Today marks the 125th Anniversary of the Birth of Crown Princess Antonia of Bavaria, who was born on this day in 1899! The Luxembourg Princess married the last Bavarian Crown Prince but refused to return to Germany after being held in a Concentration Camp during the Second World War.
The fourth of the six daughters of Grand Duke Guillaume IV of Luxembourg and Infanta Marie Anne of Portugal, Princess Antonia was the younger sister of Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde and Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg and grew up between the Château de Berg and Schloss Hohenburg in Bavaria.
After a three-year engagement that was delayed due to criticism over his position in the German Army, Princess Antonia became the second wife of the widowed Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria in 1921.
Crown Prince Rupprecht and Crown Princess Antonia had six children; Prince Heinrich, Princess Irmingard, Princess Editha, Princess Hilda Princess Gabrielle, Duchess of Croÿ, and Princess Sophie, Duchess of Arenberg, and spent the interwar years between the Bavarian Royal Family’s numerous Castles and Estates.
As critics of the Nazi regime, during the Second World War, the Royal Family went into exile in Italy and Hungary before Crown Princess Antonia and her daughters were captured and imprisoned in a Concentration Camp until being liberated in 1945. Crown Princess Antonia, whose health was greatly affected by the torture the was subjected to by her captors, vowed never to return to German soil, and passed away in Switzerland nine years later.
