Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria Herzog von Bayern (born 14 July 1933), commonly known by the courtesy titleDuke of Bavaria, is the head of the House of Wittelsbach, the former ruling family of the Kingdom of Bavaria. His great-grandfather King Ludwig III was the last ruling monarch of Bavaria, being deposed in 1918.
After the war, Franz was a student at the University of Munich and became a collector of modern art. Franz succeeded as head of the House of Wittelsbach, and as pretender to the Bavarian throne, on the death of his father in 1996. He lives at Nymphenburg Palace in Munich and Berg Palace.[2]
The Wittelsbach dynasty were opposed to the Nazi regime in Germany. The former Crown Prince Rupprecht earned Hitler's enmity by opposing the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. In 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler's rise to power, he sent his son Albrecht to President Paul von Hindenburg with a protest letter strongly objecting to the appointment of governors at the head of the federal states and thus the de facto abolition of German federalism. In July 1934, Prince Albrecht emigrated to Hungary with his family. From 1935 to 1939 the family returned to Bavaria and lived in seclusion in Kreuth, but former crown prince Rupprecht emigrated to Italy in 1939 and his son Albrecht and his family moved back to Budapest, where they stayed in a rented apartment in the Castle Quarter. They often visited Princess Marita's Hungarian and Croatian relatives in the countryside. The children received private lessons after a visit to the German school failed after a few weeks because it was dominated by Nazi supporters.[3]
In March 1944, Nazi Germanyoccupied Hungary, and on 6 October 1944 the entire family, including the 11-year-old Franz, were arrested by the Gestapo. They were sent to a series of Nazi concentration camps, including Oranienburg, Flossenbürg and Dachau. As special prisoners, they were allowed to stay together and were locked in separate buildings. Franz remembers that they only received one slice of bread, often moldy, per person per day as food. Badly hit by hunger and disease, the family barely survived.[4] At the end of April 1945, they were liberated by the United States Third Army.[5]
After the war, Franz received his secondary education at the Benedictine Abbey of Ettal. He then studied business management at the University of Munich and in Zürich. With his father and a sister, he took part in the ship tours organized by King Paul of Greece and Queen Frederica in 1954 and 1956, which became known as the "Cruise of the Kings" and were attended by over 100 royals from all over Europe.[6]
Because of his good connections in the New York City art scene, his understanding of art, his international connections as well as his fate during the Nazi era, Franz von Bayern was the first German to be elected to the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art,[1] where numerous Jewish emigrants set the tone. Only after him were other Germans elected to the advisory committee. He eventually became chairman of the International Council for 16 years and worked closely with the museum's president, Blanchette Rockefeller, in expanding the collection in the 1980s.[8] Despite his friendship with American artists such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Dan Flavin, he privately collected mostly contemporary German art: "American art was always one step ahead of my financial possibilities."[9]
In 2003, for his decades of support work, he was the first European to receive the Duncan Phillips Award from the Washington art museum Phillips Collection, which has been awarded to collectors and donors who support museums since 1999.
Further activities
The respective head of the House of Wittelsbach appoints the board of directors of the foundation Wittelsbach Compensation Fund, into which most of the possessions from the former Wittelsbach House Property Fund were transferred in 1923, including art treasures and collections (in particular the art collection of King Ludwig I, today mostly in the museums Alte Pinakothek and Neue Pinakothek and in the Glyptothek in Munich), the Secret House Archives (today a department of the Bavarian State Archives) and the former royal palaces of Berg, Hohenschwangau (including the Museum of the Bavarian Kings), Berchtesgaden as well as Grünau hunting lodge. He also appoints one of the board members of the Wittelsbach State Foundation for Art and Science, into which the Wittelsbach art treasures acquired before 1800 were brought in in 1923. Since then, this foundation has owned a large part of the holdings of the Munich museums. The former Bavarian Royal Family receives around 14 million Euros in payments annually from the proceeds of the Wittelsbach Compensation Fund. The respective head of the family decides on their distribution and use.[10]
In addition to modern art and contemporary music, Franz' interest lies in the sciences, where he supported the development and expansion of the Bavarian research landscape. He was a member of the board of trustees of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Technical University of Munich, the Munich School of Philosophy, the Deutsches Museum and the Institute for Bavarian History. As a patron, he heads numerous other organizations, such as the Bavarian Sports Shooting Association.[11]
There is traditionally a close connection between the House of Wittelsbach and the Roman Catholic Church, especially with the respective Archbishop of Munich, but also with various orders such as the Benedictines and Franciscans. Franz worked voluntarily for many years in the management of the Catholic Academy in Bavaria. He expanded these relationships through contacts with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and the Jewish communities in Bavaria. In 2007 he institutionalized this network as co-founder of the Nymphenburg Talks, a platform for intercultural and interfaith dialogue that also includes Muslim representatives.[11]
Franz maintained the tradition founded by his father of holding a large annual reception with a sit-down dinner at Nymphenburg Palace where he lives in a side-wing. Around 1,500 mostly changing guests from state politics, municipalities, churches and sciences, art and medicine as well as friends and relatives are invited.[12] He also invites smaller groups of changing guests to Berchtesgaden Palace to discuss specific topics that are important to him.
Franz has had a life partner since 1980, Thomas Greinwald, although they have never married.[15] In August 2011, the duke appeared at Prince George Frederick of Prussia's wedding, accompanied by Greinwald and his first cousin once removed – and future heir – Prince Ludwig. They first appeared publicly as a couple in Munich in 2023.[16] The heir presumptive to the headship of the House of Wittelsbach is his brother Prince Max, Duke in Bavaria. Because Max has five daughters but no sons, he is followed in the Bavarian line of succession by his and Franz's first cousin (second cousin in the male line) Prince Luitpold[17] and, in the next generation, by the latter's son Prince Ludwig of Bavaria (born 1982).
