PRINCE'S LOVE MATCH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 178, 31 July 1933, Page 11

PRINCE'S LOVE MATCH

EX-KAISER’S GRANDSON SWEETHEARTS AS CHILDRENBRIDE’S TEARS AT ALTAR. Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the eldest son of the ex-Urown Prince, was married at Bonn on June 4 to Fraulein Dorothea von Salviati. The two have known each other since childhood. Fraulein von Salviati’s father was the Marshal of the Court of the late Princess Victoria of Chaumberg, the elder sister of the ex Kaiser, and as a boy the Prince used to stay' with his great-aunt at Bonn, and the little Dorothea was one of his playmates. They were sweethearts as children, and now’ their drcam of being united in marriage has been realised. The bride, dressed all in white, with a veil and the traditional wreath of myrtle, looked very lovely as she passed with the Prince, a stalwart figure in tho simple field-grey uniform of the Steel Helmets, through the great court of the university, once a palace of the Archbishop of Cologne, to the church which it attached to it. The courtyard was so filled with neoplo that the Steel Helmets, who formed the guard of honour, had difficulty in making a passage for the bridal procession. Within the church the ceremony was very simple. The only relatives present wore the mother of the bride, who walked up the aisle on the arm of her oldest son. Captain von Salviati; his brother, who was in the uniform of a Storm Troops officer and was accompanied by his wife; Prince Hubertus of Prussia, brother of the bridegroom, and Prince Albrecht, of the House oi Hohenzollern. When a hymn had been sung the pastor addressed the young couple and then they announced their vows and exchanged rings. At this solemn moment in her life the bride, who had looked very composed as she passed on her way to the altar, was carried away by her emotion, and shed tears. She was smiling, however, when she left the church to tho music of the Hymn of Praise which pealed from the organ. The brido and bridegroom wero given a tremendous reception by the people waiting outside. 1 * Forgive me for taking away a daughter of this town to the east of Germany, but I can assure you that I shall do all that I can to make her happy’.” That was what the Prince had said to the crowd which assembled the night before outside the house of the Salviati family', when the Steel Helmets went in procession with torches and music. The Prince looked the happiest man in the world as he left the church with his bride, but by marrying for love he has thrown away’ the chance of wearing the German Imperial Crown. Immediately the ceremony at Bonn was ended the following notice was issued in Berlin on behalf of the Royal House: 4 ‘Prince Wilhelm on attaining his majority renounces all the rights accruing to him by virtue of his being the firstborn in the event of his contracting a marriage contrary to the laws of the Royal House. By his marriage with Fraulein Dorothea von Salviati this event has happened.” This laconic statement sufficiently’ shows the attitude of the Prince’s parents, and of his grandfather, the exKaiser, to what they consider a mesalliance. Members of the Monarchist Party, who have been speaking of Prince Wilhelm as the future Emperor, do not conceal their anger at his behaviour. Tho prospects of the young couple are not regarded as brilliant. Neither of them is rich. The Prince runs his estate as a farmer, and it is stated that his income is hardly likely to be more than 1000 marks a month, and that is only' £5O. But neither the opposition of the whole Hohenzollern family, nor the renunciation of the possibility of ascending the throne, nor the certainty of what, for a prince, is poverty’, has deterred Prince Wilhelm from marrying the girl he loves.