Princess Hilda of Anhalt-Dessau


Princess Hilda of Anhalt-Dessau was a member of the House of Ascania by birth. She was a leader in the Dessau of the Deutscher Krieger-Hilfsbund.

Biography

She was the third child of the marriage of Prince Frederick Augustus of Anhalt-Dessau and Princess Marie Luise Charlotte of Hesse-Kassel. Her father was the son of Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Anhalt-Dessau and Princess Amalie of Hesse-Homburg, and her mother was the daughter of Prince William of Hesse-Kassel and his wife, Princess Charlotte of Denmark.
She is one of the sisters who contracted marriages with German princes:
  1. Adelheid-Marie, married in 1851 to Adolphe, last Duke of Nassau and later, first Grand Duke of Luxembourg. From her descends the current Grand Ducal House of Luxembourg.
  2. Bathildis Amalgunde, married on May 30, 1862, to prince Prince William of Schaumburg-Lippe, son of George William, Prince of Schaumburg-Lippee. Her eldest daughter, Charlotte of Schaumburg-Lippe, married William II of Württemberg, the last king of Wurtemberg.
Along with her mother and some of her sisters, she went on several trips around Europe. For example, in 1884, Hilda, her mother and Bathildis, went to Florence where they met with the family of her cousin the Duchess of Teck, including her daughter Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, who would be later be queen consort of the United Kingdom. In 1890, together with her sister Bathildis, they visited the bathing station in Bad Kissingen.
In 1905 her lady-in-waiting was the baroness von Heynitz.
During the First World War she participated as leader in Dessau of the Deutscher Krieger-Hilfsbund. This organization was dedicated to providing aid to German soldiers returning from the front in a precarious situation.
Hilda never married and died in Dessau in 1926 aged 87.