Prince Joachim Albert of Prussia

Prince Joachim of Prussia (27 September 1876 – 24 October 1939) was a member of the House of Hohenzollern. He was the second eldest son of Prince Albert of Prussia and his wife Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg. He is notable for composing music, in particular military waltzes.

Family and early life Prince Joachim's paternal grandparents were Prince Albert of Prussia and Princess Marianne of the Netherlands. His maternal grandparents were Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg and Agnes of Anhalt-Dessau.

Joachim had two brothers: Friedrich Heinrich Albrecht (1874–1940) and Friedrich Wilhelm (1880–1925).

In 1885, Joachim's father Prince Albert was chosen as regent for the Duchy of Brunswick. Like all male Hohenzollerns, Joachim and his brothers entered the army and became officers. Music always appealed to him however, and he soon made a name for himself composing. In 1898, he presented a military waltz he wrote to a family gathering at the Neues Palais in Potsdam.

In 1920, Joachim was ordered under arrest by the German Minister of Defense Gustav Noske after he got into a fight with some French military officers. The dispute apparently began after a few of the aforementioned officers failed to stand up when musicians in a nightclub began to play the national anthem "Deutschland Uber Alles". The fight soon escalated, so that many bystanders joined in to defend both sides. Although he later denied his actions, enough scorn emerged against him among most of Europe's newspapers to merit the event's impact on his reputation. He received this invite after playing in a number of welfare concerts in Berlin, and conducting his own works throughout the previous summer in Central Germany. All of these concerts would have been done for various charitable organizations. After his arrival in the United States however, it soon emerged that he would do no performing while in the country.

Ancestry