-brother, as the heir. Prince Frederick Constantin is born of the latter's marriage with Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which is regarded to fully compensate in today's world the late Frederick's morganatic birth. The boy's succession depends then on the application of old House Laws: whether Duke Konrad is the only living agnate (as he is in the Meiningen branch, the holders of the sovereign state of Saxe-Meiningen-Hildburghausen) and entitled to decide the de-morganatization matter alone; or whether the entire Meiningen house is part of a larger agnatic house where there yet survives other branches of agnates.

If the de-morganatization does not take place, the childless Duke Konrad's heirs are the branch of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the other surviving branch that descends from Duke Ernest the Pious of Gotha and Altenburg. The genealogically senior agnate of that branch is currently Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester who (if duke Konrad predeceases him) then will succeed as heir to the duchies of Meiningen and Hildburghausen.


Preceded by
Duke Bernhard
Head of the Ducal House of Saxe-Meiningen
1984-present
Incumbent
Designated heir:
possibly Prince Frederick Constantin