Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands

Willem-Alexander van Amsberg, King of the Netherlands

Willem-Alexander (Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand van Amsberg (Jonkheer van Amsberg = Junkers von Amsberg); born 27 April 1967) is the reigning King of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, consisting of the countries of the Netherlands, Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten. He is head of the Dutch royal house and the House of Amsberg and became the first male monarch of the Netherlands since the death of William III in 1890.

Life

Willem-Alexander with wife Máxima

Willem-Alexander was born in Utrecht and is the eldest child of former Queen Princess Beatrix and former German soldier and diplomat Claus van Amsberg (German: Klaus von Amsberg; 1926 − 2002). Willem-Alexander became Prince of Orange and heir apparent to the throne of the Netherlands on 30 April 1980, when his mother became queen regnant, and he ascended to the throne on 30 April 2013 when his mother abdicated. Upon his accession, he was Europe's youngest crowned head of state.

Willem-Alexander's maternal grandfather is former German Rittmeister, SS-Offizier and jurisprudent Prinz Bernhard van Lippe-Biesterfeld (German: Bernhard zur Lippe-Biesterfeld; 1911 − 2004), his paternal grandfather is Klaus Felix Friedrich Leopold Gabriel Archim Julius August von Amsberg (1890−1953), who was a German officer in World War I serving in the Imperial German Army at the side of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck during the German East Africa campaign.

Family

Amsberg

The House of Amsberg (German: von Amsberg, Dutch: van Amsberg) is the name of a German noble family from Mecklenburg, the senior line of which also forms the royal house of the Netherlands, styled as van Oranje-Nassau van Amsberg (Orange-Nassau-Amsberg). Descended from a blacksmith, parish priest August Amsberg (1747–1820) started calling himself "von Amsberg" in 1795 and the family's right to use this name was confirmed by the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1891. By this permission to use a noble privilege, the family effectively became part of the untitled lower nobility of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Members of the family live in the Netherlands and in Northern Germany. Its most notable member is the family's current head (i.e. senior male line descendant), King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. Both King Willem-Alexander and other members of the Dutch royal family hold the title "Jonkheer (or female Jonkvrouw) van Amsberg," and members of the Dutch royal family use the surname "van Oranje-Nassau van Amsberg."

Parents

Father Claus met Crown Princess Beatrix for the first time on New Year's Eve 1962 in Bad Driburg at a dinner hosted by the count von Oeynhausen-Sierstorpff who was a distant relative of both of them. They met again at the wedding-eve party of Princess Tatjana of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg and Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse, in the summer of 1964. Sections of the Dutch population were unhappy that Beatrix's fiancé was a German and former member of the Hitler Youth, only twenty years after the end of the war, and there were protests during the wedding celebrations, most notably by the anarchist-artist group Provo. Nonetheless, her engagement was approved by the States-General--a necessary step for Beatrix to remain heiress to the throne--in 1965. He was granted Dutch citizenship later that year and changed the spellings of his names to Dutch (from Karl von Amsberg to Carl van Amsberg). Dutch citizenship was mandatory, because children would have become German citizens by law without it. Queen Juliana granted Claus van Amsberg the Special dutch title Jonkheer van Amsberg along with Prince of the Netherlands on 16 Februar 1966.

Grandfathers

Prince Bernhard Leopold Frederik Everhard Julius Coert Karel Godfried Pieter of Lippe-Biesterfeld (German: Bernhard Leopold Friedrich Eberhard Julius Kurt Karl Gottfried Peter Prinz zur Lippe-Biesterfeld; 29 June 1911 – 1 December 2004), later Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, was the husband of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and father of her four children, including the former monarch Queen Beatrix. Bernhard was born Bernhard Leopold Friedrich Eberhard Julius Kurt Karl Gottfried Peter Prinz zur Lippe-Biesterfeld in Jena, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, German Empire, the elder son of Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld (younger brother of Leopold IV, Prince of Lippe, the reigning Prince of Lippe) and Armgard of Sierstorpff-Cramm. Because the marriage of his parents did not properly conform to the marriage laws of the House of Lippe and was therefore morganatic, Bernhard was born with the title of "Count" only. In 1916, the Reigning Prince of Lippe, Leopold IV, granted Bernhard the title of "Prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld". Bernhard studied Law at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and in Berlin, where he acquired a taste for fast cars, horse riding, and big-game hunting safaris. He was nearly killed in a boating accident and an airplane crash, and he suffered a broken neck and crushed ribs in a 160 km/h (100 mi/h) car crash in 1938. While at university, Bernhard joined the National Socialist Party and the Sturmabteilung, which he left in 1934 when he graduated. The Prince was not a National Socialist by conviction; these memberships made life easier for an ambitious young man. The Prince later denied that he belonged to SA, and later a member of the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps) but these are well-documented memberships. This German aristocrat was never a fierce champion of Democracy.

Claus Felix von Amsberg (German: Klaus Felix Friedrich Leopold Gabriel Archim Julius August von Amsberg; 1 September 1890 – 19 December 1953) was a member of the German Niederer Adel (lower nobility) and father of Prince Claus of the Netherlands, who was the Prince Consort of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, thus making him the father-in-law of the Dutch Queen. He was born at Rehna, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Empire (now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany), the first child of Wilhelm von Amsberg (1856–1929), by his marriage to Elise von Vieregge (1866–1951).Claus was from 1917 the steward of an estate after a failed venture in Africa as a planter. In World War I he fought as a German officer at the side of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa. In 1928 he moved with his family to Tanganyika (now Tanzania), where he remained during the outbreak of World War II as the manager of an Anglo-German tea and sisal plantation. He returned to Germany in 1947.</ref>

Marriage

On 2 February 2002, Willem-Alexander married Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti (born 17 May 1971) at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. Máxima is an Argentine woman of Basque, Portuguese and Italian ancestry, who prior to their marriage worked as an investment banker in New York City. The marriage triggered significant controversy due to the bride's father's prior role in the Argentinian military dictatorship. In 2007, Máxima, commenting on the issue of Dutch identity, infamously declared: "The Dutch person does not exist, no more than the Argentinian."

External links

• The Richest Monarchs and Royals of the World at Almanach de Gotha
• Dutch crowning: King Willem-Alexander becomes Europe's youngest monarch