Princess Irmingard of Bavaria
Encyclopedia
Princess Irmingard of Bavaria (May 29, 1923 – October 23, 2010) was the daughter of Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria
Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria
Rupprecht or Rupert, Crown Prince of Bavaria was the last Bavarian Crown Prince.His full title was His Royal Highness Rupprecht Maria Luitpold Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Bavaria, Duke of Bavaria, of Franconia and in Swabia, Count Palatine of the Rhine...

 and his second wife, Princess Antonia of Luxembourg. She was a half-sister of Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria
Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria
Albrecht Luitpold Ferdinand Michael, Duke of Bavaria, of Franconia and in Swabia, Count Palatine of the Rhine , was the son of Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria and his first wife, Duchess Marie Gabrielle in Bavaria. He was the one surviving child from that marriage...

.

Early life

Irmingard was born at her father's residence, Schloss Berchtesgaden
Berchtesgaden
Berchtesgaden is a municipality in the German Bavarian Alps. It is located in the south district of Berchtesgadener Land in Bavaria, near the border with Austria, some 30 km south of Salzburg and 180 km southeast of Munich...

. She spent her childhood between Berchtesgaden and her father's other residences, the Leuchtenberg Palais in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Schloss Leutstetten, and Schloss Hohenschwangau
Schloss Hohenschwangau
Hohenschwangau Castle or Schloss Hohenschwangau is a 19th century palace in southern Germany. It was the childhood residence of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and was built by his father, King Maximilian II of Bavaria...

. In 1936 she was sent to England to be educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton
Roehampton
Roehampton is a district in south-west London, forming the western end of the London Borough of Wandsworth. It lies between the town of Barnes to the north, Putney to the east and Wimbledon Common to the south. The Richmond Park golf courses are west of the neighbourhood, and just south of these is...

 (later Woldingham School
Woldingham School
Woldingham School is an all-girls, independent, Roman Catholic, boarding and day school in Woldingham, Surrey, England.-History:The school was founded as the Convent of the Sacred Heart in 1842 in Berrymead, London by the Society of the Sacred Heart...

) where several of her cousins, princesses of Luxembourg, were also enrolled.

In early 1940 Irmingard and her siblings were allowed to go to Italy and join their father who had left Germany in order to avoid conflict with the Nazi authorities. She spent the rest of the war mostly in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, and Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

.

In September 1944 Irmingard was arrested by the Nazis who had been unsuccessful in trying to find and arrest her father. She fell ill from typhus and was sent to a prison hospital in Innsbruck
Innsbruck
- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...

. When she recovered, she was sent to the concentration camp at Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...

, where she was reunited with other members of her family who had also been arrested. Later they were transferred to the concentration camps at Flossenbürg
Flossenbürg concentration camp
Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia. Until its liberation in April 1945, more than 96,000 prisoners...

 and Dachau, before being freed by the Third American Army, April 30, 1945.

Irmingard and her sisters sought refuge in Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...

, where their mother's sister Charlotte
Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg was the reigning Grand Duchess of Luxembourg from 1919 to 1964.-Early life and life as Grand Duchess:...

 reigned. After a brief return to Germany, she went to the United States for a year, where her uncle Prince Adolf of Schwarzenberg had a ranch in Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

.

Marriage and children

On July 20, 1950, Irmingard married her first cousin Prince Ludwig of Bavaria
Prince Ludwig of Bavaria (b.1913)
Prince Ludwig of Bavaria was a member of the Bavarian Royal House of Wittelsbach.-Early life:Prince Ludwig was born at Nymphenburg Palace, Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria. He was the eldest son of Prince Franz of Bavaria and his wife Princess Isabella Antonie of Croÿ...

 at Schloss Nymphenburg
Nymphenburg Palace
The Nymphenburg Palace , i.e. "Nymph's Castle", is a Baroque palace in Munich, Bavaria, southern Germany. The palace was the main summer residence of the rulers of Bavaria.-History:...

 in Munich. The couple had three children:
  • Prince Luitpold of Bavaria
    Prince Luitpold of Bavaria (b.1951)
    Prince Luitpold of Bavaria is a member of the Bavarian Royal House of Wittelsbach and a CEO of König Ludwig GmbH & Co. KG Schlossbrauerei Kaltenberg.-Early life:...

    , born 1951; married 1979 Beatrix Wiegand, born 1951; five children.
  • Princess Maria of Bavaria, born and died January 3, 1953.
  • Princess Philippa of Bavaria, born and died June 26, 1954.


After her father's death in 1955, Irmingard and her husband moved into Schloss Leutstetten.

External links

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