Berlin, April 9, (dpa/GNA) – Unsurprisingly for a member of Europe’s royalty, there are many Germans in Prince Philip’s extensive family tree, which stretches far across the continent.
Philip was born in 1921 on the Greek island of Corfu to Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, making him a prince of Greece and Denmark.
His mother came from the family of the dukes of Hesse, which is now one of Germany’s 16 states. She was the great-granddaughter of Britain’s Queen Victoria, and therefore also related to Philip’s future wife, Queen Elizabeth II.
Philip temporarily attended Salem, an elite school in southern Germany. He spoke good German.
For his wedding to Elizabeth, then the heir to the British throne, he had to give up his title as prince of Greece and Denmark as well as his nationality.
He also gave up his name, as Battenberg became Mountbatten. The British line of the Battenbergs was renamed in World War I, in which Britain and the German Empire faced each other as enemies. Elizabeth’s family changed their name at the same time from the Germanic Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the very English Windsor.
The new titles Philip received were duke of Edinburgh, earl of Merioneth, baron Greenwich and his royal highness.
The German city of Coburg, home to Prince Albert, great-great-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth, put its flags on half-mast on Friday to mourn Philip’s death.
« City and society have been closely linked with the House of Windsor via the royal family [of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha] for more than 200 years, » said Mayor Dominik Sauerteig.
Prince Albert married his cousin Queen Victoria in 1840.
Afterwards, the British royal family did not maintain its links to Germany’s House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha due to the Coburg duke’s closeness to the Nazis.
