en, Frederick Christian Albert Leopold Anno Sylvester Macarius , title =

Margrave of Meissen This article lists the margraves of Meissen, a march and territorial state on the eastern border of the Holy Roman Empire. History King Henry the Fowler, on his 928-29 campaign against the Slavic Glomacze tribes, had a fortress erected on a ...

, image = Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony.jpg , reign = 18 February 1932 – 9 August 1968 , caption = , predecessor = Frederick Augustus III , successor = Maria Emanuel , succession = Head of the Royal House of Saxony , spouse = Princess Elisabeth Helene of Thurn and Taxis , issue =

Maria Emanuel, Margrave of Meissen Prince Maria Emanuel of Saxony, Duke of Saxony, Margrave of Meissen (31 January 1926 – 23 July 2012) was the head of the Royal House of Saxony. Life Born at Prüfening Abbey in Regensburg, Bavaria, he was the eldest child of the then Heredit ...

Princess Maria Josepha
Princess Anna
Albert, Margrave of Meissen
Princess Mathilde , house = Wettin , father =

Frederick Augustus III of Saxony en, Frederick Augustus John Louis Charles Gustav Gregory Philip von Wettin , image = Friedrich August III van Saksen.jpg , caption = Frederick Augustus III (1914) , succession = King of Saxony , reign = 15 October 1904 – ...

, mother =

Archduchess Luise of Austria, Princess of Tuscany Archduchess Louise of Austria (2 September 1870, in Salzburg – 23 March 1947, in Brussels) was by marriage Crown Princess of Saxony as the wife of the future King Frederick Augustus III. Life Crown Princess of Saxony Louise was born on 2 Sept ...

, birth_date = , birth_place =

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

, German Empire , death_date = , death_place =

Samedan Samedan (, ) is a town and municipality in the Maloja Region in the Swiss canton of Grisons. It is served by Samedan railway station on the Rhaetian Railway network and by the Samedan Airport. History Samedan is first mentioned in 1139 as '' ...

, Switzerland , burial_date = , burial_place =Royal Chapel in Königskapelle in

Karrösten Karrösten is a municipality and a village in the district of Imst, located 1.3 km east of Imst. The village was founded because of mining in the 16th century. Fruits and maize as well as sweet chestnut ''Castanea sativa'', the sweet c ...

in North Tyrol , religion = Roman Catholicism Albert Leopold Friedrich Christian Sylvester Anno Macarius, Prince of Saxony, Duke of Saxony, Margrave of Meissen (31 December 1893 – 9 August 1968) was the second son of Frederick Augustus III, the last reigning king of Saxony before the abolition of the monarchy in 1918. Upon his father's death in 1932, he became the head of the Royal House of Saxony. He was Captain

à la suite À la suite (, ''in the entourage f') was a military title given to those who were allotted to the army or a particular unit for honour's sake, and entitled to wear a regimental uniform but otherwise had no official position. In Prussia, these w ...

in the Royal Bulgarian Infantry, and Grand Master of the

Order of the Rue Crown The Order of the Rue Crown (german: Hausorden der Rautenkrone) or Order of the Crown of Saxony was a dynastic order of knighthood of the Kingdom of Saxony. The order takes its name from the green floral crown of rue ('' crancelin'') found in th ...

, and also a Knight in the

Order of the Black Eagle The Order of the Black Eagle (german: Hoher Orden vom Schwarzen Adler) was the highest order of chivalry in the Kingdom of Prussia. The order was founded on 17 January 1701 by Elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg (who became Friedrich I, King ...

and Knight Grand Cross in the

Sovereign Military Order of Malta The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta ( it, Sovrano Militare Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme, di Rodi e di Malta; ...

. As head of the

House of Wettin The House of Wettin () is a dynasty of German kings, prince-electors, dukes, and counts that once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynasty is one of the oldest in Europe, and its ori ...

after 1932, he styled himself as ''Friedrich Christian,

''.

Life

He was born in

, as the second son of King

and his wife

Archduchess Luise, Princess of Tuscany Archduchess Louise of Austria (2 September 1870, in Salzburg – 23 March 1947, in Brussels) was by marriage Crown Princess of Saxony as the wife of the future King Frederick Augustus III. Life Crown Princess of Saxony Louise was born on 2 Sept ...

August Kotzsch - Bildnis zweier Knaben um 1900

Friedrich Christian was made a

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

in the 1st Royal Saxon Leib-Grenadier Regiment No. 100 at the age of 10, in accordance a family tradition of the

. In 1913, he studied at the Military Academy in

. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he served General Staff on the Western Front. He received several medals for bravery. He was very gifted linguistically and was sent on diplomatic missions to King Alfonso XIII of Spain, to Sultan

Mehmed V Mehmed V Reşâd ( ota, محمد خامس, Meḥmed-i ḫâmis; tr, V. Mehmed or ; 2 November 1844 – 3 July 1918) reigned as the 35th and penultimate Ottoman Sultan (). He was the son of Sultan Abdulmejid I. He succeeded his half-brother ...

of Turkey and to Emperor

Charles I of Austria Charles I or Karl I (german: Karl Franz Josef Ludwig Hubert Georg Otto Maria, hu, Károly Ferenc József Lajos Hubert György Ottó Mária; 17 August 18871 April 1922) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary (as Charles IV, ), King of Croatia, ...

