However, a racist's will kept them from the altar, and they're making up for lost time. Rather than bemoan the changing times, let's be thankful they can finally have the lives they deserve and should have had a long time ago.
I am not sure why you describe a man who used his own funds to protect a Jewish cemetery from Nazi vandalism and whose last will (which, for those who have not seen it, was publicized in the judicial judgments linked earlier in this thread) made no direct mention of race/Aryanism/Nazism (as is often slanderously claimed) as "a racist".
I grant that his ambiguous comment about "alien blood" in his letter to his family could be interpreted as racist, but it could just as well be a realist recognition of the existence of racial laws used to expropriate property under the Nazi regime (especially since he put quotation marks around the phrase).
I still cannot get over the fact that this couple couldn't have married when they were ready for marriage and had to fight for years to get their legal rights as head of the House of Sayn Wittgenstein. All that because of a very outdated will of an old man, and that happening in the 21st century? If it hadn't been for all those complications they could have been happy parents years ago.
I’m sure Gustav and Carina would have preferred to start their family younger, but given that they were denied that opportunity, I’m thrilled for them that they’ve finally be able to. I suspect all of their family feels the same.
Had they been allowed to marry a couple of decades ago, they'd have had their family, and the kids would be nearly grown. [...] Rather than bemoan the changing times, let's be thankful they can finally have the lives they deserve and should have had a long time ago.
In Germany, no will has the authority to prohibit a couple from marriage, as that would be a flagrant violation of the Constitution's right to marry. But perhaps your comments are referring to the clause in the last will of Prince Gustav Albrecht (Gustav's grandfather who died during World War Two, not at an old age but in his late 30s) which stipulated that marriage to a spouse not born noble would exclude heirs from the line of succession to the Berleburg farm. It would seem Gustav was prepared to take that risk when he was engaged to the non-noble-born Elvire de Rochefort, but that he and Carina felt pressured by the marriage clause into waiting to marry for much longer than they would have liked.
However, the will did not stipulate consequences for having children out of wedlock with a non-noble-born partner, so Gustav and Carina had the legal option of having children at a younger age without jeopardizing Gustav's inheritance. Perhaps Gustav himself is more old-fashioned and believes in waiting until marriage to have children, even though out-of-wedlock births are commonplace and generally unstigmatized in Germany.
It is because of the 1943 will that the couple have their "rights as head"/"life they deserve". Had Gustav Albrecht died without a will, the family estates would be distributed more equitably today between Gustav, his sisters and their paternal cousins, rather than Gustav enjoying sole ownership of most of the family fortune.
It might be worth noting that Gustav named his firstborn child after his grandfather Gustav Albrecht.
As the subject of Gustav's marriage and his grandfather's will has been raised again, below is a repost of information about the "marriage clause".
Prince Gustav Albrecht's will did not contain the word "Aryan".
The requirements he specified in his testament were not only applicable to a future grandson. They applied to
all his living and future testamentary heirs: sons, grandsons, nephews, daughters, etc.
The contents of Prince Gustav Albrecht's last will of 1943 were recorded in the 2019 and 2020 judgments in the court dispute over the succession to his estate. The passage in his will specifying the conditions required of male heirs ran as follows:
Die vorstehend berufenen Personen sollen nur Nacherben werden und bleiben, wenn sie im Besitz der Bürgerl. Ehrenrechte und evangelischen Glaubens sind und aus einer Ehe stammen, und wenn sie eine Ehe eingehen bzw. in einer Ehe leben, mit einer Frau, die adlig geboren ist und hinsichtlich ihrer Abstammung die gegenwärtigen Aufnahmebedingungen für die Mitgliedschaft bei der Deutschen Adelsgenossenschaft erfüllen kann. Diese für die Nacherben festgelegten Bedingungen gelten auch für den Vorerben, bedeuten also eine Einschränkung der für den Vorerben im Absatz 1 aufgeführten Bestimmungen.
Translation:
The persons appointed [as heirs] above shall be and remain reversionary heirs only if they enjoy the rights of citizenship and are of the Protestant faith
and are issue of a marriage, and if they enter into a marriage or are living in a marriage, with a woman who is noble-born and, with regard to her ancestry, satisfies the current admission requirements for membership in the German Nobility Society. These conditions stipulated for the reversionary heirs apply also to the provisional heirs.
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Rules excluding non-noble spouses and children from inheriting family lands proliferated throughout Germany from the 15th century onward - centuries before the Nazis existed.
Another characteristic of Germany, not unrelated (in my opinion) to the previous one, was a growing obsession from the 15th c. with the concept of equality in marriages. Of course, most European monarchies show the same trend of marrying their members only within the most elevated class, which by the 16th c. means royalty of other countries. [...] What is peculiar in Germany is that dynasties tried to establish the principle that
marriages that were contracted outside of this group were less valid; and, in particular, that the offspring's claims were automatically curtailed, as a matter of law.
Morganatic and Unequal Marriages in German Law
There is ambiguity in the phrase "current admission requirements" ("gegenwärtigen Aufnahmebedingungen") written by Prince Gustav Albrecht in his will. It could be interpreted to mean "current admission requirements at the time of the writing of the will (i.e., 1943)", but it could also be interpreted to mean "current admission requirements at the time of the marriage".
TRF poster Kataryn, who is a native German speaker and well informed about German law, believes from the context that Gustav Albrecht probably meant "current at the time of the marriage".
Prince Gustav, Princess Carina of Berleburg and Family, Current Events 3, June 2022 -
I think "current at the time of the marriage" is a likely interpretation because, as Kataryn also pointed out in this thread, the late Gustav Albrecht was farsighted enough to include a clause in his will stating that a three-person committee could repeal or suspend any of the stipulations in the will, if they had become outdated:
Sollte jedoch einer dieser Gesichtspunkte später den derzeitigen Verhältnissen tatsächlich widersprechen (z.B. die Forderung evangelischen Glaubens ist dadurch überholt, daß inzwischen eine christliche deutsche Reichskirche gebildet ist, nicht jedoch, wenn der Betreffende dem Katholizismus oder der 'Gottgläubigkeit' zuneigt, wenn die evang. Kirche nach wie vor besteht), so hat ein Gremium, bestehend aus dem Chef der ... Herrschaft, dem präsumtiven nächsten Nacherben in den hiesigen Besitz und dem Vorsitzenden der Vereinigung Deutscher Stammesherren zusammenzutreten und einstimmig die Aufhebung bzw. vorübergehende Suspendierung dieser Einzelbestimmung zu beschließen.
Translation:
However, should one of these principles subsequently come into real conflict with the current circumstances (for example, the demand to belong to the Protestant faith is rendered obsolete by the establishment of a Christian German national church in the meantime, but not if the person in question is inclined towards Catholicism or "faith in God" when the Protestant church still exists), then it is incumbent upon a committee, consisting of the head of the [redacted] lordship, the presumptive next reversionary heir to this property and the president of the Union of German Family Lords, to convene and unanimously decide on the repeal or temporary suspension of this individual provision.
So while he was a self-proclaimed traditionalist, it was obviously important to Gustav Albrecht that his requirements could be adapted to future changes in German society.
The Deutsche Adelsgenossenschaft (which was founded in 1874) still exists, although it was reestablished under a new name in 1949.
1000 Jahre Adel in Deutschland — VdDA
