Max, Margrave of Baden

Maximilian Andreas Friedrich Gustav Ernst August Bernhard, Margrave of Baden (born 3 July 1933) has been head of the Grand Ducal House of Baden since 1963.

Early life
Maximilian was born in Salem, Bodensee, Germany the elder son of Berthold, Margrave of Baden and Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark. Through his mother, he is the eldest living nephew of the late Queen Elizabeth II and the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and is first cousin to King Charles III.

Margrave Maximilian followed in the footsteps of his uncle Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and studied at the Schloss Salem School and Gordonstoun boarding school in Scotland, both of which had been founded by the German educator Kurt Hahn. He has also studied agriculture and forestry and served in the German military. Following the end of his active military service he has remained a reservist with the rank colonel in the German Army.

Margrave of Baden
Margrave Maximilian succeeded as head of the Grand Ducal House of Baden in 1963 upon the death of his father.

In the late 1980s Margrave Maximilian, the patron of Salem School Foundation, became embroiled in a dispute with the headmaster over the management of the school and a loosening of the strict boarding school rules and wanted to terminate the schools lease and rental agreement that allowed it to operate on the grounds of Schloss Salem. Local courts ruled against the Margrave, as did the Federal Court of Justice in the late 1980s. After his legal defeats the Margrave Maximilian gave up his patronage and instead established his own Salem boarding school.

In 1998 Margrave Maximilian retired from running the grand ducal family's businesses, handing over control to his eldest son Bernhard, Hereditary Prince of Baden. By the late 1990s the family's finances were in a poor state and they were forced to sell Eberstein Castle near Gernsbach and the New Castle in Baden-Baden in the early 2000s. The Hereditary Prince also resolved the dispute with Schloss Salem School and agreed a new 99 year lease for the school to continue to operate at Schloss Salem.

Margrave Maximilian has been involved with over 60 clubs and associations, including the Red Cross and the fire service. In 1982 he founded the charity German Aid Baden which supports refugees all over the world. He has continued with these associations following his retirement in 1998.

Margrave Maximilian lives at Schloss Salem, however most of the castle and estate was sold to the State of Baden-Württemberg in 2009 due to the family's financial problems.

Marriage and children
After a broken engagement to his first cousin Princess Beatrix of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, the daughter of Gottfried, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark, Maximilian married Archduchess Valerie of Austria, daughter of Archduke Hubert Salvator of Austria and Princess Rosemary of Salm-Salm, in a civil ceremony on 23 September 1966 in Salem, Baden-Württemberg, followed by a religious ceremony on 30 September 1966 in Persenbeug Castle, Austria.

They have four children:
 * Princess Marie Louise Elisabeth Mathilde Theodora Cecilie Sarah Charlotte of Baden (b. 3 July 1969), married in a civil ceremony at Salem on 15 September 1999 and in a religious ceremony on 25 September 1999 to Richard Dudley Baker (b. 30 March 1936); she has one daughter.
 * Bernhard Max Friedrich August Gustav Louis Kraft, Hereditary Prince of Baden (b. 27 May 1970); married 2001 Stephanie Anne Kaul. They have three sons:
 * Prince Leopold Max Christian Ludwig Clemens Hubert of Baden (b.1 October 1971), unmarried and without issue
 * Prince Michael Max Andreas of Baden (b. 11 March 1976), married in Salem on 4 July 2015 Christina Höhne, without issue