With memories of German oppression still very strong 20 years after the war, sections of the Dutch population were unhappy that Beatrix's fiancé was a German and former member of the Hitler Youth. They met again at the wedding-eve party of Princess Tatjana of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg and Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse, in the summer of 1964. Claus and Beatrix were also distantly related (5th cousins twice removed), as both being descendants from von dem Bussche family. Ĭlaus met Princess Beatrix for the first time on New Year's Eve 1962 in Bad Driburg at a dinner hosted by the Count von Oeynhausen-Sierstorpff, who was a distant relative of both of them. In the 1960s, he was transferred to Bonn. He then joined the German diplomatic corps and worked in Santo Domingo and Ivory Coast.
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After his repatriation, he finished school in Lüneburg and studied law in Hamburg. He was taken prisoner of war by the American forces at Meran before taking part in any fighting. In 1944, Claus was conscripted into the German Wehrmacht, becoming a soldier in the German 90th Panzergrenadier Division in Italy in March 1945. From 1938 until 1942, he attended the Baltenschule Misdroy. Ĭlaus was a member of such Nazi youth organisations as Deutsches Jungvolk and the Hitler Youth (membership in both was mandatory for all fit members of his generation). From 1938, Claus and his six sisters grew up on their maternal grandparents' estate in Lower Saxony he attended the Friderico-Francisceum-Gymnasium in Bad Doberan from 1933 to 1936 and a boarding school in Tanganyika from 1936 to 1938. His father, by birth member of House of Amsberg which belonged to the untitled German nobility, operated a large farm in Tanganyika (formerly German East Africa) from 1928 until World War II. His parents were Claus Felix von Amsberg and Baroness Gösta von dem Bussche-Haddenhausen. On 30 April exactly 33 years after her inauguration, Beatrix handed the baton to her eldest son Willem-Alexander her title since she abdicated is Princess of the Netherlands.Klaus-Georg Wilhelm Otto Friedrich Gerd von Amsberg was born on his family's estate, Castle Dötzingen, Hitzacker, Germany, on 6 September 1926. She also had ceremonial tasks, such as representing the Netherlands during state visits and receiving foreign dignitaries. As the queen, she was the head of state and fulfilled state-related tasks, such as signing laws and swearing in state officials. On 30 April 1980 Queen Juliana stepped down as queen and Princess Beatrix was her successor. Princes Friso and Constantijn followed in 19. Their first son, who is now King Willem-Alexander, was born in 1967. The couple wed in Amsterdam on 10 March 1966. The Princess had met him on New Year’s Eve two years earlier. In June 1965, Queen Juliana announced the engagement of Princess Beatrix and the German Claus of Amsberg. The family returned to Dutch soil in August 1945. Princess Beatrix attended Leiden University and earned a law degree in 1961. Shortly after, Princess Juliana took Beatrix and Irene to Canada, where Margriet was born. When Princess Beatrix was two years old, the family fled to the United Kingdom during the war. Her sisters Princess Irene, Princess Margriet, and Princess Christina were born in 1939, 1943, and 1947, respectively. Princess Beatrix was born on January 31, 1938, the first child of Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard.
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