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Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany. By Jonathan Petropoulos. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2009. xix + 524 pages. 32.00 (hardback) /12.99 (paperback).

This well-researched and captivating study analyses the involvement of German princely houses in the Third Reich, focusing on the activities of princes Philipp and Christoph von Hessen-Kassel as a lens through which the German higher aristocracys orientation towards Nazism is examined. The highly visible and prominent HessenKassel family was related to the Hohenzollern and British royal houses, since Phillip and Christophs mother, Princess Margaretha von Preussen, the child of Queen Victorias eldest daughter Victoria and Emperor Frederick III, was the sister of William II and niece of the British King Edward VII. Petropouloss detailed investigations, including the holdings of well over a dozen archives, were supported not only by members of the Hessen family, who put the family archives and important documents at his disposal, but also by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who shared his personal recollections with the author. Philipp (born 1896) joined the Nazi Party early, in October 1930, and eventually became the highest ranking state official (Oberprsident) in his home province of HessenNassau, as well as Hitlers personal emissary to Mussolini. Philipp lost two older brothers in World War I and participated in combat himself. In 1925, he married Mafalda, the second daughter of King Vittorio Emmanuele III of Italy, a happy marriage though not

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without complications. One big complication, according to the author, was Philipps relationship with the British poet and writer, Siegfried Sassoon, in the early 1920s, which Petropoulos documents in detail. Sassoon, though clearly close to him, provides a scathing character assessment of Philipp, considering him rigid . . . an example of conventional culture ... impervious to any arguments ... his culture consists in acquiring information without coordinating it . . . [and is of an] intellectual rigidity that will develop into ossification (p. 70). Sassoon, who also wondered whether he was only one of Ps regular succession of affairs (p. 71), was also offended by Philipps inability to distinguish between decent and indecent people (p. 71). This turns out to be plausible criticism in light of what was to come. Philipps early sympathy for Mussolinis fascists was a key factor in his gravitation towards Nazism, as was his friendship with Hermann Gring, who asked Philipp to assume the post of provincial governor of Hessen-Nassau. Philipp agreed with a heavy heart, for it meant that he could not be in Italy as often as he wished. He became a popular figure in the province, though the office would later embroil him in incessant conflict with the Nazi Gauleiters in the region. Philipp would be accused of complicity in the killing of the mentally and physically handicapped after the war, because the notorious sanatorium at Hadamar, one of the killing sites of the T-4 programme, was located in his province. His role as a liaison between Hitler and Mussolini in the later 1930s put him at the centre of Nazi foreign policy in Italy which, in turn, precipitated his arrest by the SS on 8 September 1943. Hitler suspected that he was in league with the Italian king, who had played a role in overthrowing Mussolini and then escaped to the Allies. Philipp was subsequently confined to Flossenbrg concentration camp where he served Hitler as a kind of hostage for the Italian royal family. His wife Mafalda perished under miserable circumstances in Buchenwald in 1944, even though the camp was overseen by her husbands distant relative, the Prince zu Waldeck. If someone had told me earlier of the conditions and methods that prevailed in a concentration camp, I probably would have had that person brought to a concentration camp for spreading propagandistic lies, Philipp said after the war (p. 297). This remark, betraying commitment and navet, encapsulates the princes relationship with National Socialism. His brother Christoph joined the Party in October 1931 (though initially under a different name to keep his membership secret) and the SS in February 1932, where he eventually rose to the rank of colonel. Since Christoph never completed his formal schooling, his princely rank coupled with membership in the Nazi Party and the SS presented opportunities that otherwise would have eluded him. He died in a plane crash in Italy in October 1943. A critical issue in studies of the German higher aristocracys involvement with the Nazi regime is that of motivation. Hitler and other Nazi leaders initially tried to curry favour with the princes, since they could open social doors that might otherwise remain firmly bolted. Some responded to Nazi overtures because they saw the potential for professional advancement, while others were more favourably predisposed towards Nazism from the outset. Petropoulos argues that the two princes gravitation to National Socialism was motivated by a certain idealism and by the bitterness and disappointment arising out of World War I. In the case of Philipp, an important motive for joining the NSDAP was his interest in National Soziale ideas and the concept of a social monarchy (p. 106). Petropoulos also stresses the fact that Philipp was interested in the welfare of

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workers and began his tenure as Oberprsident with a visit to a local mine. In general, the author might have probed more deeply into the issue of motivation and made perhaps a greater effort to understand the inner incentives for what, after all, was not an obvious political choice for German princes. Petropoulos concurs with recent studies (e.g. Stefan Malinowskis Vom Knig zum Fhrer, and Lothar Machtans Der Kaisersohn bei Hitler) that emphasize a greater predisposition on the part of the aristocracy towards National Socialism than had previously been assumed. Citing a 1941 document that contains a list of 270 members of princely families who joined the Party, he shows that between a third and half of the princes eligible to join the NSDAP did so. If princes had constituted a profession, Petropoulos holds, they would thus have rivalled physicians as the most nazified group in the Third Reich. Since only sixty-nine of the 270 princes on the 1941 list (p. 390)still an astonishingly high numberjoined before March 1933, it appears that for most the overriding motive was opportunism rather than enthusiasm, indicating that the HesselKassel brothers were the exception rather than the rule. Overall, this is a splendidly readable book that, though scholarly, is written for a more general audience than professional historians. It is full of captivating detail and the author is to be commended for his thorough research, eminently readable and engaging writing style, and very comprehensive and rich knowledge of European royalty.
doi: 10.1093/gerhis/ghq083 Advance Access published on 2 September 2010

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Hermann Beck University of Miami