Prince Gustav and Carina Axelsson, Current Events Part 2: Aug 2009 - June 2022


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Thanks Mr Mulher for the translation.
Prince Richard was indeed not an easy man , Princess Benedikte was often in Denmark.

I am looking forward the Wedding Pictures
 
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It will be interesting to see who Gustavs heir will be know he is in full control of the estate. Will it go to his uncle Robin had his descendants (and will they be considered the head of the family - Robin has one son who has 2 sons, so at least a few more generations guaranteed if the marriage requirement are no longer applied), so that it might stay within the S-W-B line or will he arrange for it to go to for example his eldest nephew count Richard von Pfeil un Klein-Ellguth? And if so, how? Is 'adoption' still a tradition in the German nobility in these cases?

For clarification, was it princess Anna von Bayern's father (third son of Gustav's grandfather's youngest brother Ludwig-Ferdinand) who was suing prince Gustav?

Anna and Manuel are quite close to the Swedish royal family (her husband's father is prince CP's godfather - and the whole family attended their wedding) as are the Danish royals (Benedikte being CP's godmother). I wonder whether that might have let to 'interesting' conversations.
 
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According to the BB interview, it was Gustav's great-uncle.
 
According to the BB interview, it was Gustav's great-uncle.

Gustav's great uncle Ludwig Ferdinand (so his grandfather's brother) died during World War II :whistling: So, I am quite sure that's not the one.

Most sources refer to a cousin of Richard. Given that Richard's grandfather had 3 sons it must be either a son of Christian Heinrich, 6th prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein who died in 1983 (still looking for a full list of his descendants); or a son of prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg who died in 1943 (5 children; 3 sons, among which a Ludwig Ferdinand - the father of Anna (and Prince August Fredrik zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, a German actor who played Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse in The Crown).
 
For clarification, was it princess Anna von Bayern's father (third son of Gustav's grandfather's youngest brother Ludwig-Ferdinand) who was suing prince Gustav?

Anna and Manuel are quite close to the Swedish royal family (her husband's father is prince CP's godfather - and the whole family attended their wedding) as are the Danish royals (Benedikte being CP's godmother). I wonder whether that might have let to 'interesting' conversations.


yes it was the father of Princess Anna. One of his sons is the actor August Wittgenstein. Not sure why he sued as there others before him for example his older brother Ludwig Ferdinand who is the father of Princess Lily, and who is also married equally to a Baroness of Cramm.
 
Did Gustav and Carina not marry immediately after the 2020 court ruling in their favor because of the pending appeal and/or the pandemic?


That is correct. According to the will, so far Gustav was the "post-heir" (Nacherbe) after his father, the "pre-heir" (Vorerbe). Now that the will has been executed he is the "full heir" (Vollerbe). The estate is his and he can do with it whatever he wants (e.g. sell it) and leave it in his own will to whoever he wants (nephews, nieces, adopted children...) - or stick to his grandfather's wishes expressed in the will (wishes, not regulations).
The court ruled that Gustav and his father both met the regulations of the testament when they inherited/became head of the family in 1969 when the grandfather was officially declared "dead"(Richard by marrying a princess and Gustav by not being married). His opponent claimed that the 12 year relationship with Carina is like a marriage, but the court said no, Gustav was legally umarried. The court ruled that unmarried males are not automatically excluded by the will (in contrast to unmarried females), as his grandfather was also not married when he inherited.
As "full heir" and owner Gustav can now marry whoever he wants (just like CG of Sweden could once he was king).
Here is a link to the court ruling (in German): https://openjur.de/u/2340698.html

Thank you very much for the link to the court ruling, and for the recap. :flowers:


Besides, the demand of a marriage with a noblewoman was declared "unethical" in the court ruling.

This is a pecedence case now. And very important for similiar cases and future wills.
So far German noblemen tended to marry German noblewomen in order not to loose their positions and rights. But I think this is going to change now, we will see more marriages between nobility and commoners in Germany.

