Prince Claus of The Netherlands - Biography

Biography

Prince Claus was born Klaus-Georg Wilhelm Otto Friedrich Gerd von Amsberg, on his family's estate, Haus Dötzingen, near Hitzacker, Germany on 6 September 1926. His parents were Claus Felix von Amsberg and Baroness Gösta von dem Bussche-Haddenhausen. His father, a member of the untitled German nobility, operated a large farm in Tanganyika (formerly German East Africa) from 1928 until World War II. Claus and his six sisters grew up on their grandparents' manor in Lower Saxony; he also attended a boarding school in Tanganyika from 1936 to 1938.

The future prince was a member of such Nazi youth organisations as Deutsches Jungvolk and the Hitler Youth (membership in the latter was mandatory for all fit members of his generation) . From 1938 until 1942, he attended the Baltenschule Misdroy.

In 1944, he was conscripted into the German Wehrmacht, becoming a soldier in the German 90th Panzergrenadier Division in Italy in March, 1945, but taken as a prisoner of war by the American forces at Meran before taking part in any fighting. After his repatriation, he finished school in Lüneburg and studied law in Hamburg. He then joined the German diplomatic corps and worked in Santo Domingo and Côte d'Ivoire. In the 1960s, he was transferred to Bonn.

Claus and Beatrix met at the wedding-eve party of Princess Tatjana of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg and Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse, in the summer of 1964. Sections of the Dutch population were unhappy that Beatrix's fiancé was a German, only twenty years after the end of the war, and there were protests during the wedding celebrations, most notably by the anarchist-artist group Provo. The pair nonetheless were married on 10 March 1966.

Over time, Claus became accepted by the public, so much so that during the last part of his life he was generally considered the most popular member of the Royal Family. This change in Dutch opinion was brought about by Claus's strong motivation to contribute to public causes (especially third-world development, on which he was considered an expert), his sincere modesty, his candor (within but sometimes on the edge of royal protocol), and his approachability by all levels of society.

The public also sympathised with Claus for his efforts to give meaning to his life beyond the restrictions that Dutch law imposed on the Royal Family's freedom of speech and action (lest they get involved in political controversy). Many also believed that these restrictions were at least partly the cause of his severe depression, which lasted many years. As a result, restrictions were loosened; Claus was even appointed as senior staff member at the Department of Developing Aid, albeit in an advisory role.

A fine example of his mildly rebellious attitude toward protocol was the "Declaration of the Tie". In 1998, after presenting the annual Prince Claus Awards to three African fashion designers, Claus told "workers of all nations to unite and cast away the new shackles they have voluntarily cast upon themselves", meaning the necktie, that "snake around my neck," and encouraged the audience to "venture into open-collar paradise". He then removed his tie and threw it on the floor.

In 2001, when on Dutch television he announced the marriage of his son Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, and Máxima Zorreguieta, an Argentine woman of Spanish and Italian descent, Prince Claus referred to himself as more a citizen of the world than anything else.