The Palace and the Bunker by Millard Frank

Author:Millard, Frank [Millard, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

6

CROWN PRINCE RUPPRECHT OF BAVARIA

The Wittelsbachs

Bavaria was ruled by the Wittelsbachs from 1180 until 1918, dukes and counts palatine – i.e. with a right to direct rule and complete control of all justice. Their kingship only began in 1805, however, at the Treaty of Pressburg, following which the Bavarians promoted the continued independence of small states in the face of the competing nationalism of Prussia and Austria. The electoral palatinate by the Rhine was awarded to the family in 1214.

Although Bavaria eventually joined the Prussian-German Federation following the Franco-Prussian War, it never lost its individual identity and retained much of its sovereignty within a federal context. Its preoccupations with its own separate identity were based on a highly developed cultural identity of which a political identification was a natural consequence.

Crown Prince Rupprecht

Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria was an early opponent of Hitler and his sometime ally General Ludendorff. He went into exile when the dictator came to power and remained in Italy (for the latter part in hiding from the Gestapo) until liberation. Much of his family meanwhile, and unbeknown to him, were captured by the Nazis following the 20th July plot under the sippenhaft (‘kith and kin’ – collective responsibility) laws and send to Dachau and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria was a student of the fine arts who particularly favoured Renaissance and Eastern art and travelled widely in the Far and Middle East and Italy. He also studied international law and trained as a soldier, becoming as near to a professional army officer as is possible for any prince. In short, he was a true Wittelsbach and took his role as heir to King Ludwig III of Bavaria very seriously.

The current Duke of Bavaria, HRH Duke Franz, only really got to know his grandfather after 1945. He remembers him as a rather strict old gentleman who, however, had a good sense of humour and a particular empathy with young people. ‘He was,’ the duke says, ‘highly educated and had a deep understanding of culture,’ which greatly impressed him and influenced his own appreciation, discovery and collection of works of art. 1

Crown Prince Rupprecht was an able wartime commander rising to field marshal. As the general commanding imperial troops opposing the British Expeditionary Force at the first Battle of the Somme, he regretted the terrible loss of British lives. On 15 September he wrote:

Our losses in territory may be seen on the map with a microscope. Their losses in that far more precious thing – human life – are simply prodigious … It saddens us to exact the dreadful toll of suffering and death that is being marked up on the ledger of history, but if the enemy is still minded to possess a few more hectares of blood-sodden soil, I fear they must pay a bitter price. 2

He did reflect afterwards that during the battle the Allied powers had succeeded in destroying what was left the pre-war professional German army. The Germans were forced to withdraw.

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