Windisch-Graetz

The House of Windisch-Graetz, also spelled Windisch-Grätz, was a princely family in the Austrian Empire, serving the Habsburg dynasty.

The name derives from the town of Windischgrätz in the Duchy of Styria, which is today Slovenj Gradec in the Carinthia region of Slovenia. According to the Almanach de Gotha, the family was first recorded in 1242.

Alfred Candidus Ferdinand zu Windisch-Graetz was elevated to the rank of Imperial Prince in 1804. The Holy Roman Empire having been abolished, he and his brother Veriand were both created Princes of the Austrian Empire in 1822, Alfred and his successors being the first line of Princes of Windisch-Graetz and Veriand and his successors the second line ^[1].

Great Britain's Princess Michael of Kent is descended from this family through her maternal grandmother.

House members

• Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz (1787–1862), Austrian Field Marshal
• Alfred III, Prince of Windisch-Grätz (1851–1927), Austrian Statesman
• Otto Weriand, Prince of Windisch-Grätz (1873–1952), who was married to Archduchess Elisabeth Marie of Austria.
• Stephanie, Princess of Windisch-Graetz (1909–2005)
• Franz Joseph, Prince of Windisch-Graetz
• Ernst, Prince of Windisch-Graetz
• Princess Marie of Windisch-Graetz (1856–1929), married 1881 with Duke Paul Frederick of Mecklenburg
• Baroness Marie-Christine Agnes Hedwig Ida von Reibnitz (1945), who was married to Prince Michael of Kent.
• Prince M.Hugo of Windisch-Graetz (1955), married 1990 with Archduchess Sophie Franciska of Austria

Windisch-Graetz castles in present Slovenia

External links

• family tree

References