Flashback Friday: A Hesse-Savoy Royal Wedding

September 23, 1925: A royal wedding takes place at the Royal Castle of Racconigi in north-western Italy, when Princess Mafalda of Savoy – second eldest daughter of King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy – marries Prince Philipp of Hesse-Kassel, the future Landgrave.

The couple had four children – Moritz, Heinrich, Otto and Elisabeth – before the Second World War tore the family apart: while Philipp was a member of Nazi party and acted as an intermediary between Germany and Italy thanks to his wife’s heritage, Hitler believed the Princess to be working against the German war effort. In September 1943, the pair were separately arrested, and Mafalda was sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, where she was killed in an Allied bombing raid in August 1944.

Philipp survived his wife by 36 years, dying aged 83 in 1980.

Filed under Germany, Historical Royals, Italy
Tagged House of Hesse, House of Hesse-Kassel, House of Savoy, Mafalda of Savoy, Philipp Landgrave of Hesse, Wedding Anniversary.

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