Schaumburg-Lippe
(1813-1871)
The Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe, a German state since 1280, was a member state of the Germanic Confederation from 1815 to 1866. In 1854, Schaumburg-Lippe joined the Prussian Customs Union (Zollverein). In 1866, Schaumburg-Lippe sided with Austria against Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War. In 1867, Schaumburg-Lippe joined Prussia in a military union. After the Austro-Prussian, it became a member state of the North German Confederation in 1867 and a member state of the German Empire in 1871.
Adolf I served as Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe until 1893. His son George (who married Princess Marie Anne of Saxe-Altenburg) succeeded him. George’s younger brother, Adolf, married the Kaiser’s sister, Victoria (also known as Moretta). He was not her first love, but her relationship with Prince Alexander of Battenberg was politically unacceptable to both the Kaiser and Bismarck. A second prospect fell through when she would not convert to Catholicism to marry the Crown Prince of Portugal. She then left for England to spend time with her grandmother, Queen Victoria. Despairing of finding true love, Moretta agreed to the marriage to Adolf, much to her brother’s relief.
Moretta suffered a miscarriage early in the marriage, and they had no further children. She contemplated divorce, as she believed she was in love with Adolf’s nephew. Prince Adolf died in 1916 and she asked the Kaiser’s permission to marry the nephew. He denied the request. Some sources indicate that Moretta may have suffered from porphyria also, as her sister Charlotte had inherited the disease.
The reigning prince at the end of the war was Adolph II, George’s son. After the war and the fall of the German Empire, Moretta was allowed to live in Germany and she moved to a castle in Bonn. In 1927, when she was 62, she met a young Russian refugee and professional waiter, Alexander Zoubkhoff, who was 27 years old. He had passed himself off as a noble Russian émigré, but was in fact, a penniless con man. She married him in November of that year. Her family was shocked with the news of her marriage, and they broke off relations with her. She did not care, and she defended her marriage, “Nobody’s consent—not even the Kaiser’s—is required for my marriage. It is incorrect to say that he has refused consent as such step would be unnecessary, owing to the fact that the Kaiser is not head of the Schaumburg Lippe family. In fact nobody’s consent is required.” Moretta was scorned and ridiculed throughout Europe after the marriage. Zubkov delighted in the money he could make by staging photo-ops and granting interviews as the Kaiser’s brother-in-law. He quickly spent her fortune, and she had to auction her belongings. Zoubkhoff was exiled from Germany and Moretta filed for divorce, but died on 13 November 1929 before the case came to court. Zoubkhoff was on his way to attend his wife’s funeral when he was arrested for violating a law expelling all Russian parvenus from German soil. He died in poverty in Luxembourg in 1936.
The principality was a hereditary constitutional monarchy whose constitution called for a parliament of one house. This consisted of 15 members with two appointed by the Prince, two elected by the clergy, one by the professors, three by cities, and seven in rural communities. The vote was universal, direct, and secret. Schaumburg-Lippe sent one member to the Bundesrat and one deputy to the Reichstag.
Schaumburg-Lippe was the smallest of the independent states with a population of about 48,000 in 1914. The great bulk of the population, 94 percent, was Lutheran. The capital was Bückeburg, and the tiny principality was made up of 340 km². The principality had a limited ceremonial function with the Westfälisches Jäger Batallion Nr. 7 of the Prussian army.