Elisa Radziwill

Princess Elisa Radziwill ( Elisa Friederike Luise Martha, born October 28, 1803 in Berlin, † September 27, 1834 in Bad Freiwalde ) went down in history as the first love of the emperor Wilhelm I..

Life

Elisa was the fifth of eight children of Prince Anton Radziwill and his wife Friederike Luise of Prussia. She grew up in the Palais Radziwill on in the Wilhelmstrasse and received a good education. She was considered musically and graphically talented. Elisa and the five year old Prince William had known each other since childhood, because the parents of Elisha often wrong in Berlin Kronprinzenpalais, the residence of the royal couple Frederick William III. and Louise. The two danced together at a Court Ball in 1815 - William was 18 and Eliza age 12 - and fell in love. On January 27, 1821 came together at the Oriental Festival " Lalla Rukh " ( Music: Gaspare Spontini ) in the Berlin City Palace on, and Elisa, who took over the role of a Peri, excited universal admiration. One described it as the most beautiful lady at the Prussian court. From William's sister Alexandrine derives its nickname "Eternal ". It goes back to a groin poem that her cousin Friederike has written: "How Is Loving Today Only Life I - Everlasting Love I Such grace ". The first letter of the individual words make it the first names of the two young lovers.

The dramatic story of the planned marriage between Elisha and William offered in the years 1820-1826 to talk about in the whole of Europe. Prince William stood by his brother Frederick William second in the Prussian throne, and was therefore bound in a possible marriage to the requirement of equality. Elisha's parents and Friedrich Wilhelm III. purpose ordered numerous reports, inter alia, at Savigny, which should prove the equality by the relationship of the Radziwill family with various ruling houses. Second opinion argued that the Radziwill, who scored in Poland the leading nobility and had large estates, since 1515, although German princes were ( the title they had received from the Emperor Maximilian I ), but had never had the German empire state stem and consequently neither were represented in the Imperial Council, nor the Reichstag belonged. Therefore, they were not even counting in Germany for high nobility, but to treat them as simple landsässige princes.

Since King Friedrich Wilhelm III. the marriage plans was initially attached, he turned in 1824 to the childless Tsar Alexander I with the request to adopt Elisha the Russian ruler however, refused for domestic political reasons. The second adoption plan through Elisha's uncle, Prince Augustus of Prussia, also failed, because the competent Commission found that adoption " not the blood alters ". According to other sources, the planned marriage had more powerful enemies: the Mecklenburg relationship of the late Queen Louise, who had great influence on Berlin and St. Petersburg court and a connection between a Prussian prince and a Polish -born princess was always critical.

Finally, the king was obliged on June 22, 1826 to demand the renunciation of Prince William 's marriage. William obeyed. For the last time he saw Elisa in 1831. Elisa became engaged later with Prince Friedrich von Schwarzenberg, the engagement was, however, dissolved again.

In the years 1822-1830 the Radziwill were rare in Berlin, they lived mostly in Poznan, Antonin and Ruhberg in the Giant Mountains. To 1831 Elisa suffering from tuberculosis and died during a cure in Freiwalde Castle in 1834. In 1838, her coffin was transferred from Poznan to Antonin Radziwill and buried in the newly built mausoleum.

Kaiser Wilhelm I never forgot them. By the end of his long life he had a miniature portrait of her on his desk in the Kaiser Wilhelm Palais Unter den Linden.

Survival

Their love story was filmed in 1938 with Lída Baarová in the role of Elisha as Prussian love story. The film was banned in the fall of 1938, even before the premiere. Reason was the love affair of Joseph Goebbels with Lida Baarová, which was terminated by a dictum of Hitler and led to the expulsion Baarová to Prague and the performance ban all films in which they had participated previously. In 1950 the film was released under the title Love Legend in the Federal Republic in the cinemas.

Drawing by Elisa Radziwill: evening party at Castle Ruhberg in the Jelenia Góra Valley

Elisa Radziwill on his deathbed

Resting Elisa Radziwill in the family grave lay in the park of Antonin