Maybe, maybe not. I don't know, but it's not surprising to me that that kind of thing would not be upheld by a contemporary German court. So basically, if he had married a non-aryan aristocrat, he could not have lost his inheritance, no matter what the will said.

From what I read of the ruling, it also seems to me that the court did not rule on whether or not it was valid to demand that Gustav not be married to a non-aristocratic woman in order to inherit. The non-aryan part was declared void, but the court left it open as to whether he really could not have been married to a non-aristocratic woman & still inherited. They did not decide either way, since he was not married anyhow.

I have no command of legal German and relied on machine translation in order to read the ruling, therefore corrections are welcome. But in section 81 the judge (judges?) sets out their conclusion that the testamentary obligation on the heir's wife to fulfill the requirements for membership in the nobility association is invalid because it breaches the "good morals" clause in section 138 of the Civil Code.

It is not clear to me if the judge intends for that conclusion to apply to all of the Adelsgenossenschaft membership requirements (as ricarda suggests) or only the "non-aryan" part (as Princess_Eleanor suggests). Although section 81 of the ruling makes reference to the justification of protecting the family from outside blood, there is no explicit reference there to the "non-aryan" requirement.

81 Nach alledem ist die weitere Bedingung im Testament, dass die Ehefrau hinsichtlich ihrer Abstammung die gegenwärtigen Aufnahmebedingungen für die Mitgliedschaft bei der Deutschen Adelsgenossenschaft erfüllen kann, nicht relevant. Unabhängig davon, dass der Antragsteller zu 1) nicht verheiratet ist und eine ausdehnende Auslegung auf nichteheliche Beziehungen ausscheidet, ist diese Klausel jedenfalls gemäß § 138 BGB sittenwidrig und nichtig. Im Testament wird als Begründung für diese Voraussetzung der Schutz gegen die Einbringung "artfremden" Blutes in die Familie genannt. Es handelt sich dabei um eine Anordnung dezidiert rassistischen Inhalts, der den Adressaten wegen des Merkmals, an das die Differenzierung anknüpft, nachhaltig in seiner würde herabsetzt.​


By the way, unsurprisingly, the grandfather's stipulation about not "bringing blood from a non-aryan race" into the family was declared invalid.

I am no expert on German testamentary law, but I did find it surprising. From reading news about the German nobility I had the strong impression that immoral and discriminatory house laws which are stipulated in testaments continue to be upheld, with the best-known example being the disinheritance of daughters to pass estates to sons.

I was also surprised that the judge expressed a conclusion on the validity of the testamentary requirements because there was no practical need to reach any conclusion on that question, given the court's ruling that Gustav fulfilled all of the requirements, regardless.
 
I am no expert on German testamentary law, but I did find it surprising. From reading news about the German nobility I had the strong impression that immoral and discriminatory house laws which are stipulated in testaments continue to be upheld, with the best-known example being the disinheritance of daughters to pass estates to sons.

I was also surprised that the judge expressed a conclusion on the validity of the testamentary requirements because there was no practical need to reach any conclusion on that question, given the court's ruling that Gustav fulfilled all of the requirements, regardless.

It's not so much a question of testamentary law. It might not be so evident from the outside, because it's a cultural and historical thing. Being Austrian, I know that Austria and Germany have extremely strict laws aimed at preventing any kind of resurrection of National Socialism. Reading the Nazi terminology of "artfremdes Blut" (bringing another race's blood into the family :ermm:) I knew it would be extremely unlikely to find any court that would not declare it invalid.

Let's put it this way: while you may or may not get away with discrimination of any other kind (such as on the basis of sex with daughters being excluded from inheriting or even class with house laws/ wills stating that the heir must marry an aristocrat), you will never get away with discrimination based on Nazi ideology.

The quote you posted states that the court doesn't have to decide on whether the demand that he not be married to a non-aristocratic woman is valid, because
a) He was not married to anyone.
b) The demand that he not be married to a non-aryan woman is unacceptable.
Basically, he could have been married to her and the court would have declared the will's demands invalid, based on the unacceptable demand for a certain type of blood alone.

