Konrad, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen

Johann Friedrich Konrad Carl Eduard Horst Arnold Matthias, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen (born 14 April 1952) is a German businessman and the current head of the Ducal House of Saxe-Meiningen, a cadet branch of the House of Wettin.

Family background and career
Duke Konrad was born in Ziegenberg, Hesse, the younger son of Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. However, he is the only son by his father's dynastic second wife, Baroness Vera Schäffer von Bernstein (1914–1994). Although he is his father's second son, Prince Konrad was heir to the headship of the House of Saxe-Meiningen because his father's first marriage to commoner Margot Grössler was morganatic; and as such, his older half-brother, Prince Friedrich Ernst (1935-2004), did not have dynastic rights.

Prince Konrad studied economics at the University of Heidelberg and business management at the University of Göttingen.

Professionally, Prince Konrad is a qualified banker who has worked for various banks as an analyst. Since 1998, he has been an independent advisor specialising in the restructuring of companies, and has also spent time working in the air and car industries. Prince Konrad has also been a partner in the Rudolf Döring Law Firm; and the Managing Director of GWP German Wind Power GmbH.

Duke of Saxe-Meiningen
Upon the death of his father on 4 October 1984, Prince Konrad succeeded to headship of the House of Saxe-Meiningen. Since becoming head of the house, like his father and uncle before him, Konrad adopted the title Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. In 1996, Prince Konrad began legal proceedings against the Russian government seeking the rehabilitation of property that had been expropriated after World War II by the Soviet Union.

In 2015 along with the heads of the other Ernestine branches of the House of Wettin, Michael, Prince of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Andreas, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke Konrad signed a declaration relating to the succession of the Albertine line of the House of Wettin, declaring that, according to the house law of the House of Wettin and to traditional princely succession rules, Alexander Afif, bearing the name Prince of Saxony via adoption by his maternal uncle Maria Emanuel, Margrave of Meissen, was neither a member of nobility nor of the House of Wettin, nor had he succeeded Maria Emanuel as head of the Albertine branch (the Royal House of Saxony), nor was he entitled to style himself Margrave of Meissen.

Prince Konrad is unmarried. His closest male relative is his nephew, Constantin Prinz von Sachsen-Meiningen Herzog zu Sachsen (b. 1980), son of his elder morganatic half-brother, Friedrich Ernst Prinz von Sachsen-Meiningen Herzog zu Sachsen from his second marriage with Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a half-sister of Andreas, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Constantin has a son, Michael (b. July 2015), with Sophia Lupus, although the parents are not married.

In addition to Constantin, additional male line descendants of the House of Saxe-Meiningen can be found in the Barons von Saalfeld, who descend from the morganatic marriage of Ernst, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen with Katharina Jensen. Should Prince Konrad fail to de-morganatise either his nephew or the Barons von Saalfeld then upon his death the House of Saxe-Meiningen will become extinct in the male line.

Titles and styles
As head of the House of Saxe-Meiningen his full title is Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and Hildburghausen, of Jülich, Cleves and Berg as well as Angria and Westphalia, Prince of Saalfeld, Landgrave in Thuringia, Margrave of Meissen, Princely Count of Henneberg, Camburg of the March and Ravensberg, Lord of Kranichfeld, Ravenstein etc