Michael, Prince of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Michael Benedict Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach, full name: Michael Benedikt, Georg Karl Alexander Jobst Bernhard Claus Frederick Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach, Duke of Saxony (* November 15, 1946 in Bamberg) is since 1988 head of the House of Saxony Weimar and thus also the senior member of the house of Wettin total.
Descent
Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach is the only son of Karl August of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach (1912-1988) and his wife Elisabeth Baroness von Wangenheim - Winterstein ( 1912-2010 ). Together with his two sisters, Elisabeth Sophie ( born 1945 ) and Beatrice -Maria ( born 1948 ), Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach grew up in Weikersheim and later in Tübingen, Stuttgart and Freiburg. He attended the Schule Schloss Salem and was a high school there in 1966. He then studied law in Freiburg and Kiel.
Had the Thuringian state government to the families of the house of Saxe-Weimar -Eisenach in 1948, during the Soviet occupation, the Civil Rights disallowed to protect against the recourse to ordinary courts against the breach of the treaty with the House of Saxe -Weimar -Eisenach in 1921 and the Thuringian to protect the state constitution. In the late 1990s sought Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach the part of the legacy of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, who until 1918 was privately owned by his father back. He based his claims with the prevailing legal situation ( the Property Act / EALG ). Likewise, in conversation were real estate and movable art goods, the objects included after Unification Treaty of 1921 as a private property of his father, Carl - August. With amicable settlement Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach in 2004 transferred all claims for the return of estate values after EALG on the Free State of Thuringia. The waiver immeasurably valuable cultural assets was recognized on September 20, 2005 through the awarding ceremony of the Maecenas of the Working Group of Independent Cultural Institutes eV ( AsKI ) in the Bundesrat. The laudation was former Prime Minister Kurt Biedenkopf.
The grandfather of Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach was the last reigning Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe -Weimar- Eisenach ( 1876-1923 ). His great- great-great aunt Princess Augusta of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach was the wife of the first German Emperor Wilhelm I. By the granddaughter of the British King George II, Princess Augusta of Hanover, he has a place in the British throne ( Course 569 ). His great- great-grandmother ( Grand Duchess Sophie ) was a princess of the Netherlands. Until the amendment of the Dutch Constitution in 1921 in the aftermath of the First World War, introduced the House of Saxe -Weimar the Dutch heir apparent for the case of extinction of the House of Orange.
Marriage and descendants
On June 9, 1970 married Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach in Breitscheidstraße Renate Henkel ( born September 17, 1947). The marriage, which was childless, divorced in 1974. He married on 15 November 1980 in London Dagmar Hennings (* June 24, 1948 ). The marriage produced a daughter emerged: Leonie Mercedes Augusta Silva Elisabeth Margarethe ( born October 30, 1986 in Frankfurt am Main).
As in the House of Saxe -Weimar applies the Salic law, his daughter will not succeed as a White House chef, but his cousin Prince Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe -Weimar- Eisenach ( b. 1946 ) and his son Prince Constantin ( b. 1977 ).
Politics
Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach is politically very interested, especially in the cultural development in Thuringia and especially in Weimar and at the Wartburg. He has a home and a business in Thuringia and has here over larger forest holdings. Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach it feels particularly obligated according to the tradition of his house, the care of home and cultural landscape. He stands the landscape changes caused by wind turbines and overhead power lines are very skeptical about, as he sees a threat to the industrial location Germany by the " energy revolution". Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach is closely connected as an active Board of Trustees with the development of the Weimar Classics Foundation and with the Wartburg -Stiftung, Eisenach, which was founded in 1921 by his grandfather and for which he as a Board of Trustees and Advisory Board Chairman of the Wartburg - farms whose construction he accompanied since 1990 closely involved. The follow-up in these bodies will take up his daughter Leonie. Prince of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach, Thuringia is active and connected closely by the membership of boards of trustees and associations.