Duchess Woizlawa Feodora of Mecklenburg


Princess Woizlawa Feodora Reuss was a German royal and a member of the House of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. At her death at the age of 100, she was the oldest living royal and the oldest living resident of Gorwihl.
Since there are no males left in the family, the house is considered extinct due to the Salic law of succession.

Early life

Duchess Woizlawa Feodora of Mecklenburg was born at Rostock, Free State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin on 17 December 1918, just after the abdication of her first cousin Frederick Francis IV of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and the establishment of the Weimar Republic. Her parents were Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg and Princess Victoria Feodora Reuss zu Schleiz. Her father was the seventh son of Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin by his third wife Princess Marie of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. Her mother Princess Victoria Feodora was the eldest child of
Heinrich XXVII, Prince of Reuss zu Schleiz, regent of Principality of Reuss-Greiz and Princess Elise of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Princess Victoria Feodora died a day after Woizlawa's birth. She was named for Woizlawa, the daughter of Wartislaw I, Duke of Pomerania, and the wife of Pribislav, an Oborite prince and the first duke of Mecklenburg. Her name was an acknowledgement that the House of Mecklenburg, although Germanized over the centuries, was originally of Slavic origins.
She was a first cousin of:

Invitation

Preparations for the wedding of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands's only child Crown Princess Juliana to the German Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld were underway in the 1937 when a small diplomatic scandal occurred.
The affair was the result of Wilhelmina's opinion that the wedding be a family affair; consequently, she did not invite foreign royalty unless she was personally familiar with them. As a result, Juliana's chosen bridesmaids were either her relatives or family friends. These included Woizlawa herself, Duchess Thyra of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Grand Duchess Kira Kirillovna of Russia, Princess Sophie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and two of Bernhard’s sisters, among others.

Marriage and family

On 15 September 1939 in Bad Doberan Woizlawa married, Prince Heinrich I Reuss of Köstritz, elder son of Prince Heinrich XXXIV Reuss of Köstritz and Princess Sophie Renate Reuss of Köstritz. They had six children.
At the time of her death, she was one of the only remaining members of the House of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, after her cousins, Donata and Edwina.

Restitution Claim

In 1935 Woizlawa Feodora's husband has been adopted by one of his relatives, Heinrich XLV, Hereditary Prince Reuss Younger Line, head and last male member of the House of Reuss Younger Line, for inheritance reasons, and after the latter's death in 1945 had become the sole heir of the private assets that had remained in the ownership of the House of Reuss Younger Line after its dethronement in the German Revolution of 1918. In 1945 however, the communist land reform in the Soviet occupation zone expropriated all movable and immovable assets of the House of Reuss. After the German reunification of 1990, the princess, as her husband's heir, claimed for restitution based on the fact that her late husband was of British nationality, as well as German, and should thus legally not have been expropriated under occupation law. Furthermore, a legal restitution claim for movable assets was passed by the Bundestag, leading to vast returns of museum items. In a settlement, the princess also received Thallwitz castle and some forest property, with Waidmannsheil hunting castle in Saaldorf near Bad Lobenstein.

Ancestry