People who know me, know that I love a genealogical mystery. Sometimes royals or nobles just disappear in history, without anybody knowing when or where they died.
One of these persons, that was lost on the radar, was Princess Hermine Caroline Wanda Ida Luise Feodora Viktoria Auguste von Schoenaich-Carolath, born at Saabor Castle, Kreis Grünberg, Silesia, on 9 May 1910. She was a daughter of Prince Johann Georg von Schoenaich-Carolath (1873-1920) and Princess Hermine Reuss älterer Linie (1887-1947), who in 1922 remarried to the Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany. She made her social debut as a bridesmaid at the wedding of Countess Alexandra zu Castell-Rüdenhausen and Prince Friedrich Christian zu Schaumburg-Lippe in September 1927, according to US-newspapers at the time.
Carmo, as she was often called, on 22 May 1931 got engaged to Prince Heinrich XLV Reuss zu Schleiz. They however never married. Instead, she married a commoner, Hugo Herbert Hartung. He was a son of a prominent industrialist in Düsseldorf, Germany. A photo of the civil marriage in the register office in Berlin-Wilmersdorf can be found online. This civil marriage took place at Berlin-Wilmersdorf on 10 December 1936. He is listed as living in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, she lived at Unter den Linden 9, Berlin (the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Palais). The Gothaisches Genealogisches Handbuch, Fürstliche Häuser, published in 2024, says they got married at Saabor on 12 December 1936, which must have been the religious wedding then.
Hugo Herbert Hartung was born Sterkrade, Kreis Dinslaken, 3 July 1908. The Gothaisches Genealogisches Handbuch 2024 says he died in the Soviet prisoner of war camp at Krasnoarmeysk in March 1943. He was declared death by the court in Berlin-Charlottenburg on 7 October 1953, with effect of 31 December 1945. The information about his death seems to come from the website of Volksbund.de. Information suggests that he was captured by the Soviet troops during or after the Battle of Stalingrad. Based on the information I have found, Krasnoarmeisk is a southern suburb of Stalingrad, today’s Volgograd. The Russians had three camps for German prisoners around the city. His grave has not yet been found.
The last time the family Schoenaich-Carolath was listed in the Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels was in 2004. Hermine Caroline was still listed as being alive, although no address was given. In the 1984 edition, she is listed as living in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Also in the Gothaisches Genealogisches Handbuch 2024 she is still mentioned without a date of death. It seemed to be very unlikely she was still alive, given the fact, that she was born in 1910.
Most genealogical sites have listed her as having died in Kentucky on 30 May 1959. However the death certificate of that person is at Ancestry, and says that Hermina Hartung, born 14 April 1910, died in Jefferson, Kentucky, on 30 May 1959 aged 49. She is mentioned to be a daughter of Leo Lueken and Mary Hickman. Here is her grave. Thus she certainly is not “our” Hermine Caroline.
A visitor of this blog, Kees van der Sluijs, recently was searching for her date of death and read my original blog post from Januar 2021. He gave me permission to post the result of his successful inquiries. Ortrud Wörner-Heil, the author of the book “Adelige Frauen als Pionierinnen der Berufsbildung. Die ländliche Hauswirtschaft und der Reifensteiner Verband” (Kassel University Press 2010) claims she died in 1992, and that turns out to be true.
Mrs Wörner-Heil didn’t react to a mail by Kees van der Sluijs, but other specialists, Dr Friedhild den Toom and Sven Michael Klein, authors of Hermine – die zweite Gemahlin von Wilhelm II. (published 2007), did. The death announcement of Hermine Caroline Hartung née Prinzessin von Schoenaich-Carolath turns out to have been published in the Ostthüringer Zeitung dated 10 March 1992. She died after a long illness on 5 February 1992, aged 81. It remains unclear where she died, but it was likely in Berlin, where she lived most of her life. She was however buried on 17 February 1992 in Rottach-Egern. Hermine Caroline was mourned as aunt, cousin, sister-in-law and great-aunt, which makes clear she indeed didn’t have children.
This means that after 33 years, the mystery has finally been solved.
The 1984 edition of Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels has Hermine living in Berlin but she is
not listed in the 1991 edition.
The whole family didn’t appear in the books until 2004 again, when she is still listed, but without an address.