Woldemar, Prince of Lippe
Günther Friedrich Woldemar ( born April 18, 1824 in Detmold, † March 20, 1895 ibid ) was Prince of Lippe.
Woldemar was the third son of Leopold II and brother of his predecessor Leopold III .. When he took office on December 8, 1875, he was 51 years old. As a posthumous son, he became an officer in the Prussian army, resigned as General and became Chief of Infantry Regiment "Graf Bülow of Dennewitz " ( 6 Westphalian ) No 55 and the Knights of the Eagle.
Prince Woldemar married on November 19, 1858 Princess Sophie of Baden ( born August 7, 1834 † April 6, 1904 ). The marriage remained childless.
It existed at the beginning of his reign in lip pretty dire political circumstances as a result of the constitutional struggles. A decision incompetent parliament, violent political and economic struggles and antagonisms between conservatives and liberals, between town and country, between orthodoxy and liberalism. The country tied high hopes of the liberal heir to the throne and his liberal reforms. This hope was fulfilled to a high degree.
On January 13, 1876, he convened August Eschenburg President of the Cabinet Ministry with the task of restoring constitutional conditions. They managed this also convene a workable parliament to move the needle to renounce his feudal privileges and to bring as an agreement is reached. Despite the substantial responsiveness of the government stressed Woldemar other hand vigorously at every opportunity its sovereign rights.
In addition to the Princess Pauline, no other prince so by all government affairs as he is concerned. However, he stated only the main lines of policy. Its economy has been a major driving force behind his actions and decisions. That he deprived the Court Theatre and the court orchestra of the grant, he forfeited the sympathy of the art-loving public. Since he did not have the affability and kindness of his brother, was rather high-handed, unkind and taciturn, he was not too popular.
In view of their own childlessness, the incapacitated brother Charles Alexander of Lippe (* 1831 † 1905) and the consequent difficulties for the succession he was trying to preempt the events. Due to personal dislike and animated by the desire to his country to inherit a member of a reigning royal house, certain in his testament to Prince Adolf of Schaumburg -Lippe, a brother of Emperor Wilhelm II, his successor and sparked by the Lippe struggle for the throne, the over the next decade in lip separated the spirits and caught the attention of world public opinion.