Bernhard, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen (30 June 1901 – 4 October 1984) was the head of the House of Saxe-Meiningen from 1946 until his death.

Prince of Saxe-Meiningen

Bernhard was born in Köln the third son of Prince Frederick Johann of Saxe-Meiningen and Countess Adelaide of Lippe-Biesterfeld. His father was the second son of Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and his mother a daughter of Count Ernst of Lippe-Biesterfeld. After the death of his older brother Prince Georg in 1946 his nephew Prince Frederick Alfred renounced his succession rights and so Bernhard succeeded to the headship of the house of Saxe-Meiningen and the nominal title of Duke of Saxe-Meiningen (as Bernhard IV). As his first marriage was morganatic his second son Prince Frederick Konrad succeeded him as head of the ducal house following his death in Bad Krozingen. Bernhard and his first wife were declared guilty of a Nazi conspiracy against Austria in 1933; he was sentenced to six weeks in prison, while she was placed under house arrest. After intervention of the German envoy, he was released from prison, upon which they escaped to Italy. Three weeks later he was arrested while trying to return to his castle of Pitzelstaetten.

Family

Bernhard was married morganatically to Margot Grössler (1911–1998), a merchant's daughter from Breslau (today: Wrocław) in Eichenhof im Riesengebirge on 25 April 1931. This union ended in divorce on 10 June 1947. They had two children, both of whom had no succession rights: Bernhard married secondly in Ziegenberg über Bad Nauheim on 11 August 1948 to Baroness Vera Schäffer von Bernstein (1914–1994). They had three children, including a son, Konrad, with full rights to the succession to the house of Saxe-Meiningen:

Ancestry