Count Alexander of Schonburg-Glauchau

Count Alexander of Schonburg-Glauchau (born August 15 1969 in Mogadishu, Somalia), known generally and professionally as Alexander von Schonburg, is a German journalist and writer. He is the current head of the comital branch of the noble House of Schonburg.

Early Life and Family

Alexander was born in 1969 in Mogadishu, Somalia to parents Joachim, Count of Schonburg-Glauchau, and Beatrix, Countess of Szechenyi Sarvar-Felsovidek. He is the youngest of four children from this marriage, after siblings Maria Felicitas (b. 1958), Gloria (b. 1960) and Carl-Alban (b. 1966). Their parents divorced in 1986.

Afterwards, Alexander's father married Ursula Zwicker, and their union produced a daughter, Anabel Maya-Felicitas.

During the second half of the 1960s, Alexander's father's profession as a journalist and foreign correspondent took the family to Togo. They later moved to Somalia, before returning to Germany in 1970. The family thereafter resided in Meckenheim, in the Rhineland. Following the reunification of Germany in 1990, Alexander's father reclaimed the family's possessions in Saxony which had been taken from them after World War II. In later years, he was elected to the Bundestag.

Alexander's sister, Gloria, famously married into a very wealthy and princely house, becoming Princess of Thurn and Taxis. After ten years, however, her husband Prince Johannes died in 1990 leaving her with thee young children and debts in the hundreds and millions. She was forced to downsize and reorganize their holdings in order to rescue the Thurn and Taxis fortune and legacy for Alexander's two nieces and his nephew Albert, 12th Prince of Thurn and Taxis.

Marriage and Children

On April 30, 1999 Alexander married Princess Irina of Hesse (b. 1971, Munich, Bavaria), in a civil ceremony in Berlin. They were married religiously in Heusenstamm, Hesse on May 29 1999. The new Countess of Schonburg-Glauchau was born Princess Irina Verena, the second child and only daughter of Prince Karl Adolf Andreas of Hesse (b. 1937, Berlin) and his Hungarian wife, Countess Yvonne Szapary of Muraszombath, Szechysziget and Szapar (b. 1944, Budapest). Irina's grandparents were Prince Christoph of Hesse and his wife Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark, elder sister of The Duke of Edinburgh, consort of Elizabeth II. As such, she is closely related to several of Europe's royal houses, and is a second cousin of Donatus, Landgrave of Hesse as well as of Princes William and Harry .

The Count & Countess of Schonburg-Glauchau have three children: Countess Maria-Letitia Jolanta (b. 2001), Count Maximus Carolus Joachim Maria (b. 2003), Count Valentin Polykarp Josef Maria (b. 2005)

Through descended from Queen Victoria through her granddaughter Princess Margaret of Prussia, Landgravine of Hesse, Irina and her children are excluded from succession to the British throne because they are Roman Catholic

Title

15 August 1969-29 September 1998: His Illustrious Highness Count Alexander of Schonburg-Glauchau

29 September 1998-present: His Illustrious Highness The Count of Schonburg-Glauchau

House: Schonburg

Religion: Roman Catholic

(https://infogalactic.com)