Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1901–1985)


Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was a dynast of the House of Wettin, belonging to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry. He was the last Fideikommissherr of the branch.

Life

Born in Walterskirchen in Lower Austria, he was the third son of Prince August Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and his wife Archduchess Karoline Marie of Austria. At the time of his birth the House of Wettin ruled the Kingdom of Saxony and the Ernestine duchies in Germany, as well as the kingdoms of Belgium, Portugal, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom. He was raised, however, on his family's estates in Austria.
After 1933 Prince Philipp supported financially German émigrés and Resistance to Nazism. In 1934, he hired the well-known Christian opponent of the Nazi Party, Eugen Kogon to take over the asset management of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Koháry. After the Anschluss in March 1938 Kogon was arrested and, in September 1939, was deported to Buchenwald.
When he was a teenager all five of the thrones held by his family in Germany were abolished, but his family retained their lands and private property until those located, after World War II, in East Germany and in other Iron Curtain countries were confiscated. Philipp took up residence in Vienna in the Austrian Republic.

Marriage and issue

In Budapest on 23 September 1944 Prince Philipp married, in non-compliance with the dynasty's house laws, Sárah Aurelia Hálasz, daughter of Imre Hálasz and Aurelia Maximovics Saladuchin, born into an academic family. Six months prior to, and legitimised by, their marriage they had one son, who bore the ducal surname and title but was not recognized as a member of the dynasty:
  1. Prince Philipp August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who, on his parents' wedding anniversary in 1968, wed Bettina Pfretschner. They had three children:
  2. #Isabelle Prinzessin von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha（born 1969）
  3. #Maximilian Prinz von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, who wed Christina Schnell. They have one daughter:
  4. ##Franziska Marie Prinzessin von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (born 2009）
  5. #Alexander Ernst Prinz von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (born 1978）

    Ancestry