Friday, March 26, 2010

Princess Gundelinde of Bavaria








Princess Gundelinde Maria Josepha of Bavaria was born in Munich on August 26, 1891, the youngest child of King Ludwig III and Queen Maria Theresa, an Archduchess of Austria by birth. Her eldest brother, Crown Prince Rupprecht, was born in 1869.

On February 23, 1919, at Schloss Wildenwart, Princess Gundelinde married Count Johann Georg von Preysing-Lichtenegg-Moos (1887-1924). The marriage took place 20 days after the death of Queen Maria Theresa, also at Wildenwart. 

This also was the second marriage for Count Johann Georg. Only four years earlier, on September 18, 1915, in Munich, the count had married Countess Anna von Lerchenfeld.  Anna died on April 13, 1916, less than a year after the wedding.

Gundelinde gave birth to her first child, Count Kaspar on December 19, 1919. He was killed in action in 1940. He was the last male member of the Preysing family.  Her second child, Countess Maria-Theresia, was born on March 23, 1922, at the family's Schloss in Moos. 

Count Johann Georg died on March 17, 1924, in Munich. Gundelinde did not remarry. She died at Moos on August 16, 1983.

Maria Theresia inherited Moos, where she married on January 25, 1940, to Count Ludwig von Arco-Zinneberg, who was killed in the Second World War in Russia, on February 18, 1942. Ludwig, who had been studying medicine before the war, and Maria Theresia were the parents of one son,  Count Rupprecht-Maximilian,  born on January 14, 1941. 

A year after Ludwig's death, Maria Theresia married his younger brother, Count Ulrich-Philipp. The couple married at civil & religious ceremonies at Moos and at Niederdalteich Abbey on September 26, 1943. Maria Theresia gave birth to two more sons, Ludwig, who lived for only two months in 1944, and Riprand, born on July 25, 1955. He is married to Archduchess Maria Beatrice of Austria.

Countess Maria Theresia died at Moos on September 14, 2003.

Schloss Wildenwart was inherited by Ludwig III's younger daughters, Princesses Hildegard and Helmtrud. Today, it is the home of the Duke and Duchess in Bavaria. Schloss Moos is now in the possession of Maria Theresia's Arco descendants.


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4 comments:

Eurohistory said...

A very sad story indeed...all these marriages brought to an early end by untimely passings...and then the death toll of war...awful!

Paul Harten said...

Didn't these girld have dreadful names - Gundelinde, Wilmtrud, Helmtrud, Dietlinde !
Paul

Marlene Eilers Koenig said...

Very Germanic names -- but Wilmtrud and Helmtrud were apparently named for the Kaiser ... Wil Helm

Göran Koch-Swahne said...

Is Helmtrud not a genuine name? but only fashioned on Wil-helm?