Why the judge ruled on this, when there was no need to because Gustav was not married? Because the judge wanted to make it very clear that there is no legal validity to demands based on Nazi ideology. What I said above might explain why it's considered so important. No matter what else the will stated or the law states, declaring any kind of Nazi ideology illegal is considered of the utmost importance by German law.

I have no command of legal German and relied on machine translation in order to read the ruling, therefore corrections are welcome. But in section 81 the judge (judges?) sets out their conclusion that the testamentary obligation on the heir's wife to fulfill the requirements for membership in the nobility association is invalid because it breaches the "good morals" clause in section 138 of the Civil Code.

It is not clear to me if the judge intends for that conclusion to apply to all of the Adelsgenossenschaft membership requirements (as ricarda suggests) or only the "non-aryan" part (as Princess_Eleanor suggests). Although section 81 of the ruling makes reference to the justification of protecting the family from outside blood, there is no explicit reference there to the "non-aryan" requirement.

Reading it again, I didn't quite read it correctly the first time. Apparently the part about being a member of the aristocracy does not need to be evaluated, because the demand that there not be any "artfremdes" blood (meaning literally no blood from another race, meaning a non-aryan race) makes the whole demand illegal.
So there is still no ruling on whether a will that demanded marriage to an aristocrat (without the demand for no blood from another race) would also be declared invalid. Therefore, I don't think this can be used as a precedent for cases where "only" the aristocratic demand, but no demands about blood (=race) are made.
 
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So if the Nazi-remnant demand was so clearly repugnant and unacceptable, why did it take so dramatically long to invalidate the will and secure Gustav as the full heir?
 
So if the Nazi-remnant demand was so clearly repugnant and unacceptable, why did it take so dramatically long to invalidate the will and secure Gustav as the full heir?

Gustav's father Richard only died in 2017, so the inheritance could only be contested after his passing. In addition, Richard's cousin didn't stop after the first ruling in Gustav's favor but kept going 'higher up' the chain hoping for a higher court to rule in his favor.

Nonetheless, it seems that Gustav tried to get the whole thing invalidated beforehand but that apparently didn't work out. So, unfortunately, he had to wait until he inherited before he could be 100% sure that he would not loose the estate based on his marriage - and he didn't want to take the risk. Probably rightly so, because now the argument that he wasn't married was the safer one and the one on which grounds he received the inheritance. He still also didn't marry a protestant nor a noble, so his now wife was against his grandfather's will on all 3 accounts, so I am not sure that it would have gone his way, had he married prior to his father's death.

The quote you posted states that the court doesn't have to decide on whether the demand that he not be married to a non-aristocratic woman is valid, because
a) He was not married to anyone.
b) The demand that he not be married to a non-aryan woman is unacceptable.
Basically, he could have been married to her and the court would have declared the will's demands invalid, based on the unacceptable demand for a certain type of blood alone.

Why the judge ruled on this, when there was no need to because Gustav was not married? Because the judge wanted to make it very clear that there is no legal validity to demands based on Nazi ideology. What I said above might explain why it's considered so important. No matter what else the will stated or the law states, declaring any kind of Nazi ideology illegal is considered of the utmost importance by German law.

Reading it again, I didn't quite read it correctly the first time. Apparently the part about being a member of the aristocracy does not need to be evaluated, because the demand that there not be any "artfremdes" blood (meaning literally no blood from another race, meaning a non-aryan race) makes the whole demand illegal.
So there is still no ruling on whether a will that demanded marriage to an aristocrat (without the demand for no blood from another race) would also be declared invalid. Therefore, I don't think this can be used as a precedent for cases where "only" the aristocratic demand, but no demands about blood (=race) are made.
I don't think this could have been predicted with certainty. A judge could easily have judged otherwise imho - stating that one part was invalid without making the whole requirement invalid. Can you share the exact wording with us?
 
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