Princess Mafalda of Savoy

Princess Mafalda Maria Elisabetta Anna Romana of Savoy (English: Matilda Maria Elisabeth Anna Romana) ( 2 November 1902 – 27 August 1944) was the second daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and his wife, the former Princess Elena Nikolaievna of Montenegro. The future King Umberto II of Italy was her younger brother.

Biography

Mafalda was born in Rome. In childhood she was close to her mother, from whom she inherited a love for music and the arts. During World War I, she accompanied her mother on her visits to Italian military hospitals.

On 23 September 1925, at Racconigi Castle, Mafalda married Prince Philipp of Hesse, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. Prince Philipp was a loyal member of the German National Socialist (Nazi) political movement, and his brother Christoph was part of the party hierarchy and married to Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark, sister to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the future husband of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.

Prince Philipp's marriage to Princess Mafalda put him in position to act as intermediary between the National Socialist government in Germany and the Fascist government in Italy. However, during World War II, Adolf Hitler (head of the National Socialist party and Chancellor of Germany) believed Princess Mafalda was working against the war effort; he called her the "blackest carrion in the Italian royal house."

Early in September 1943, Princess Mafalda traveled to Bulgaria to attend the funeral of her brother-in-law, King Boris III. While there, she was informed of Italy's surrender to the Allied Powers, that her husband was being held under house arrest in Bavaria, and that her children had been given sanctuary in the Vatican. The Gestapo ordered her arrest, and on 23 September she received a telephone call from Hauptsturmführer Karl Hass at the German High Command; the Hauptsturmführer told Mafalda that he had an important message from her husband. On her arrival at the German embassy, Mafalda was arrested, ostensibly for subversive activities but (it is generally assumed) more probably as a hostage to keep her father, the King of Italy, from opposing German interests in the war. Princess Mafalda was transported to Munich for questioning, then to Berlin, and finally to Buchenwald concentration camp.

On 24 August 1944, the Allies bombed an ammunition factory inside Buchenwald. Some four hundred prisoners were killed and Princess Mafalda was seriously wounded: she had been housed in a unit adjacent to the bombed factory, and when the attack occurred she was buried up to her neck in debris and suffered severe burns to her arm. The conditions of the labour camp caused her arm to become infected, and the medical staff at the facility amputated it; she bled profusely during the operation and never regained consciousness. After the bombing of 24 August the dying Mafalda said to two other Italian inmates of the camp, "Remember me not as an Italian princess, but as an Italian sister^[1]". Mafalda died during the night of 26–27 August 1944; her body was reburied after the war at Kronberg Castle in Hesse.^[2]

The Hessian royal family were not notified of her death although rumors began to circulate towards the end of 1944. Her death was not confirmed until after Germany had surrendered to the invading Allied armies in 1945.

In 1997, the Italian government honored Princess Mafalda with her image on a postal stamp.

Children

Princess Mafalda married Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse on 23 Sept 1925 (civil & religious) at Racconigi Castle near Turin. They had the following children:

• HRH Prince Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse (b. 6 Aug 1926) married HSH Princess Tatiana of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg (31 July 1940 Gießen) {divorced 16 Oct 1874} Had issue.
• HH Prince Heinrich Wilhelm Konstantin Viktor Franz (30 Oct 1927 Villa Savoia, Rome - 18 Nov 1999 Schloß Wolfsgarten, Langen); Unmarried-no issue.
• HH Prince Otto Adolf (3 June 1937 Rome - 3 Jan 1998 Hanover)

1. Married 1st on 5 April 1965 (civil) in Munich and 6 April 1965 (religious) in Trotsberg Angela Mathilde Agathe von Doering (12 Aug 1940 Goslar-11 April 1991 Hanover). {div. 3 February 1969} No issue.
2. Married 2nd on 28 Dec 1988 to Elisabeth Marga Dorothea Bönker^[3] (formerly Wittler)^[4] (b. 31 Jan 1944 Rumburg, Czechoslovakia). {div. 1994} No issue.

• HH Princess Elisabeth Margarethe Elena Johanna Maria Jolanda Polyxene (b. 8 Oct 1940 Villa Savoia, Rome); married 26 Feb (civil) and 28 Feb (religious) 1962 in Frankfurt am Main to Count Friedrich Karl von Oppersdorf (30 Jan 1925 Głogówek–11 Jan 1985 Gravenbruch). Had issue.

Ancestry

Notes