The Postcard
A Gazette Series postcard that was published by John King, Printer and Stationer of Southall. The card was printed in England. The people in the photograph have been placed in position by the photographer.
The card was posted in Southall using two ½d. stamps on Monday the 7th. January 1907 to:
Mademoiselle Boyer,
13, Rue Porte St. Jean,
Orléans,
Loiret,
France.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"46, Grange Road,
Southall.
I am staying here for a
fortnight & shall return
next Monday.
I went to London on
Saturday.
Did you get my Post
Card?
May."
Hermine Reuss of Greiz
So what else happened on the day that May posted the card?
Well, on the 7th. January 1907, Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz married for the first time.
Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, German Empire, who was born on the 17th. December 1887, was the second wife of Wilhelm II. They were married in 1922, four years after he abdicated as German Emperor and King of Prussia. He was her second husband; her first husband, Prince Johann of Schönaich-Carolath, had died in 1920.
Hermine Reuss - The Early Years
Princess Hermine was born in Greiz as the fifth child and fourth daughter of Heinrich XXII, Prince Reuss of Greiz, and Princess Ida Mathilde Adelheid of Schaumburg-Lippe, daughter of Adolf I, Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe.
Her father was the ruler of the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, a state of the German Empire, in what is present-day Thuringia. Princess Hermine's disabled elder brother became Heinrich XXIV, Prince Reuss of Greiz in 1902.
Hermine Reuss' First Marriage
Princess Hermine was married on the 7th. January 1907 in Greiz to Prince Johann George Ludwig Ferdinand August of Schönaich-Carolath.
They were the parents of five children:
-- Prince Hans Georg Heinrich Ludwig Friedrich Hermann Ferdinand of Schönaich-Carolath (3rd. November 1907 – 9th. August 1943). He married Baroness Sibylle von Zedlitz und Leipe, and was killed in action on the Eastern Front during the Second World War.
-- Prince Georg Wilhelm of Schönaich-Carolath (16th. March 1909 – 1st. November 1927). He died unmarried.
-- Princess Hermine Caroline Wanda Ida Luise Feodora Viktoria Auguste of Schönaich-Carolath (9th. May 1910 – 30th. May 1959). She married Hugo Herbert Hartung.
-- Prince Ferdinand Johann Georg Hermann Heinrich Ludwig Wilhelm Friedrich August of Schönaich-Carolath (5th. April 1913 – 17th. October 1973). He married Rose Rauch (1912-1987), and then Baroness Margarethe von Seckendorff (1908-1991).
-- Princess Henriette Hermine Wanda Ida Luise of Schönaich-Carolath (25th. November 1918 – 16th. March 1972). She married Wilhelm II's grandson Prince Karl Franz of Prussia.
Hermine Reuss' Marriage to ex-Emperor Wilhelm II
In January 1922, a son of Princess Hermine sent birthday wishes to the exiled German Emperor Wilhelm II, who then invited the boy and his mother to Huis Doorn in the Netherlands.
Wilhelm found Hermine very attractive, and greatly enjoyed her company. The two had much in common, both being recently widowed: Hermine just over a year and a half before, and Wilhelm only nine months previously.
By early 1922, Wilhelm was determined to marry Hermine. Despite grumblings from Wilhelm's monarchist supporters and the objections of his children, 63-year-old Wilhelm and 34-year-old Hermine married on the 5th. November 1922 in Doorn.
Wilhelm's physician, Alfred Haehner, suspected that Hermine had married the former kaiser only in the belief that she would become an empress, and that she had become increasingly bitter as it became apparent that this would not happen.
Shortly before the couple's first wedding anniversary, Haehner stated:
"Hermine has told me how inconsiderately
Wilhelm behaves towards her, and how
Wilhelm's face shows a strong dislike for her."
Hermine's first husband had also been older than she was, by fourteen years.
In 1927, Hermine wrote 'An Empress in Exile: My Days in Doorn', which was an account of her life until then. She cared for the property management of Huis Doorn, and by establishing her own relief organization, she stayed in contact with monarchist and nationalist circles in the Weimar Republic.
Hermine also shared her husband's anti-Semitism. She remained a constant companion to the aging emperor until his death in 1941. They had no children.
Hermine Reuss' Later Life and Death
Following the death of Wilhelm, Hermine returned to Germany to live on her first husband's estate in Saabor, Lower Silesia.
During the Vistula–Oder Offensive of early 1945, she fled from the advancing Red Army to her sister's estate in Rossla, Thuringia. After the end of the Second World War, she was held under house arrest at Frankfurt on the Oder, in the Soviet occupation zone, and later imprisoned in the Paulinenhof Internment Camp.
On 7 August 1947, aged 59, Hermine died suddenly of a heart attack in a small flat in Frankfurt, while under guard by the Red Army occupation forces.
She was laid to rest on the 15th. August 1947 in the Antique Temple of Sanssouci Park, Potsdam, in what would become East Germany. Some years earlier, it was the resting place of several other members of the Imperial family, including Wilhelm's first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein.
Dramatic Representation
In 2017, Janet McTeer (b. 1961) played a fictional Princess Hermine in The Exception alongside Christopher Plummer (1929 - 2021) as Kaiser Wilhelm II.
