February 11, 2025 • 22 mins
Prince Wilhelm of Prussia had fallen in love with Elisa von Radzwill, and wanted to marry her. Unfortunately, even though she was a princess, her rank was low enough that the marriage would actually be illegal. Still, the two clung to the hope they would end up together, fighting royals and bureacrats for years to try to make it happen.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. In January
eighteen twenty one, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia went to the theater.
But he wouldn't merely be a member of the audience.
(00:22):
He would actually be performing in a production based on
a poem by Thomas Moore, staged in honor of the
Grand Princess Alexandra Fedorovna, in front of an audience of
three thousand at the Whitehall of the Royal Castle. Prince
Wilhelm and a number of other aristocrats were acting in
(00:42):
a romance about the fictional daughter of a seventeenth century
Mughal emperor falling in love with another man instead of
the king she was arranged to marry. Little did Prince
Wilhelm know that life would imitate art, he too, would
fall for a forbidden partner that very night. Her name
(01:04):
was Princess Elisa van Radswell or Ragevue, a Polish noble
woman who happened to be playing a goddess heavenly desire
in the production. Wilhelm was enamored with her performance, noting
that it had overcome the audience. He wrote in his
diary quote magical, idealistic, an ethereal touch hung over the whole,
(01:29):
unforgettable Elisa forever. When Alisa and Wilhelm showed up together
at her parents' silver wedding, shortly thereafter, people began to
suspect that the two were an item. One minister sought
out more information about Elisa and discovered that her family
(01:50):
was of relatively low rank within the Polish aristocratic hierarchy.
Even though Elisa's mother was a Prussian princess, she married
into a lower rank, meaning that Eliza was ineligible for
the throne. The minister put together his findings in a
report titled a Memorandum on the Legally Inappropriate Status of
(02:14):
the Marriage of a Royal Prince of Prussia to Princess Radswell,
which speaks to the disastrous results of the investigation, with
the disapproval of Wilhelm's family codified in writing. A union
between Prince Wilhelm and Elisa seemed less of a heavenly
(02:35):
romance and more like a tragedy. But that wouldn't be
the end of Elisa and Wilhelm's love story. The two
would do everything in their power to overcome the odds
and stay together, much to the chagrin of Wilhelm's royal family.
I'm Dana Schwartz and this is noble blood. Visa and
(03:00):
Wilhelm had actually first met as children, although under less
than ideal circumstances. It was during a politically tumultuous time,
as Napoleon was advancing into Germany and Prussia, culminating in
a battle at jennen ousterstad And October eighteen o six.
Wilhelm's father, King Friedrich Wilhelm the third, was leading the
(03:24):
Prussian forces, but he suffered a crushing defeat, with Napoleon
and his troops occupying Berlin. This sent the king's family
into a three year exile in Koenigsburg, which was a
center of resistance to Napoleon, where they met up with
the Radswills, who were also in exile at that time.
(03:46):
Eliza was three years old and print Wilhelm was six.
While the adults were fretting about their potential return to Germany,
the children were enjoying their new found freedom. Contempt Lip
Praiary recalled quote. They spent the summer on the Amber
coast of the Baltic sea, the winter, tobogganing together, and
(04:08):
there were places to play in front of the steined
Amerateur and in the old castle. Eliza could not only
play with her siblings Wilhelm, Ferdinand and Louise, but also
with Prince Wilhelm, his brother, the Crown Prince, who was
two years older than he was, and his favorite sister
Charlotte end Quote. In eighteen o nine, King Friedrich Wilhelm
(04:32):
the third agreed to Napoleon's repatriation claims, so the royal
family and the Radswells could end their exile and return
to Berlin. But the families would grow even more intertwined
after Wilhelm's mother, Queen Louise, died at the age of
thirty four. Eliza's mother became something of a mother figure
(04:53):
two Wilhelm, who was only twelve at the time of
his mother's death. The Radswells moved from Poland to Berlin
depending on the season, and when they moved more permanently
to Berlin, the love affair between Alisa and Wilhelm began
to flourish. Wilhelm was twenty at the time and began
cavorting with the seventeen year old Eliza at the palace
(05:15):
where Wilhelm's sisters lived.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
The two were spotted at parties, salons, and receptions, even
at times taking trips to the country together. Wilhelm noted
in his diary, Alisa has really grown up and become
somewhat stronger and more to the point charming. By eighteen twenty,
Wilhelm began to visit the Radswells more frequently, which drew
(05:41):
even more attention because in March of that year, Elisa
was confirmed by the court chaplain and the dean of
the cathedral in the Chapel of the Royal Castle, which
made Elisa eligible for marriage, putting her relationship with Wilhelm
under scrutiny. Some even suspected that King Friedrich Wilhelm had
(06:03):
engineered the confirmation so Eliza could become his daughter in law.
Wilhelm announced that he was in love with Eliza at
the Prussian King's summer residence in June eighteen twenty. When
the two returned to Berlin, Wilhelm was seen coming out
of the Radswell Palace almost every day. Little did Wilhelm
(06:25):
know that the minister was drawing up a dossier against
the Union and that many of his friends and family
members were working together to try to tear the two
of them apart. In late eighteen twenty, Wilhelm saw Eliza
while she was on holiday at the Summer Palace, but
(06:47):
rather than greeting her warmly as he had so many
times before, he ignored her. When Alisa left, he burst
into tears. Wilhelm's strange behavior was a result of threats
to his relationship with Elisa. From behind the scenes. Wilhelm's
family had been discouraging him from pursuing her. His sisters
(07:09):
suggested he marry a different princess instead, while his adjunct
and took a stronger approach, mandating that it would be
impossible for him to marry Elisa without his father's approval. Meanwhile,
the king had heard these rumors that his son was
involved with Elisa, and he started meeting with his advisers.
(07:29):
Some were actually supportive of the union. The King's brother
in law, for instance, fought for the two to be together.
He argued that there is actually a precedent for the
two to be together. Elisa's father, Prince Radswell, had aristocratic
ties to the Holy Roman Empire from fifteen fifteen. Moreover,
there had been marriages between the princes of Brandenburg and
(07:52):
the Radswells for two hundred years. That suggested that the
Radswells were high status enough to marry in to the family,
as Wilhelm's father was the Elector of Brandenburg in the
Holy Roman Empire before it was dissolved in eighteen o six.
But some technicalities complicated what seemed like Eliza's blue blood bonafides.
(08:17):
The Radswill family had no property within the former boundary
of the Holy Roman Empire, meaning that they were not
members of the reich Council of Princes, which was an
important factor in determining aristocratic rank. Moreover, those previous marriages
between the Brandenburgs and the Radswell's occurred when the Princes
(08:40):
of Brandenburg had no regal office, making the two families
more similar in status back then. By the eighteen twenties,
Friedrich the Third was the King of Prussia, which elevated
the family into a much higher echelon. The law emphasized
that prince were only eligible to marry the daughters of
(09:03):
ruling princely houses or sovereigns recognized by the Reich, making
a union between Wilhelm and Elisa actually illegal. Moreover, if
Wilhelm's older brother, the crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, died, Wilhelm
would succeed to the throne, which meant there was even
more pressure on his marriage. The king's closest adviser compiled
(09:27):
a list of daughters of twenty nine reigning European royal
houses who were not yet married to make it easy
for Wilhelm to choose a different wife instead. In February
eighteen twenty two, the king sat down with Wilhelm and
formally dissuaded his son from pursuing Elisa, arguing that it
(09:50):
was against the law. After so many reports and dossiers
and interventions from family members, Wilhelm seemed to heed his
father's warnings. It's finished. The precious, loving, angelic being is
lost to me, he wrote at the time. But in
spite of his family's disapproval, he and Elisa continued to
(10:14):
meet up at balls and go on secret dates. Whatever
was to come, they swore to be friends forever. Wilhelm
and Elisa parted, with Wilhelm fleeing to the Rhineland and
the Netherlands to escape his romantic woes. He spent his
twenty fifth birthday, the day he had once wanted to
(10:35):
marry Elisa away from her in Holland. She wrote him
a benign, formal birthday message, and if Wilhelm wanted to
write her back, he had to send his message to
her mother. His sister Charlotte sent him a little portrait
of Elisa as a birthday present, which he kept on
his desk. After reflecting on his love for Elisa while
(10:59):
he was away, Wilhelm returned to Berlin with renewed fervor
to stand up to his father and marry the woman
he loved once and for all. Wilhelm and Elisa continued
to go to the theater together, they took long strolls
in the gardens of the palace, and they had long
talks at the Raswell's house in Berlin. Wilhelm recorded these
(11:22):
conversations in his diary at Length, where he wrote quote
no one else in the world but her, and that
she was the joy of his life. To win over
the rest of his family and the royal officials, Wilhelm
commissioned a counter study from two legal experts that affirmed
(11:42):
his right to marry Elisa, but that study did not
sway the Union's detractors. A collection of ministers and the
director of Police rejected it. Another counselor clapped back with
not one, but three further dossiers that called a potential
marriage between Alisa and Wilhelm a mismarriage that would destroy
(12:05):
the hierarchy of the royal family. The Prussian Foreign Minister
was asked to make the final judgment on the case,
but he declined, arguing that he didn't have enough information
to assess the Polish aristocracy that the Radswells belonged to.
He suggested that the king be the one to make
the final decision, leaving Elisa and Wilhelm's fate in Wilhelm's
(12:30):
father's hands. Tensions in the royal household reached a fever
pitch as the king hemmed and hawed about his decision.
The Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm sided with his brother, tearing
apart the various official reports written by government officials who
(12:52):
he called court toadies. He even got into a violent
spat with his uncle, who had put together a dossier
of his own to try to separate Wilhelm and Elisa.
In response to all of this commotion, the Radswell family
had fled Berlin. The King's hesitation to approve the marriage
was deeply insulting to the rads Wills, especially since Eliza's
(13:15):
mother and the king were related. The family began to
suspect that the king had ulterior political motives for tearing
the two apart. In seventeen ninety five, Poland was split
between Prussia, the Habsburg Monarchy, and Russia. Elisa's father had
wanted to reunify the country and petitioned both the Congress
(13:39):
of Vienna and Wilhelm's father to help. Perhaps to unite
the country under the leadership of Prussia. Maybe the rejection
of the marriage between Elisa and Wilhelm was a signal
of the rejection of Polish unification and independence. Elisa and
Wilhelm continued corresponding, sending each other flowers, leaves, jewelry, and
(14:02):
locks of hair. On Elisa's nineteenth birthday, Wilhelm wrote to
her parents quote, Elisa is indispensable for the happiness in
my life. Meanwhile, the crown Prince, Wilhelm's older brother wrote
a written statement of his own to counter all of
the dossiers that were being drawn up to spite his
(14:23):
younger brother's relationship. After all, it turned out that the
King's new daughter in law from the Crown Prince's marriage
to the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, was actually descended from
a Radswell, but that did little to sway the royal officials,
who maintained that Elisa did not come from a high
(14:44):
status enough royal family. Wilhelm wrote a letter of his
own asking the King for a decision, pleading with him
to let him marry Elisa, but he conceded in the
letter that he would agree to whatever decision the King made.
Elisa also wrote the King a letter that complained of
the public humiliation she was enduring as a result of
(15:06):
the King's waffling, imploring him to officially condone the marriage. Finally,
the King called a family meeting in the Hirshburg Valley,
where the royal family and the Radswells met together for
the first time since they all were in exile in
eighteen o six. The meeting didn't have Wilhelm present, but
(15:29):
Elisa made a positive impression on the King, who noted
her beauty and friendliness. After years of mounting dossier's and
counter dossiers, the King decided to let the couple marry.
The plan would be to have Elisa be adopted by
a ruling royal house so that the marriage would be
(15:51):
legally permitted. The king asked the Russian Czar to adopt Eliza,
but he declined. The Habsburgs also declined. That left Prince
August of Prussia the infantry general and the wealthiest landowner
in Russia. This whole ordeal humiliated the Radswills, since it
rhified that their family was so low status that they
(16:14):
had to literally let their daughter be adopted out to
another family. To add insult to injury, Prince August of
Prussia was a known for landerer who had over twelve
illegitimate children, which made him an embarrassing choice as an
adopted father for Eliza. Still, the couple was elated. Wilhelm
(16:37):
hadn't seen Eliza in three years, but he traveled to
Poland in February eighteen twenty five, where the two officially
got engaged. But the marriage hit yet another snag before
it could get off the ground. Crown Prince Friedrich had
been unable to produce an air he and his wife
(17:00):
had only daughters. This left Wilhelm responsible for the royal
succession putting increased pressure on his potential marriage to Elisa,
the royal ministers implored him to call off the marriage.
Elisa was forced to wait away from Wilhelm, celebrating her
(17:20):
twenty second birthday alone in her family's hunting lodge. Meanwhile,
Wilhelm traveled with his younger brother Karl to w Weimar
to visit the princesses Marie and Augusta von saken Weimar Eisenach.
Marie and Augusta had yet to get engaged, and Karl
hit it off with Marie instantly, but the princess's mother,
(17:43):
sister of the Czar, would only agree to let Karl
and Marie get married if Wilhelm did not marry Elisa.
Grand Duke Karl august von saken Weimar Eisenach doubled down,
sending an ultimatum to the king that Karl and Marie
could only be wed if the royal family had no
(18:04):
links with the Radswells, who the second Vaimar eisenachs considered
to be too low status. With that ultimatum in mind,
in June eighteen twenty six, King Friedrich Wilhelm the third
wrote a letter to his son that prohibited him from
marrying Elisa once in for all. Wilhelm, with no choice,
(18:27):
reluctantly accepted the decision. He wrote to the Radswells, the
bond of love between Elisa and me has been dissolved.
May her friendship with me remain until death. Karl and
Marie married in May eighteen twenty eight, and one year
later Wilhelm proposed to her sister Augusta. Those two were
(18:49):
married in June eighteen twenty nine. Meanwhile, the House of
Radswell was suffering setbacks and deaths. In response to an
uprising in the Russian heart of Poland led by Elisa's uncle,
the Prussian King revoked Elisa's father's role in the Prussian state.
Eliza's two brothers, sister in law, father, and godchild all
(19:13):
died within a few years. Elisa herself fell ill after
caring for her late brother Vadislov, and she died shortly after,
on September twenty seventh, eighteen thirty four. Wilhelm would go
on to become the King of Prussia in eighteen sixty
one after his brother's death. Even after all of those
(19:37):
years apart and a marriage to another woman, he still
longed for Elisa he kept Elisea's portrait, the one his
sister had sent him, on his desk, until his death
in eighteen eighty eight, more than fifty years after his
love had died. That's the story of Wilhelm and Alisa,
(20:01):
but stick around to hear about the band film based
on their love story. In nineteen thirty eight, the Forbidden
love story between Alisa and Wilhelm was made into a
movie titled A Prussian Love Story. The film takes some
(20:25):
liberties with the story setting their fateful meeting at Frihenwald,
where they spent the day falling in love, before meeting
again by chance in Berlin, where Wilhelm listens to Elisa's singing.
The rest of the movie follows the King's attempts to
break the two apart, albeit in a more dramatic form
than a series of dossiers written by various royal officials.
(20:49):
The film starred Lyda Barrova, a check actress, as Elisa.
At the time she was shooting the film, Barrova had
been having an affair with Joseph Gebels, the chief propagandist
for the Nazi Party. When Gebels and Barrava began to
make their affair public, Gerbel's wife asked Hitler himself for
(21:12):
permission to divorce her husband. Hitler rebuked Gebels, forcing him
to end his affair with Barrava in August nineteen thirty eight.
A Prussian Love Story was set to come out later
that year, but the Nazis banned the film because of
the purported similarities between Eliza's forbidden love affair with Wilhelm
(21:34):
and the actresses with Gerbels. At screenings of her other movies,
Paid Shills yelled out get out Minister's Whore when her
character appeared on screen. She fled back to Prague that winter.
The film wouldn't come out until nineteen fifty, when it
was renamed Story of Love. Noble Blood is a production
(22:02):
of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional
writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, Amy
hit and Julia Melaney. The show is edited and produced
by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima il Kaali and
(22:25):
executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. In January
eighteen twenty one, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia went to the theater.
But he wouldn't merely be a member of the audience.
(00:22):
He would actually be performing in a production based on
a poem by Thomas Moore, staged in honor of the
Grand Princess Alexandra Fedorovna, in front of an audience of
three thousand at the Whitehall of the Royal Castle. Prince
Wilhelm and a number of other aristocrats were acting in
(00:42):
a romance about the fictional daughter of a seventeenth century
Mughal emperor falling in love with another man instead of
the king she was arranged to marry. Little did Prince
Wilhelm know that life would imitate art, he too, would
fall for a forbidden partner that very night. Her name
(01:04):
was Princess Elisa van Radswell or Ragevue, a Polish noble
woman who happened to be playing a goddess heavenly desire
in the production. Wilhelm was enamored with her performance, noting
that it had overcome the audience. He wrote in his
diary quote magical, idealistic, an ethereal touch hung over the whole,
(01:29):
unforgettable Elisa forever. When Alisa and Wilhelm showed up together
at her parents' silver wedding, shortly thereafter, people began to
suspect that the two were an item. One minister sought
out more information about Elisa and discovered that her family
(01:50):
was of relatively low rank within the Polish aristocratic hierarchy.
Even though Elisa's mother was a Prussian princess, she married
into a lower rank, meaning that Eliza was ineligible for
the throne. The minister put together his findings in a
report titled a Memorandum on the Legally Inappropriate Status of
(02:14):
the Marriage of a Royal Prince of Prussia to Princess Radswell,
which speaks to the disastrous results of the investigation, with
the disapproval of Wilhelm's family codified in writing. A union
between Prince Wilhelm and Elisa seemed less of a heavenly
(02:35):
romance and more like a tragedy. But that wouldn't be
the end of Elisa and Wilhelm's love story. The two
would do everything in their power to overcome the odds
and stay together, much to the chagrin of Wilhelm's royal family.
I'm Dana Schwartz and this is noble blood. Visa and
(03:00):
Wilhelm had actually first met as children, although under less
than ideal circumstances. It was during a politically tumultuous time,
as Napoleon was advancing into Germany and Prussia, culminating in
a battle at jennen ousterstad And October eighteen o six.
Wilhelm's father, King Friedrich Wilhelm the third, was leading the
(03:24):
Prussian forces, but he suffered a crushing defeat, with Napoleon
and his troops occupying Berlin. This sent the king's family
into a three year exile in Koenigsburg, which was a
center of resistance to Napoleon, where they met up with
the Radswills, who were also in exile at that time.
(03:46):
Eliza was three years old and print Wilhelm was six.
While the adults were fretting about their potential return to Germany,
the children were enjoying their new found freedom. Contempt Lip
Praiary recalled quote. They spent the summer on the Amber
coast of the Baltic sea, the winter, tobogganing together, and
(04:08):
there were places to play in front of the steined
Amerateur and in the old castle. Eliza could not only
play with her siblings Wilhelm, Ferdinand and Louise, but also
with Prince Wilhelm, his brother, the Crown Prince, who was
two years older than he was, and his favorite sister
Charlotte end Quote. In eighteen o nine, King Friedrich Wilhelm
(04:32):
the third agreed to Napoleon's repatriation claims, so the royal
family and the Radswells could end their exile and return
to Berlin. But the families would grow even more intertwined
after Wilhelm's mother, Queen Louise, died at the age of
thirty four. Eliza's mother became something of a mother figure
(04:53):
two Wilhelm, who was only twelve at the time of
his mother's death. The Radswells moved from Poland to Berlin
depending on the season, and when they moved more permanently
to Berlin, the love affair between Alisa and Wilhelm began
to flourish. Wilhelm was twenty at the time and began
cavorting with the seventeen year old Eliza at the palace
(05:15):
where Wilhelm's sisters lived.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
The two were spotted at parties, salons, and receptions, even
at times taking trips to the country together. Wilhelm noted
in his diary, Alisa has really grown up and become
somewhat stronger and more to the point charming. By eighteen twenty,
Wilhelm began to visit the Radswells more frequently, which drew
(05:41):
even more attention because in March of that year, Elisa
was confirmed by the court chaplain and the dean of
the cathedral in the Chapel of the Royal Castle, which
made Elisa eligible for marriage, putting her relationship with Wilhelm
under scrutiny. Some even suspected that King Friedrich Wilhelm had
(06:03):
engineered the confirmation so Eliza could become his daughter in law.
Wilhelm announced that he was in love with Eliza at
the Prussian King's summer residence in June eighteen twenty. When
the two returned to Berlin, Wilhelm was seen coming out
of the Radswell Palace almost every day. Little did Wilhelm
(06:25):
know that the minister was drawing up a dossier against
the Union and that many of his friends and family
members were working together to try to tear the two
of them apart. In late eighteen twenty, Wilhelm saw Eliza
while she was on holiday at the Summer Palace, but
(06:47):
rather than greeting her warmly as he had so many
times before, he ignored her. When Alisa left, he burst
into tears. Wilhelm's strange behavior was a result of threats
to his relationship with Elisa. From behind the scenes. Wilhelm's
family had been discouraging him from pursuing her. His sisters
(07:09):
suggested he marry a different princess instead, while his adjunct
and took a stronger approach, mandating that it would be
impossible for him to marry Elisa without his father's approval. Meanwhile,
the king had heard these rumors that his son was
involved with Elisa, and he started meeting with his advisers.
(07:29):
Some were actually supportive of the union. The King's brother
in law, for instance, fought for the two to be together.
He argued that there is actually a precedent for the
two to be together. Elisa's father, Prince Radswell, had aristocratic
ties to the Holy Roman Empire from fifteen fifteen. Moreover,
there had been marriages between the princes of Brandenburg and
(07:52):
the Radswells for two hundred years. That suggested that the
Radswells were high status enough to marry in to the family,
as Wilhelm's father was the Elector of Brandenburg in the
Holy Roman Empire before it was dissolved in eighteen o six.
But some technicalities complicated what seemed like Eliza's blue blood bonafides.
(08:17):
The Radswill family had no property within the former boundary
of the Holy Roman Empire, meaning that they were not
members of the reich Council of Princes, which was an
important factor in determining aristocratic rank. Moreover, those previous marriages
between the Brandenburgs and the Radswell's occurred when the Princes
(08:40):
of Brandenburg had no regal office, making the two families
more similar in status back then. By the eighteen twenties,
Friedrich the Third was the King of Prussia, which elevated
the family into a much higher echelon. The law emphasized
that prince were only eligible to marry the daughters of
(09:03):
ruling princely houses or sovereigns recognized by the Reich, making
a union between Wilhelm and Elisa actually illegal. Moreover, if
Wilhelm's older brother, the crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, died, Wilhelm
would succeed to the throne, which meant there was even
more pressure on his marriage. The king's closest adviser compiled
(09:27):
a list of daughters of twenty nine reigning European royal
houses who were not yet married to make it easy
for Wilhelm to choose a different wife instead. In February
eighteen twenty two, the king sat down with Wilhelm and
formally dissuaded his son from pursuing Elisa, arguing that it
(09:50):
was against the law. After so many reports and dossiers
and interventions from family members, Wilhelm seemed to heed his
father's warnings. It's finished. The precious, loving, angelic being is
lost to me, he wrote at the time. But in
spite of his family's disapproval, he and Elisa continued to
(10:14):
meet up at balls and go on secret dates. Whatever
was to come, they swore to be friends forever. Wilhelm
and Elisa parted, with Wilhelm fleeing to the Rhineland and
the Netherlands to escape his romantic woes. He spent his
twenty fifth birthday, the day he had once wanted to
(10:35):
marry Elisa away from her in Holland. She wrote him
a benign, formal birthday message, and if Wilhelm wanted to
write her back, he had to send his message to
her mother. His sister Charlotte sent him a little portrait
of Elisa as a birthday present, which he kept on
his desk. After reflecting on his love for Elisa while
(10:59):
he was away, Wilhelm returned to Berlin with renewed fervor
to stand up to his father and marry the woman
he loved once and for all. Wilhelm and Elisa continued
to go to the theater together, they took long strolls
in the gardens of the palace, and they had long
talks at the Raswell's house in Berlin. Wilhelm recorded these
(11:22):
conversations in his diary at Length, where he wrote quote
no one else in the world but her, and that
she was the joy of his life. To win over
the rest of his family and the royal officials, Wilhelm
commissioned a counter study from two legal experts that affirmed
(11:42):
his right to marry Elisa, but that study did not
sway the Union's detractors. A collection of ministers and the
director of Police rejected it. Another counselor clapped back with
not one, but three further dossiers that called a potential
marriage between Alisa and Wilhelm a mismarriage that would destroy
(12:05):
the hierarchy of the royal family. The Prussian Foreign Minister
was asked to make the final judgment on the case,
but he declined, arguing that he didn't have enough information
to assess the Polish aristocracy that the Radswells belonged to.
