Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld

Reckenwalde palace, today Wojnowo in Poland, where Prince Bernhard spent his youth

Bernhard was born Bernhard Leopold Friedrich Eberhard Julius Kurt Karl Gottfried Peter, Count of Biesterfeld in Jena, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, German Empire on 29 June 1911, the elder son of Prince Bernhard of Lippe and his wife, Baroness Armgard von Cramm. He was a grandson of Ernest, Count of Lippe-Biesterfeld, who was regent of the Principality of Lippe until 1904. He was also a nephew of the principality's last sovereign, Leopold IV, Prince of Lippe.

Because his parents' marriage did not conform with the marriage laws of the House of Lippe, it was initially deemed morganatic, so Bernhard was granted only the title of Count of Biesterfeld at birth. He and his brother could succeed to the Lippian throne only if the entire reigning House became extinct. In 1916, his uncle Leopold IV as reigning Prince raised Bernhard and his mother to Prince and Princess of Lippe-Biesterfeld, thereby retroactively according his parents' marriage dynastic status. The suffix Biesterfeld was revived to mark the beginning of a new cadet line of the House of Lippe.[1][2][3]

After World War I, Bernhard's family lost their German Principality and the revenue that had accompanied it, but the family was still reasonably well-off. Bernhard spent his early years at Reckenwalde castle (Wojnowo, Poland), the family's new estate in East Brandenburg, thirty kilometres east of the River Oder. He was taught privately and received his early education at home. When he was twelve, he was sent to board at the Gymnasium in Züllichau (Sulechów). Several years later he was sent to board at a Gymnasium in Berlin, from which he graduated in 1929.

Bernhard suffered from poor health as a boy. Doctors predicted that he would not live very long. This prediction might have inspired Bernhard's reckless driving and the risks that he took in the Second World War and thereafter. The prince wrecked several cars and planes in his lifetime.

Bernhard studied law at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and in Berlin. In the latter city, he also acquired a taste for fast cars, horse riding, and big-game hunting safaris. He was nearly killed in a boating accident and in an aeroplane crash. He suffered a broken neck and crushed ribs in a 160 km/h (100 mph) car crash in 1938.

While at university, Bernhard joined the Nazi Party. He also enrolled in the Sturmabteilung (SA), which he left in December 1934 when he graduated and went to work for IG Farben.[4] The Prince later denied that he had belonged to SA, to the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps), and to the NSKK, but these are well-documented memberships. While he was not a fierce champion of democracy, the Prince was never known to hold any radical political views or express any racist sentiments, although he admitted that he briefly had sympathised with Adolf Hitler's regime.[5]

The Prince eventually went to work for the German chemical giant IG Farben in the early 1930s, then the world's fourth-largest company. (It survives today as BASF, AGFA, and Bayer). He joined the statistics department of IG Farben's Berlin N.W. 7 department, the main Nazi overseas espionage centre (known as VOWI) that evolved into the economic intelligence arm of the Wehrmacht.[6] He lodged with Count Paul von Kotzebue (1884–1966), an exiled Russian nobleman of German descent, and his wife Allene Tew, who was born in the United States. After training, Bernhard became secretary in 1935 to the board of directors at the Paris office.

Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard 1937 wedding

Bernhard met then-Princess Juliana at the 1936 Winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Juliana's mother, Queen Wilhelmina, had spent most of the 1930s looking for a suitable husband for Juliana. As a Protestant of royal rank (the Lippes were a sovereign house in the German Empire), Bernhard was deemed acceptable for the devoutly religious Wilhelmina. They were distantly related, seventh cousins, both descending from Lebrecht, Prince of Anhalt-Zeitz-Hoym.[7] Wilhelmina left nothing to chance, and had her lawyers draft a very detailed prenuptial agreement that specified exactly what Bernhard could and could not do. The couple's engagement was announced on 8 September 1936, and they were married at The Hague on 7 January 1937. Earlier, Bernhard had been granted Dutch citizenship and changed the spelling of his names from German to Dutch. Previously styled as Serene Highness, he became a Royal Highness by Dutch law. His appropriateness as consort of the future Queen would later become a matter of considerable public debate.

Prince Bernhard fathered six children, four of them with Queen Juliana. The eldest daughter is Beatrix, (born 1938), who later became Queen of the Netherlands. His other daughters with Juliana are Irene (born 1939), Margriet (born 1943) and Christina (1947–2019).

Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard with their oldest daughters Princess Beatrix and Princess Irene in Ottawa on 4 May 1942.