. In 1918, Friedrich Christian was one of several candidates to the prospective

Kingdom of Lithuania The Kingdom of Lithuania was a Lithuanian state, which existed roughly from 1251 to 1263. King Mindaugas was the first and only Lithuanian monarch crowned King of Lithuania with the assent of the Pope. The formation of the Kingdom of Lithuani ...

.Senn (1975), p. 36. On 13 November of that year, his father abdicated following the German Empire's defeat in the

. Friedrich Christian led the Saxon army home from Belgium and France to Germany, where they

demobilized Demobilization or demobilisation (see spelling differences) is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or because a crisis has been peacefully resolved and milita ...

in Fulda. After the end of World War I, he turned to the study of

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

at the universities of

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

and

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg ...

. The subject of his PhD thesis was

Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 11 August 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus (), was a German Catholic cardinal, philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Re ...

, who contributed significantly to the development of canon law in the late Middle Ages. While studying in Breslau, he was a member of the Catholic student union . However, he resigned his membership in 1928 or 1929, because of substantive disagreement. On 9 February 1920, he joined the ''KDSt.V.'' Thuringia Würzburg. Here, he met Elisabeth Helene (1903-1976), a daughter of Albert, 8th Prince of Thurn and Taxis and his wife Archduchess Margarethe Klementine of Austria. Elisabeth Helene was an honorary chairwoman of the Thuringian Lady Student Federation. He married her on 16 June 1923 in Regensburg. After completing his PhD, he became a private teacher of the

history of art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic visu ...

. Around this time, his father asked him to take up the management of the family holdings in Saxony and Silesia. In 1923, his older brother Crown Prince Georg renounced his succession rights and joined the

Jesuit Order , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

. Friedrich Christian thus became

heir apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

, and when his father died on 12 February 1932, he succeeded as Head of the Royal House of Saxony Karrösten-Königskapelle-Grablege-Wettiner 1

Karrösten-Königskapelle-Grablege-Wettiner 2

In 1937, the family moved to Wachwitz Castle in

-Wachwitz, where they lived until 1945. The castle survived the

bombing raids Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematic ...

in 1945, and Christian Friedrich took in many survivors. Later that year, the family moved via Hof and Regensburg to

Bregenz Bregenz (; gsw, label= Vorarlbergian, Breagaz ) is the capital of Vorarlberg, the westernmost state of Austria. The city lies on the east and southeast shores of Lake Constance, the third-largest freshwater lake in Central Europe, between Switze ...

, where the two youngest children had been living since 1940. Their close connections to the French, they were able, for instance, to arrange permission for Richard Strauss to move to Switzerland. In 1955, their relatives in the

Thurn und Taxis The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis (german: link=no, Fürstenhaus Thurn und Taxis ) is a family of German nobility that is part of the ''Briefadel''. It was a key player in the postal services in Europe during the 16th century, until the en ...

family helped them find a new home in the Harlaching borough of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. Here Friedrich Christian, together with his sons Albert and Maria Emanuel, the chapter of the Military Order of St. Henry, the Association of People from Dresden, and te Munich chapter of the association of founded the ("Study group for Saxon history and culture"). This study group became one of the largest historical societies in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. Had he been King he would have been known as Friedrich Christian IV. Friedrich Christian died on 9 August 1968 at

. He was buried outside the Royal Chapel in Königskapelle in

in North Tyrol.

Marriage and children

Friedrich Christian married on 16 June 1923, at Regensburg, Princess Elisabeth Helene of Thurn and Taxis (1903–1976), daughter of Albert, 8th Prince of Thurn and Taxis and his wife Archduchess Margarethe Klementine of Austria. They had five children: *

(1926–2012), married in 1962 Princess Anastasia of Anhalt, without issue. *Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony (1928–2018), not married. *Princess Anna of Saxony (1929–2012), married in 1952 Roberto de Afif and had three sons. * Albert, Margrave of Meissen (1934–2012), married in 1980 Elmira Henke, without issue. *Princess Mathilde of Saxony (1936–2018), married in 1968 and divorced in 1993 Prince Johannes Heinrich of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry, and had one (now deceased) son.

Ancestry

References

* Albert Herzog zu Sachsen: ''Die Wettiner in Lebensbildern'', Styria-Verlag, Graz, Vienna and Cologne, 1995, * Bäsig, Frank-Michael: ''Friedrich Christian Markgraf von Meißen'', Raute Verlag, Dresden, 1995, *

External links

*
Biographical information

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Friedrich Christian of Meissen, Margrave Margraves of Meissen 1893 births 1968 deaths House of Wettin Saxon princes Nobility from Dresden German Roman Catholics Albertine branch Knights of the Golden Fleece of Austria Sons of kings