Princess Marie Adelheid of Lippe

Countess Marie Adelheid was born the youngest child and only daughter of Count Rudolf of Lippe-Biesterfeld (1856-1931), later Prince Rudolf of Lippe and his wife, Princess Caroline Luise of Ardeck (a morganatic granddaughter of Frederick William, Elector of Hesse). Her father, a son of Count Julius Peter of Lippe-Biesterfeld (1812-1884) and Countess Adelheid zu Castell-Castell (1818-1900), was an uncle of Prince Leopold IV, who ruled the small principality of Lippe from 1905 until the 1918 collapse of the German Empire in World War I. Marie Adelheid was also a first cousin once-removed of Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld (1911-2004) who, in 1937 became the prince consort of Juliana, future Queen of the Netherlands. ==Marriages==

At the age of 24, Marie Adelheid wed, in the castle in which she was born at Drogelwitz, Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss, J(unior) L(ine), a man seventeen years her senior, Thereafter, Marie Adelheid used the title Princess Reuss zur Lippe. Marie Adelheid married a third and final time to commoner Hanno Konopath (born surnamed "Konopacki"), a Nazi government official, on 24 February 1927. This marriage also ended in divorce nine years later in 1936, but not before it generated important contacts for her in the German regime. ==Issue==

• Prince Heinrich V Reuss of Köstritz (b. 26 May 1921, d. 28 Oct 1980), married morganatically on 22 June 1961 with Ingrid Jobst. They had three children: • Marie Alexandra Luise Hermine Dora Helene Reuss of Köstritz (b. 1 September 1963), married on 13 July 1985 to Eberhard, Count of Erbach-Erbach (b. 2 June 1958), grandson of Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont. They had three children: • Countess Felicitas Alexandra Magita Elena of Erbach-Erbach (b. 27 June 1987). • Franz Georg Albrecht Wittekind Karl-Emich Raimund Kraft Carl, Hereditary Count of Erbach-Erbach (b. 6 June 1989). • Count Franz Konrad Ludwig Heinrich Gustav of Erbach-Erbach (b. 12 December 1991). • Heinrich Ico Reuss of Köstritz (b. 18 October 1964), married on 17 July 1999 to Baroness Corinna von Elmendorff. They had one daughter: • Henriette Josephine Viktoria Luise Reuss of Köstritz (b. 16 November 2000). • Caroline Marie Adelheid Freia Gabriele Elisabeth Reuss of Köstritz (b. 30 December 1968), married on 25 October 1995 to Sebastian Papst. ==Nazi Germany==

Early years Alarmed by the failure of their class to respond to the troubles occurring in Germany, many younger members of royal families joined the emerging Nazi Party and other radical right-wing groups. Like the Hesse family, the Lippe dynasty joined the Nazi Party in great numbers (ultimately eighteen members would eventually join). Some German states provided a proportionally higher number of SS officers, including Hesse-Nassau and Lippe, Marie Adelheid's birthplace. A small work of forty-one pages, its spacious layout and the exceptional quality of its paper is evidence that while Germany was suffering from an economic depression, the book was distributed in small quantities to a select, wealthy clientele. Her cousin Ernst, Hereditary Prince of Lippe (son of Leopold IV, Prince of Lippe) was also employed under Darré. These essays included Nordische Frau und Nordischer Glaube [Nordic Women and Nordic Religion] (1934), Deutscher Hausrat [Setting up the German Household] (1936), two edited collections of writings by Darre, and two novels, Mutter Erde [Mother Earth] (1935), and Die Overbroocks [The Overbroocks] (1942). Nordic Faith Movement In the late 1920s, Marie Adelheid regularly attended meetings for the paganist Nordic Ring, which was a forum for the discussion of issues concerning race and eugenics. Her third husband was a leader of this group. Konopath was a member of the Race and Culture Division in the Reich Leadership Office. "In the Old Testament, the greatest and most sacred things are treated as a variety of sin. One should not, therefore, place in children's hands the sort of tales of which the Old Testament is made up. However, the new Testament is not much better. Throughout the Old Testament woman is treated as something shameful. We read there that a woman who has borne a child should make a sacrifice". Fall of Darré As the war caused unwelcome developments, Darré's romantic "blood and soil" views suffered as new and more efficient plans were produced by important Nazi officials Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring. As Darré's influence declined, so did that of Marie Adelheid and her cousin, as their family lacked a viable power base. While Darré retired to his hunting lodge outside Berlin, she and Ernst continued their activities under the Nazi regime until the end of the war. ==Post-World War II==

After World War II ended, Marie Adelheid continued her extreme right-wing activities, working as an author and translator, as well as being active in various neo-Nazi organizations. She translated Paul Rassinier's Holocaust-denying work, Le Drame des Juifs européens (The Drama of European Jews), into German in 1964, and also published two more volumes of poetry. As a result of his publications, Christophersen was threatened with imprisonment for spreading Nazi propaganda, and finally had to leave Germany for Denmark. ==Death==

Marie Adelheid died on Christmas Day 25 December 1993 in Tangstedt, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, aged 98. ==List of works==

Marie Adelheid produced and published many different works under the names Marie Adelheid Prinzessin Reuss-zur Lippe and Marie Adelheid Konopath throughout her life. All of these original works contained right-wing propaganda, both during and after the fall of the Nazi regime. Novels • Mutter Erde [Mother Earth] (1935) ==Ancestry==