Prince Christian was a relative of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, their mothers being first cousins, and before the outbreak of the war a marriage between the prince and the Emperor's oldest daughter Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna was speculated on, with the match being seen as a way to increase German influence in Russia. However nothing would ever come of this and in December 1914 Prince Christian's engagement with Elizabeth Reid Rogers, the daughter of Richard Reid Rogers, was announced. The couple had first met about a year previously at a ball in Cairo, after which her family travelled to Berlin for an extended stay, enabling the prince to renew his courtship. Unlike other American society girls who had married European royalty and nobility in the 19th and 20th centuries, Prince Christian's fiancée was not particularly wealthy, but was born of influential father. Prince Christian and Elizabeth were married on 14 January 1915 at the Holy Trinity Church in Berlin. As Elizabeth was not of equal birth, the marriage was morganatic, meaning that she and any future children would be unable to share Prince Christian's title and rank. To compensate for this, on the day of the wedding Prince Christian's kinsman the reigning Grand Duke of Hesse bestowed the title Baroness von Barchfeld on Elizabeth. Prince Christian and Elizabeth went on to have four children: Elisabeth Auguste, Richard Christian, Waldemar and Marie Louise Olga. With the permission of his brother Landgrave Chlodwig, on 14 November 1921 it was declared that Prince Christian's wife and children were permitted to title themselves Prinz/Prinzessin von Hessen.
Post war
After the war Prince Christian and his family lived for a time in Switzerland and the United States, before acquiring a villa in Cannes. The prince was close to the British Royal Family both before and after the First World War. In 1925, after attending the funeral of his cousin Queen Alexandra, he became the first person of German origin in the post-war period to dine with King George V and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace. With Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, a number of Prince Christian's Hessian relatives, including various nephews and nieces, joined the Nazi party. However the prince and his family were not among them and in 1941 the Nazis stripped Prince Christian, his wife and their children of their German citizenship, although no reason was given in the announcement. Prince Christian would later acquire Swiss nationality. On 2 February 1957, Prince Christian's wife Elizabeth died at Cannes. He was married for a second time in Cannes on 25 June 1958 to fellow widow Ann Pearl Field, née Everett, the civil wedding having taken place 15 days earlier in Geneva. His second marriage was childless. Prince Christian spent his last years travelling, visiting his second wife's native Australia in 1962. He died aged 84 while holidaying with his wife in Geneva.