He had two "natural", or illegitimate, daughters. The first is Alicia von Bielefeld (born in San Francisco on 21 June 1952), whose mother has been identified as Alicia Webber, a 19 years old German national, illegitimate daughter of German aviator and test pilot Hanna Reitsch.[8] Von Bielefeld has become a landscape architect and lives in the United States. His sixth daughter, Alexia Grinda (a.k.a. Alexia Lejeune or Alexia Grinda-Lejeune, born in Paris on 10 July 1967), is his child by Hélène Grinda, a French socialite and fashion model.[9] Although rumours about these two children were already widespread, their status as his daughters was made official after his death. In December 2008, Dutch historian Cees Fasseur claimed that Jonathan Aitken, former British Conservative Cabinet Minister, is also a child of Prince Bernhard, the result of his wartime affair with Penelope Maffey.[10]

Prince Bernhard was a member of the "Reiter-SS", a mounted unit of the SS. He had also voluntarily joined the Nazi party in April 1933.[11] He later also joined the National Socialist Motor Corps. His Nazi Party membership card was found in his belongings after his death.[12] Bernhard consistently lied about being a member of the Nazi party throughout his life.

Various members of his family and friends were aligned with the Nazis prior to the Second World War, and a number of them attended the royal wedding. Protocol demanded that the prospective Prince-Consort be invited to an audience with his head of state, who at the time was Adolf Hitler. Hitler gave an account of the conversation he had with Bernhard in his Tischgespräche (Table Conversations). This book was a collection of monologues, remarks, and speeches Hitler gave during lunch or dinner to those he had invited.

General Brian Horrocks, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Prince Bernhard before Operation Market Garden on 8 September 1944

At the outset of the Second World War, during the German invasion of the Netherlands, the Prince, carrying a machine gun, organised the palace guards into a combat group and shot at German warplanes. The Royal family fled the Netherlands and took refuge in England. Disagreeing with Queen Wilhelmina's decision to leave the Kingdom, the young Prince Consort, aged 28, is said at first to have refused to go and to have wanted to oppose the German occupation from within the country. However, in the end, he agreed to join his wife and became head of the Royal Military Mission based in London. His wife Princess Juliana and their children continued on to Canada, where they remained until the end of the war.

In England, Prince Bernhard asked to work in British Intelligence. The War Admiralty, and later General Eisenhower's Allied Command offices, did not trust him enough to allow him access to sensitive intelligence information. On the recommendation of Bernhard's friend and admirer King George VI, however, who was also of German aristocratic descent through his mother Mary of Teck and his great-grandfather Prince Albert, and after Bernhard was personally screened by British intelligence officer Ian Fleming at the behest of Winston Churchill, he was later given work to do in the Allied War Planning Councils.

"For Bernhard, the Prince of the Netherlands, the war was a frustrating business. Born a German, he had married Queen Wilhelmina's only child, Princess Juliana, and in due time made a conscious and meaningful transition of loyalties to his new homeland. Because of this, and in view of the doubts his background initially evoked among some Britons, he longed more than anyone for a chance to get at Holland's aggressors." Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema aka "Soldier of Orange", decorated war hero.[13]

On 25 June 1940, three days after France fell to the German war machine, Bernhard spoke on the Overseas Service of the BBC. He called Hitler a German tyrant and expressed his confidence that Britain would defeat the Third Reich.

In 1940, Flight Lieutenant Murray Payne gave the prince instruction in flying a Spitfire. The prince made 1,000 flight-hours in a Spitfire with the RAF's No. 322 (Dutch) Squadron RAF, wrecking two planes during landings. He remained an active pilot throughout his life and flew his last aeroplane 53 years later, with his grandson and heir to the throne, who inherited his passion for flying.

In 1941, Prince Bernhard was given the honorary rank of wing commander in the Royal Air Force. As "Wing Commander Gibbs (RAF)", Prince Bernhard flew over occupied Europe, attacking V-1 launch pads in a B-24 Liberator, bombing Pisa, and engaging submarines over the Atlantic in a B-25 Mitchell, and conducting reconnaissance over enemy-held territory in an L-5 Grasshopper. Prince Bernhard was awarded the Dutch Airman's Cross for his "ability and perseverance" (Dutch: "bekwaamheid en volharding").[14] In 1941 he also received a promotion to Honorary Air Commodore.[15]

He also helped organise the Dutch resistance movement and acted as the personal secretary for Queen Wilhelmina.

Queen Wilhelmina erased the style "honorary" (the exact words were "à la suite") in the decree promoting Bernhard to General. In this unconstitutional manner, she gave this Royal Prince a status that was never intended by either Parliament or her Ministers. The Minister of Defence did not choose to correct the Monarch, and the Prince took an active and important role in the Dutch armed forces.

By 1944, Prince Bernhard became Commander of the Dutch Armed Forces. After the liberation of the Netherlands, he returned with his family and became active in the negotiations for the German surrender. He was present during the Armistice negotiations and German surrender at Hotel de Wereld ("The World Hotel"), Wageningen in The Netherlands on 5 May 1945, where he avoided speaking German.[16][17] The Prince was a genuine war hero in the eyes of most of the Dutch; he kept cordial relations with the Communists who fought against the Nazis. In the post-war years, he earned respect for his work in helping to reinvigorate the economy of the Netherlands.

Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard with President of the United States Harry S. Truman and First Lady Bess Truman at Washington National Airport on 2 April 1952

After the War, the position of Inspector General was created for the Prince. On 4 September 1948, his mother-in-law Queen Wilhelmina abdicated the throne and Juliana became Queen of the Netherlands with Bernhard becoming Prince Consort of the Netherlands. He was made a member of the boards of supervisors of Fokker Aircraft and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and within a few years he had been invited to serve as an adviser or non-executive director of numerous corporations and institutions. There have been claims that KLM helped Nazis to leave Germany for Argentina on KLM flights while Bernhard was on its board.[18] After a 1952 trip with Queen Juliana to the United States, Prince Bernhard was heralded by the media as a business ambassador extraordinaire for the Netherlands.[19]

With his global contacts having been approached by the secretive Polish diplomat, Józef Retinger, in May 1954 Bernhard was a major figure in organising a meeting at the Bilderberg Hotel in the Netherlands for the business elite and intellectuals of the Western World to discuss the economic problems in the face of what they characterised as the growing threat from Communism.[20] This first meeting was successful, and it became an annual gathering known as the Bilderberg Group. The idea for the European Union, first proposed by Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950, was encouraged at Bilderberg.

Prince Bernhard at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on 4 November 1959.

Prince Bernhard was a very outspoken person who often flouted protocol by remarking upon subjects about which he felt deeply. Almost until his last day, he called for more recognition for the Polish veterans of the Second World War, who had figured greatly in the liberation of the Netherlands. But it was not until after his death that the Dutch Government publicly recognised the important role of the Polish Army in the liberation: on 31 May 2006, at the Binnenhof in The Hague, Queen Beatrix conferred the Military William Order, the highest Dutch military decoration, on the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade.[21] The award is now worn by the 6th Airborne Brigade which inherited the battle honours of the brigade.

Prince Bernhard was seen as a jet-setting and charismatic ambassador for the Dutch during post-war reconstruction.[22][23] Because of his connections, Prince Bernhard reportedly maintained friendships with several high-profile international figures. They included Nelson Mandela,[24][25][26][27] David Rockefeller,[28][29][30] Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi,[31][32] Ian Fleming,[33][34][35] and Walter Bedell Smith.[36][37]

Prince Bernhard wearing his trademark carnation in Amsterdam on 6 July 1999.

In 1994, the Prince had a colon tumour removed and suffered severe complications due to respiratory distress. In December, his daughter Queen Beatrix rushed to the hospital straight after landing from a trip to Africa. By Christmas the prospect of death had faded and by spring the next year he recovered enough to go home. His health problems continued in 1998 when he had a prostate swelling and in 1999 when he suffered difficulties breathing and talking. He did, however, attend the wedding of his grandson, straight after having prostate surgery. In 2000, his life was endangered again when he suffered neurological complications and continued breathing problems. Two days after intensive medical attention the Royal Press Office issued a statement the Prince was reading newspapers again.

The state funeral of Prince Bernhard in Delft on 11 December 2004.

Over the following years Bernhard continued to appear at the military parades on the national liberation day celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany. Only when his wife Juliana died in March 2004 did the Prince become exceedingly fragile. Up to the last moment it remained uncertain if he could attend the royal funeral, which he eventually managed to attend. He said his final farewells to his war comrades on Liberation Day in May and in November that same year he was diagnosed with untreatable cancer.[47]

Prince Bernhard died of lung cancer at the age of 93 at University Medical Center Utrecht in Utrecht on 1 December 2004. Ten days later, he was interred with a state funeral at the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft. Bernhard's funeral was different from those of Prince Claus and Queen Juliana in that Bernhard's coffin was transported on the undercarriage of a cannon instead of in the traditional carriage used when the coffins of Prince Claus and Queen Juliana were transported to Delft. Together with the playing of many military marches and the forming of guards of honour by Second World War veterans this gave the funeral procession a military character as the late Prince, a Second World War veteran, had wished. As a final tribute to his former military role in the Royal Netherlands Air Force, three modern F-16 jet fighters and a World War II Spitfire plane performed a low flypast during the funeral in a classic missing man formation.

In the years after Bernhard died his life story has been the inspiration for literature, theatre, television and comic books.[48] In 2010 fact and fiction of the life of Bernhard was portrayed in a Dutch television series. In a biographical dissertation by Dutch journalist and historian Annejet van der Zijl published in March 2010, Bernhard was called "a failure" in the history of the Dutch Royal Family and a "creature of his own myths".[49]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld.

• Works about Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld at Open Library
• Newspaper clippings about Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW