Princess Cecilie Of Greece And Denmark

Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark (Greek: Καικιλία, romanized: Kaikilía) was born on 22 June 1911 at Tatoi Palace near Athens. She was a member of the Greek and Danish royal families by birth. Her parents were Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. Cecilie was the third of five children in her family, with her siblings including Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later known as the Duke of Edinburgh.

Cecilie spent her childhood in Athens, Tatoi, and Corfu, where her father inherited Mon Repos. She was exposed to the regional conflicts of the Balkan Wars (1912–1913), the First World War (1914–1918), and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). During this period, her family experienced exile in Switzerland from 1917 to 1920 and in France from 1922 to 1936. Their exile was due to the political upheavals and military conflicts affecting Greece and their dynastic circumstances. In exile, the family relied on support from relatives such as Marie Bonaparte and Lady Louis Mountbatten.

In 1929, Cecilie developed a relationship with Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, who was her maternal cousin. Her mother, Princess Alice, experienced a mental health crisis in the early 1930s, resulting in her confinement in a Swiss psychiatric hospital until 1933. Cecilie and Georg Donatus married on 2 February 1931 at the Neue Palais in Darmstadt. After marriage, she moved to Darmstadt and gave birth to three children: Prince Ludwig (1931–1937), Prince Alexander (1933–1937), and Princess Johanna of Hesse (born 1936). She was also pregnant with her fourth child in 1937.

Initially, Cecilie was distant from the Nazi movement; however, she and her husband joined the Nazi Party in May 1937. During that year, she and her family traveled to the United Kingdom to attend her brother-in-law Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine's wedding to Margaret Campbell Geddes. Their aircraft crashed in a fire near Ostend on 16 November 1937, killing all onboard, including Cecilie who was eight months pregnant and appeared to have given birth during the flight.

Following the crash, her remains and those of her family were returned to Darmstadt and interred in the Grand Ducal mausoleum of Rosenhöhe Park on 23 November 1937. Her death marked a significant tragedy for her family, and the event was commemorated in later years, including a 2017 ceremony held by the Hessian State Archives. The crash was also depicted in documentaries and portrayed in popular media, such as the series "The Crown," with a fictionalized account of the event.

Cecilie's ancestry included connections to the Greek royal family, the Danish royal family, and other European dynasties, linking her to a broad network of aristocratic lineage.