Heinrich XLV, Hereditary Prince Reuss of Gera

Head of the House of Reuss At the death of his father on 21 November 1928 he became head of the House of Reuss after the Younger and Elder Lines merged, when the Elder Line became extinct in the male line in 1927.

In 1935 he adopted one of his relatives, Prince Heinrich I (1910–1982) a member of the Köstritz branch of the Princely family of Reuss. The adoption took place for inheritance reasons, not for succession rights for the headship of the House of Reuss. In 1939 Heinrich I married Duchess Woizlawa Feodora of Mecklenburg, the niece of Heinrich XLV.

During the 1930s Heinrich XLV became an enthusiastic Nazi sympathizer and member of the Nazi Party. In August 1945, he was arrested in Ebersdorf by the Soviet military, and is presumed missing. Although he was most likely interned and killed in NKVD special camp Nr. 2 in Buchenwald, his name is not in any of the special camps' lists of the dead. It was only on 5 January 1962 that he was declared dead by a court in Büdingen. His entire fortune was seized and confiscated in 1948 by the Soviet Military Administration, including Ebersdorf Castle, Thallwitz Castle, and Osterstein Castle in Gera.

Heinrich XLV remained unmarried and childless and the succession of the House of Reuss passed to Prince Heinrich IV of the Reuss of Köstritz branch.

Ancestry

Notes and sources

The Royal House of Stuart, London, 1969, 1971, 1976, Addington, A. C., Reference: II 224