He suggested that the king be the one to make
the final decision, leaving Elisa and Wilhelm's fate in Wilhelm's
(12:30):
father's hands. Tensions in the royal household reached a fever
pitch as the king hemmed and hawed about his decision.
The Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm sided with his brother, tearing
apart the various official reports written by government officials who
(12:52):
he called court toadies. He even got into a violent
spat with his uncle, who had put together a dossier
of his own to try to separate Wilhelm and Elisa.
In response to all of this commotion, the Radswell family
had fled Berlin. The King's hesitation to approve the marriage
was deeply insulting to the rads Wills, especially since Eliza's
(13:15):
mother and the king were related. The family began to
suspect that the king had ulterior political motives for tearing
the two apart. In seventeen ninety five, Poland was split
between Prussia, the Habsburg Monarchy, and Russia. Elisa's father had
wanted to reunify the country and petitioned both the Congress
(13:39):
of Vienna and Wilhelm's father to help. Perhaps to unite
the country under the leadership of Prussia. Maybe the rejection
of the marriage between Elisa and Wilhelm was a signal
of the rejection of Polish unification and independence. Elisa and
Wilhelm continued corresponding, sending each other flowers, leaves, jewelry, and
(14:02):
locks of hair. On Elisa's nineteenth birthday, Wilhelm wrote to
her parents quote, Elisa is indispensable for the happiness in
my life. Meanwhile, the crown Prince, Wilhelm's older brother wrote
a written statement of his own to counter all of
the dossiers that were being drawn up to spite his
(14:23):
younger brother's relationship. After all, it turned out that the
King's new daughter in law from the Crown Prince's marriage
to the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, was actually descended from
a Radswell, but that did little to sway the royal officials,
who maintained that Elisa did not come from a high
(14:44):
status enough royal family. Wilhelm wrote a letter of his
own asking the King for a decision, pleading with him
to let him marry Elisa, but he conceded in the
letter that he would agree to whatever decision the King made.
Elisa also wrote the King a letter that complained of
the public humiliation she was enduring as a result of
(15:06):
the King's waffling, imploring him to officially condone the marriage. Finally,
the King called a family meeting in the Hirshburg Valley,
where the royal family and the Radswells met together for
the first time since they all were in exile in
eighteen o six. The meeting didn't have Wilhelm present, but
(15:29):
Elisa made a positive impression on the King, who noted
her beauty and friendliness. After years of mounting dossier's and
counter dossiers, the King decided to let the couple marry.
The plan would be to have Elisa be adopted by
a ruling royal house so that the marriage would be
(15:51):
legally permitted. The king asked the Russian Czar to adopt Eliza,
but he declined. The Habsburgs also declined. That left Prince
August of Prussia the infantry general and the wealthiest landowner
in Russia. This whole ordeal humiliated the Radswills, since it
rhified that their family was so low status that they
(16:14):
had to literally let their daughter be adopted out to
another family. To add insult to injury, Prince August of
Prussia was a known for landerer who had over twelve
illegitimate children, which made him an embarrassing choice as an
adopted father for Eliza. Still, the couple was elated. Wilhelm
(16:37):
hadn't seen Eliza in three years, but he traveled to
Poland in February eighteen twenty five, where the two officially
got engaged. But the marriage hit yet another snag before
it could get off the ground. Crown Prince Friedrich had
been unable to produce an air he and his wife
(17:00):
had only daughters. This left Wilhelm responsible for the royal
succession putting increased pressure on his potential marriage to Elisa,
the royal ministers implored him to call off the marriage.
