page_title: Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Oldenburg
section_title: Family and early life
hierarchical_section_title: Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Oldenburg / Family and early life
caption_attribution_description: Castle in Oldenburg (Oldb)
context_page_description: Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Oldenburg was a member of the House of Holstein-Gottorp. She was the only surviving child of Frederick Augustus II, Grand Duke of Oldenburg by his first wife Princess Elisabeth Anna of Prussia.
  Sophia Charlotte is best known for her unhappy and well-publicized marriage to Prince Eitel Friedrich, second son of Wilhelm II, German Emperor. The marriage later led to divorce; Sophia Charlotte would remarry a few years later to Harald van Hedemann, a former police officer.
context_section_description: Sophia Charlotte (or "Lotte") was born on 2 February 1879 in the dynastic residence Oldenburg Castle in Oldenburg, Germany. She was the eldest child of Frederick Augustus, the then Hereditary Grand Duke of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg and his wife Elisabeth Anna of Prussia. Sophia Charlotte had a younger sister named Margaret, but she died young. She was named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, the wife of the first Prussian king Frederick I. Sophia Charlotte was her father's constant companion as they went yachting on trips together; due to these trips, she always had a great love of water like her father. She spent much of her girlhood abroad, and often visited her maternal aunt Louise Margaret, Duchess of Connaught and Strathearn in London. She also often stayed with her widowed maternal grandmother Princess Frederick Charles of Prussia in Italy.
  Sophia Charlotte's mother died in 1895, and her father remarried the next year to Duchess Elisabeth Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. This second union gave Sophia Charlotte four half-siblings, which would come to include Nikolaus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Oldenburg and Duchess Altburg, later Hereditary Princess of Waldeck and Pyrmont. They all resided together at the newly built Elisabeth-Anna-Palais (named after her mother). This second marriage made Sophia Charlotte's home life unhappy, and she was glad to escape once a suitable marriage was offered. Her father succeeded as Grand Duke of Oldenburg in 1900.
caption: Oldenburg Castle, the place of Sophia Charlotte's birth.
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