Heinrich XLV, Hereditary Prince Reuss

Heinrich XLV, Hereditary Prince Reuss (In German: Heinrich XLV Erbprinz Reuß; born 13 May 1895) was the head of the House of Reuss from 1928, as well the last male member of the Reuss-Schleiz branch of the Younger Line. He went missing in 1945, on 5 January 1962 he was legally declared dead with effect from 31 December 1953.

Early life
Heinrich XLV was born at Ebersdorf, in the Principality of Reuss Younger Line (present-day Thuringia), the youngest son of Heinrich XXVII, Prince Reuss Younger Line (1858–1928) and his wife, Princess Elise of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1864–1929). Prince Heinrich XLV became the direct heir to the throne in 1912 upon the death of his older brother Prince Heinrich XLIII. He became the heir apparent and Hereditary Prince Reuss Younger Line the following year upon the death of his grandfather Heinrich XIV, Prince Reuss Younger Line.

He attended high school in Dresden and served as a lieutenant in the 7th Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 96 during the First World War.

After the war he studied in Leipzig, Marburg, Munich and Kiel, literature, music and philosophy. He was a great theatre lover and supporter and was a director, writer and consultant. In 1923, Heinrich XLV became head of the dramaturgy department at Reussian Theatre in Gera.

Prince Reuss
At the death of his father on 21 November 1928 he became head of the House of Reuss after the Younger and Elder Lines merged, when the Elder Line became extinct in the male line in 1927.

In 1935 he adopted one of his relatives, Prince Heinrich I Reuss (1910–1982) a member of the Köstritz branch of the Princely family of Reuss. The adoption took place for inheritance reasons, not for succession rights for the headship of the House of Reuss. In 1939 Heinrich I married Duchess Woizlawa Feodora of Mecklenburg, the niece of Heinrich XLV.

During the 1930s Heinrich XLV became an enthusiastic Nazi sympathizer and a member of the Nazi Party. In August 1945 he was an officer in the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany, and was arrested in Ebersdorf by the Soviet military, and is presumed missing. Although he was most likely interned and killed in the Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs special camp Nr. 2 in Buchenwald, his name is not in any of the special camps' lists of the dead.

On 5 January 1962 he was declared dead by a court in Büdingen with effect from 31 December 1953. His entire fortune was seized and confiscated in 1948 by the Soviet Military Administration, including the Ebersdorf Castle, Thallwitz Castle, Osterstein Castle in Gera.

In 1931 Hereditary Prince Heinrich XLV had become engaged to Princess Caroline of Schönaich-Carolath, the daughter of Princess Hermine Reuss Elder Line, the second wife of Wilhelm II, German Emperor. The couple never married however and as Heinrich XLV remained unmarried and childless, the succession of the House of Reuss passed to Prince Heinrich IV of the Reuss of Köstritz branch.

Titles and styles
At birth Heinrich XLV was styled His Serene Highness Prince Heinrich XLV Reuss Younger Line before becoming His Serene Highness The Hereditary Prince Reuss Younger Line in 1913.

Upon becoming head of the House of Reuss in 1928 his full style became His Serene Highness the Hereditary Prince Reuss Younger Line, Count and Lord of Plauen, Lord of Greiz, Kranichfeld, Gera, Schleiz and Lobenstein. Under his headship the designation 'Younger Line' was dropped from the family titles in 1930.

Notes and sources

 * The Royal House of Stuart, London, 1969, 1971, 1976, Addington, A. C., Reference: II 224