Elisa was forced to wait away from Wilhelm, celebrating her
(17:20):
twenty second birthday alone in her family's hunting lodge. Meanwhile,
Wilhelm traveled with his younger brother Karl to w Weimar
to visit the princesses Marie and Augusta von saken Weimar Eisenach.
Marie and Augusta had yet to get engaged, and Karl
hit it off with Marie instantly, but the princess's mother,
(17:43):
sister of the Czar, would only agree to let Karl
and Marie get married if Wilhelm did not marry Elisa.
Grand Duke Karl august von saken Weimar Eisenach doubled down,
sending an ultimatum to the king that Karl and Marie
could only be wed if the royal family had no
(18:04):
links with the Radswells, who the second Vaimar eisenachs considered
to be too low status. With that ultimatum in mind,
in June eighteen twenty six, King Friedrich Wilhelm the third
wrote a letter to his son that prohibited him from
marrying Elisa once in for all. Wilhelm, with no choice,
(18:27):
reluctantly accepted the decision. He wrote to the Radswells, the
bond of love between Elisa and me has been dissolved.
May her friendship with me remain until death. Karl and
Marie married in May eighteen twenty eight, and one year
later Wilhelm proposed to her sister Augusta. Those two were
(18:49):
married in June eighteen twenty nine. Meanwhile, the House of
Radswell was suffering setbacks and deaths. In response to an
uprising in the Russian heart of Poland led by Elisa's uncle,
the Prussian King revoked Elisa's father's role in the Prussian state.
Eliza's two brothers, sister in law, father, and godchild all
(19:13):
died within a few years. Elisa herself fell ill after
caring for her late brother Vadislov, and she died shortly after,
on September twenty seventh, eighteen thirty four. Wilhelm would go
on to become the King of Prussia in eighteen sixty
one after his brother's death. Even after all of those
(19:37):
years apart and a marriage to another woman, he still
longed for Elisa he kept Elisea's portrait, the one his
sister had sent him, on his desk, until his death
in eighteen eighty eight, more than fifty years after his
love had died. That's the story of Wilhelm and Alisa,
(20:01):
but stick around to hear about the band film based
on their love story. In nineteen thirty eight, the Forbidden
love story between Alisa and Wilhelm was made into a
movie titled A Prussian Love Story. The film takes some
(20:25):
liberties with the story setting their fateful meeting at Frihenwald,
where they spent the day falling in love, before meeting
again by chance in Berlin, where Wilhelm listens to Elisa's singing.
The rest of the movie follows the King's attempts to
break the two apart, albeit in a more dramatic form
than a series of dossiers written by various royal officials.
(20:49):
The film starred Lyda Barrova, a check actress, as Elisa.
At the time she was shooting the film, Barrova had
been having an affair with Joseph Gebels, the chief propagandist
for the Nazi Party. When Gebels and Barrava began to
make their affair public, Gerbel's wife asked Hitler himself for
(21:12):
permission to divorce her husband. Hitler rebuked Gebels, forcing him
to end his affair with Barrava in August nineteen thirty eight.
A Prussian Love Story was set to come out later
that year, but the Nazis banned the film because of
the purported similarities between Eliza's forbidden love affair with Wilhelm
(21:34):
and the actresses with Gerbels. At screenings of her other movies,
Paid Shills yelled out get out Minister's Whore when her
character appeared on screen. She fled back to Prague that winter.
The film wouldn't come out until nineteen fifty, when it
was renamed Story of Love. Noble Blood is a production
(22:02):
of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional
writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, Amy
hit and Julia Melaney. The show is edited and produced
by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima il Kaali and
(22:25):
executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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