Franz is a descendant of the House of Stuart. Were it not for the Act of Settlement 1701, Franz would be the successor to the British and Irish crowns of the Stuart kings.[18] Franz' spokesman has, however, made it clear that this is a purely "hypothetical issue", "an entirely British question which does not concern him" and not a claim that he pursues.[18] In his memoirs, Franz describes this claim to the British throne as a "charming historical curiosity."[19]
Franz was styled Prinz von Bayern at birth.[24] In 1996, after the death of his father, he changed his style to Herzog von Bayern ('Duke of Bavaria').[25]
The House of Wittelsbach is a former Bavarian dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including the Electorate of Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, the Electorate of Cologne, Holland, Zeeland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of Bavaria and the Palatinate were prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.
Charles VII was Prince-Elector of Bavaria from 26 February 1726 and Holy Roman Emperor from 24 January 1742 to his death. He was also King of Bohemia from 1741 to 1743. Charles was a member of the House of Wittelsbach, and his reign as Holy Roman Emperor thus marked the end of three centuries of uninterrupted Habsburg imperial rule, although he was related to the Habsburgs by both blood and marriage.
Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, Duke of Bavaria, Franconia and in Swabia, Count Palatine by the Rhine, was the last heir apparent to the Bavarian throne. During the first half of World War I, he commanded the 6th Army on the Western Front. From August 1916, he commanded Army Group Rupprecht of Bavaria, which occupied the sector of the front opposite the British Expeditionary Force.
The King of Bavaria was a title held by the hereditary Wittelsbach rulers of Bavaria in the state known as the Kingdom of Bavaria from 1805 until 1918, when the kingdom was abolished. It was the second time Bavaria was a kingdom, almost a thousand years after the short-lived Carolingian kingdom of Bavaria.
Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria was the son of the last crown prince of Bavaria, Rupprecht, and his first wife, Duchess Marie Gabrielle in Bavaria. He was the only child from that marriage that reached adulthood. His paternal grandfather was Ludwig III of Bavaria, the last king of Bavaria, who was deposed in 1918.
Albert V was Duke of Bavaria from 1550 until his death. He was born in Munich to William IV and Maria Jacobäa of Baden.
Henry XVI of Bavaria, , since 1393 Duke of Bavaria-Landshut. He was a son of duke Frederick and his wife Maddalena Visconti, a daughter of Bernabò Visconti.
William III (1375 – 12 September 1435;, was Duke of Bavaria-Munich, together and in concord with his older brother Ernest, Duke of Bavaria. William III was a son of John II and a member of the Parakeet Society.
Max-Emanuel Ludwig Maria Herzog in Bayern as the younger son of Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria, is the heir presumptive to both the headship of the former Bavarian royal house and the Jacobite succession.
DukeMaximilian Joseph of Bavaria, known informally as Max in Bayern, was a member of a junior branch of the royal House of Wittelsbach who were Kings of Bavaria, and a promoter of Bavarian folk-music. He is most famous today as the father of Empress Elisabeth of Austria ("Sisi") and great-grandfather of King Leopold III of Belgium.
Karl-Theodor, Duke in Bavaria, was a member of the House of Wittelsbach and a professional oculist. He was the favorite brother of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, and father of Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians.
Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria, known as 'Marie' was Queen of Saxony from 1836 to 1854 as the second wife of King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony.
Prince Konrad of Bavaria was a member of the Bavarian Royal House of Wittelsbach.
Prince Adalbert of Bavaria was a member of the Bavarian Royal House of Wittelsbach, historian, author and a German Ambassador to Spain.
Prince Joseph Clemens of Bavaria was a member of the Bavarian Royal House of Wittelsbach and a leading German art historian.
Sidonie of Bavaria was a member of the House of Wittelsbach. She was the eldest daughter of Duke Albert IV of Bavaria-Munich and his wife Kunigunde of Austria. She died later as a bride of the Elector Palatine Louis V.
The Bavarian monarchy ended with the declaration of a republic after the Anif declaration by King Ludwig III on 12 November 1918 as a consequence of Germany's defeat in the First World War. Monarchism was thereafter particularly strong between 1918 and 1933, when an attempt was made to either make Crown Prince Rupprecht king or general state commissioner in an attempt to forestall the rise of the Nazis to power in the state.
Duke Siegfried in Bavaria, full German name: Siegfried August Maximilian Maria, Herzog in Bayern (10 July 1876, Bamberg, Kingdom of Bavaria – 12 March 1952, Munich, Republic of Bavaria) was a Duke in Bavaria and member of the House of Wittelsbach. Siegfried August was the first of three sons of Duke Maximilian Emanuel in Bavaria and his wife Princess Amalie of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Siegfried August was the brother of Christoph Joseph Clemens Maria, Duke in Bavaria and Luitpold Emanuel Ludwig Maria, Duke in Bavaria.
The Prince-Bishopric of Freising was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire from 1294 until its secularisation in the early years of the 19th century.
The Kaiserbrief, is the letter to the German Federal princes signed by North German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck on 27 November 1870 and Bavarian King Ludwig II on 30 November 1870. Ludwig's uncle, Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, the later Prince Regent (1886–1912), on 3 December 1870 personally handed over the Imperial Letter to the Prussian king.
↑ The title assumed by the Kings of Bavaria was Duke in Swabia, with the in indicating that only parts of the Swabian territory was ruled by them, while the larger parts of Swabia were part of the Kingdom of Württemberg. Unlike their other title Duke of Franconia which made clear that the whole of Franconia had become part of the Bavarian kingdom.
↑ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Band 50, Fürstliche Häuser, Band IX, Limburg an der Lahn 1971, S. 7
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