Marie Adelheid of Lippe-Biesterfeld

Princess Marie Adelheid of Lippe (30 August 1895 – 25 December 1993) was a socialite and writer who was active in Nazi Germany. As the wife of Hanno Konopath, a prominent Nazi official, Marie Adelheid was a well known and ardent supporter of the Nazi regime. She was instrumental in the Nordic Ring, a forum for the discussion of issues concerning race and eugenics. Marie Adelheid also served as an aide to Minister of Food and Agriculture Richard Walther Darré, and produced numerous works of fiction, poetry, translations, and other books. After the end of World War II, she published translations of prominent Holocaust-denying works, such as Paul Rassinier's Le Drame des Juifs européens (The Drama of European Jews) into German in 1964. Family 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 Luise von 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, 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. Marie Adelheid's family could be traced back to the twelfth century and were reigning monarchs until she was 23 years old. In 1905, her branch of the House of Lippe inherited one of the two thrones held by the family (the other was the principality of Schaumburg-Lippe, also within the German Empire) and Marie Adelheid became a princess of Lippe, dropping the suffix "Biesterfeld". When Germany's various kingdoms and principalities were abolished, the dynasty lost its throne and rank as royalty, but the republic allowed them to retain much of their property, as well as their princely title in the form of a surname. 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, who was her cousin in the fourth degree (their shared ancestor being King Frederick William II of Prussia) and in the sixth degree (both being descendants of George II of Great Britain).