Prince Christoph of Hesse
| Prince Christoph | |
|---|---|
| Prince of Hesse | |
 | |
| Spouse | Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark |
| Issue | |
| Princess Christine
Margarethe Princess Dorothea Charlotte Karin Prince Karl Adolf Andreas Prince Rainer Christoph Friedrich Princess Clarissa Alice |
|
| House | Hesse-Kassel |
| Father | Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse |
| Mother | Princess Margaret of Prussia |
| Born | 14 May 1901 Frankfurt, Germany |
| Died | 7 October 1943 (aged 42) Forlì, Italy |
Christoph Ernst August of Hesse (Frankfurt, 14 May 1901 – Apennine Mountains near Forlì, 7 October 1943) was the son of Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse and Princess Margaret of Prussia.
Born in Frankfurt, Prince Christoph was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha through their eldest daughter Victoria, Princess Royal, wife of Frederick III, German Emperor.
Christoph of Hesse was a high ranking Nazi. He was chief of Hermann Göring's secret intelligence service, an aide to Heinrich Himmler and a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS). He was also a Major of the Luftwaffe during World War II.
Christoph married Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark on 15 December 1930 in Kronberg im Taunus, Germany. Princess Sophie was the youngest daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, and the sister of the future Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Through her father she was a descendant of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia and King Christian IX of Denmark and through her mother a descendant of both Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
They had five children:
- Princess Christina Margarethe of Hesse (b. Kronberg im Taunus, 10 January 1933), married firstly in Kronberg im Taunus on 2 August 1956 and divorced in London, Greater London, in 1962 Prince Andrew of Yugoslavia, and had issue, and married secondly in London on 3 December 1962 and divorced in 1986 Robert Floris van Eyck a London poet, artist and art restorer, brother of architect Aldo van Eyck and son of poet, critic, essayist and philosopher Pieter Nicolaas van Eyck and wife Nelly Estelle Benjamins, a woman of Jewish and Latin origin born and raised in Suriname, and had issue
- Princess Dorothea Charlotte Karin of Hesse (b. Schloss Panker, 24 July 1934), married civilly at Schliersee, Upper Bavaria, on 31 March 1959 and religiously in Munich on 1 April 1959 to Friedrich, Prince zu Windisch-Grätz (Heiligenberg, Baden, 7 July 1917 – Gersau, 29 May 2002), and had issue
- Prince Karl Adolf Andreas of Hesse (b. Berlin,
26 March 1937), married at The
Hague civilly on 26 March 1966 and religiously on 18 April 1966 to Yvonne,
Gräfin Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár (b. Budapest, 4 April 1944), and
had issue, two children:
- Prince Christoph of Hesse (b. Munich, 18 June 1969), unmarried and without issue
- Princess Irina Verena of Hesse (b. Munich, 1 April 1971), married civilly in Berlin on 30 April 1999 and religiously at Heusenstamm on 29 May 1999 to Alexander, Count von Schönburg-Glauchau (b. Mogadishu, Somalia, 15 August 1969), and had issue
- Prince Rainer Christoph Friedrich of Hesse (b. Kronberg im Taunus, 18 November 1939), unmarried and without issue
- Princess Clarissa Alice of Hesse (b. Kronberg
im Taunus, 6 February 1944), married in Paris
on 20 July 1971 and divorced in 1976 to Claude Jean Derrien (b. Boulogne-Billancourt,
Hauts-de-Seine, 12
March 1948), son of Jean Guillaume Derrien and wife Jacqueline Laine, without
issue; she went on to have a daughter by an unknown father:
- Johanna Sophia/Sophie von Hessen (b. Munich, 25 August 1980)
On 7 October 1943 Prince Christoph died in an airplane accident in the Apennine mountains near Forlì, in Italy. His body was found two days later. The Almanach de Gotha, however, states that he was killed in action during the German invasion of Italy.
