Recently, His Highness Prince Andreas of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha gave an interview with the German newspaper, Neue Press Coburg, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
If you are unfamiliar with Prince Andreas, well, he’s the father of His Highness Hereditary Prince Hubertus of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the father-in-law of Her Highness Hereditary Princess Kelly.
Anyway, here is what Prince Andreas had to say to the journalist from Neue Presse Coburg (a rough translation. Probably one of the worst ever so please don’t yell at me. Danke): 🙂
” ‘The older you get, the more people are interested in their roots,’ says Prince Andreas of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. In addition to the examination of his own family history, it is therefore also the care of the many family connections to many major European royal houses that are of particular concern.
Only with the House of Windsor will it not work out so well. The British royal family, who were known until the First World War as the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, shows little interest in having contact with their relatives, the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family. This is a great regret by Prince Andreas the great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria and a man who holds both German and a British passports.
‘Tradition, home, family, honesty, loyalty – these are the values that I am committed to’. The prince dislikes the ‘dance around the golden calf’ and he insists, because today obviously counting only, ‘what pays’. The peerage he says, who spent his youth in the United States, is not a privilege. ‘We are citizens… people just like everyone else,’ he explains. Prince Andreas also says that he does not have many noble friends. An obligation, he says, the needle was quite ‘We (my family and I) are more focused than others, but we need pay attention to do our job well, to fulfill our responsibilities.’
Prince Andreas Michael Friedrich Hans Armin Siegfried Hubertus of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was born on 21 March 1943 in Lower Lusatia (Brandenburg), the estate of the grandparents. He is the firstborn son of Prince Friedrich Josias (1918 – 1998) and his first wife, Princess Viktoria Luise, née Countess zu Solms-Baruth (1921-2003). The grandfather of Prince Andreas was Charles Edward, the last reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
After his parents divorced in 1949 Prince Andreas moved with his mother and her second husband, an American officer from the United States, to New Orléans, Louisiana. Here is where he spent his childhood. Since he was 16 years old the prince would regularly travel to Germany to prepare for his future role. In 1965 he finally returned to his old home permanently. From 1966 to 1968 he did his military service in the Armored Reconnaissance Battalion 6 in Schleswig-Holstein Eutin, then he trained as a timber merchant in Hamburg. In 1971 he married Karin Dabelstein and had three children: Stephanie (1972), Hubertus (1975) and Alexander (1977).
Since his father’s death in 1998, Prince Andreas has been the successor and the head of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The family has two Schloss (castles) Callenberg and Greinburg. Last year, Prince Andreas retired from the family business and his eldest son, Hereditary Prince Hubertus, who had previously worked as an investment banker in New York, took over.
Today, in honor of his 70th birthday Prince Andreas will host a reception at Schloss Callenberg. During the reception a new painting of the family, by Dresden artist, Mr. Christoph Wetzel, will be unveiled.”
