Regina Prinzessin von Sachsen-Meiningen

Regina Helene Elisabeth Margarete of Saxe-Meiningen was born on January 6, 1925, in Würzburg and died on February 3, 2010, in Pöcking. She belonged to the House of Wettin and became best known as the wife of the Austrian Archduke Otto of Habsburg-Lorraine, who, after the death of Emperor Charles I in 1922, was regarded as head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and a claimant to the thrones of Austria and Hungary. Regina was the youngest of four children of Hereditary Prince Georg of Saxe-Meiningen and Countess Claire-Marie von Korff. Her mother was the daughter of Count Alfred von Korff and Baroness Helena von Hilgers. Although the family had originally been Protestant, Regina was raised as a Catholic, like her mother. Her elder sister, Marie Elisabeth, had died in 1923 at the age of only three months. Her brother Anton Ulrich was killed in action during the Second World War at the age of 20. Her other brother, Friedrich Alfred, renounced his succession rights and entered a monastery in 1953 as a Carthusian monk under the name Dom Marianus. Regina grew up in Heldburg in southern Thuringia. Her father worked as a judge in Meiningen. Her childhood and youth were shaped by the political upheavals of the period: she was born during the Weimar Republic, a few years before Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933. In 1937, her uncle Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld married the Dutch Crown Princess Juliana. The end of the Second World War brought severe losses for Regina and her family. Her father was taken prisoner by the Soviets and died in 1946 at the age of 53 in a camp near Cherepovets. Regina and her mother managed to leave the Soviet occupation zone and reach the western occupation zones, which became the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. That same year, Regina met Otto of Habsburg-Lorraine in Munich. At the time, she was working for the relief organization Caritas in a Hungarian refugee camp. Otto was the eldest son of the Austrian Emperor Charles I, who had been deposed in 1918, and Empress Zita of Bourbon-Parma. Their meeting led to a relationship that brought together the descendants of two formerly ruling German and Austrian dynasties, both shaped by war, political upheaval, and the loss of their traditional status. On May 10, 1951, Regina married Otto in the Church of the Cordeliers in Nancy. The church served as the burial place of the Dukes of Lorraine, from whom Otto was descended. The marriage took place with the blessing of Pope Pius XII. The couple would have preferred to marry in Mariazell, Austria, but this was not possible at the time because the Habsburg-Lorraines were still living in exile under Austrian law. During the ceremony, a copy of the Mariazell Shrine’s image of the Virgin Mary adorned the altar. Through her marriage, Regina became the last recipient of the Order of Elisabeth. The couple settled permanently in Bavaria. From May 10, 1954, they lived in a villa in Pöcking on Lake Starnberg, known as “Villa Austria” or the “Imperial Villa.” Regina and Otto had seven children: Andrea Maria; Monika Maria Antonia Roberta Raphaela; her twin sister Michaela Maria Madeleine Kiliána; Gabriela Maria Elisabeth Charlotte Felicitas Antonia; Walburga Maria Franziska Helene Elisabeth; Karl Thomas Robert Maria Francis George Bahnam; and Paul Georg Maria Dominic Joseph. The children married members of various noble families, including the families von Neipperg, Casanova-Cárdenas, Meister, Douglas, Thyssen-Bornemisza, and Oldenburg. In her later years, Regina remained closely connected to her family’s history. On December 2, 2005, she suffered a stroke and was treated at the hospital in Nancy. After several months of recovery, she attended the transfer of the remains of her mother and her brother Anton Ulrich from the cemetery in Heldburg to the restored family crypt at Heldburg. Her father’s remains, which had until then rested in Cherepovets, were also buried there in spring 2007. In 2007, Regina received 47 paintings that had belonged to her father. The works came from the family collection and had been confiscated in the Soviet occupation zone after the Second World War. Four of the paintings remained on permanent loan at Friedenstein Castle in Gotha. Regina died in Pöcking on February 3, 2010. She was buried in the crypt of Heldburg on February 10. After her husband’s death on July 4, 2011, her body, apart from her heart, was transferred to Austria and buried on July 16 in Vienna’s Imperial Crypt, near Otto’s tomb. Her heart remained in an urn in the crypt at Heldburg. Among other honors, Regina served as Grand Mistress of the Order of the Starry Cross and was a Dame Grand Cross of the Sovereign Order of Malta.