Dorothea von Salviati (10 September 1907 – 7 May 1972) was a German noblewoman and the wife of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the eldest son of Crown Prince Wilhelm and grandson of Emperor Wilhelm II. She was the daughter of Alexander Hermann Heinrich August von Salviati and Helene Crasemann.
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Early life and family
Dorothea von Salviati was born on 10 September 1907 in Bonn, Germany. She was the daughter of Alexander Hermann Heinrich August von Salviati (1865–1922) and Helene (Ella) Crasemann (1868–1961), who married in 1888. Her father was a former officer in the Prussian Hussar Regiment No. 7. Her mother was the daughter of the Hamburg merchant Rudolph Crasemann.
Dorothea had an older brother, Hans-Viktor von Salviati (1897–1945). Her paternal grandparents were Alexander Karl Wilhelm Heinrich Julius von Salviati and Natalie Helene Luise Johanna von Arnim. Her maternal grandparents were Gustav August Rudolf Crasemann and Helene Juliane Köpcke.
Before her marriage, Dorothea studied in Bonn, where she met Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the eldest son of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince and Cecilie, German Crown Princess.
Marriage and children
Dorothea married Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, the eldest son of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, on 3 June 1933 in Bonn. The couple had met while studying in Bonn and had known each other since childhood. Their relationship attracted attention because Dorothea, despite belonging to the nobility, was not considered of equal rank under the dynastic marriage rules of the House of Hohenzollern.
The marriage was opposed by Wilhelm's grandfather, former German Emperor Wilhelm II, who did not regard Dorothea's family as sufficiently high-ranking for a marriage to the heir to the Hohenzollern succession. The engagement also drew criticism from royalists who had regarded Wilhelm as a possible future German emperor. Before the wedding, Wilhelm had agreed to relinquish the rights attached to his position as the eldest son if he entered into a marriage contrary to the family's rules. Following the marriage, the Hohenzollern administration announced that he had forfeited those rights, leaving his younger brother Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia, as the prospective successor within the family.
Dorothea and Wilhelm had two daughters: Princess Felicitas of Prussia, born on 7 June 1934, and Princess Christa of Prussia, born on 31 October 1936.
Widowhood
Dorothea was widowed on 26 May 1940, when Prince Wilhelm died at Nivelles, Belgium, from wounds received during the German campaign in France in the Second World War. He was 33 years old. Their daughters were five and three years old at the time of his death.
Following her husband's death, Dorothea lived as a widow and raised their two daughters.
Death
Dorothea von Salviati died on 7 May 1972 in Bad Godesberg, aged 64.
She was buried at the Poppelsdorfer Friedhof in Bonn.