Friday, April 15, 2011

Allies capture Auwi

April 15, 1945

Luxembourg radio said tonight that the allies "have captured Prince August Wilhelm, fourth son of the late Kaiser, who at one time participated in Nazi activities as a member of the Reichstag," reports the Associated Press.

Prince August Wilhelm, known as Auwi, "was the most active of all the Hohenzollern princes in the cause of the Nazis.  He was named as national orator by Adolf Hitler.   Wounded in the left arm in 1914 during the Battle of Marne, and decorated with the Iron Cross,  Prince August Wilhelm "provied adept at giving the Nazi salute when Hitler rose to prominence."  He rose to the rank of brigadier general in brown shirts army, and he once said that "God had sent Hitler to the German people."

He was born at Potsdam in 1887, and was married to his first cousin, Princess Alexandra Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein.  Allied radio said the prince was captured at Schloss Friedrichshof, near Kronberg, the home of his aunt,  the Landgräfin of Hesse.

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