“No one else in the world but her!”

Prince Wilhelm of Prussia had fallen in love with Elisa von Radzwill, and wanted to marry her. Unfortunately, even though she was a princess, her rank was low enough that the marriage would actually be illegal. Still, the two clung to the hope they would end up together, fighting royals and bureacrats for years to try to make it happen. Support Noble Blood: —Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/noblebloodtales — Noble Blood merch https://store.dftba.com/collections/noble-blood — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250840578/anatomyalovestory/and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story' https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250861016/immortalityalovestory/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dana Schwartz?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 0:34Dana Schwartz?

  Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Listener discretion advised. In January 1821, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia went to the theater. But he wouldn't merely be a member of the audience. He would actually be performing in a production based on a poem by Thomas More staged in honor of the Grand Princess Alexandra Fedorovna. In front of an audience of 3,000 at the White Hall of the Royal Castle, Prince Wilhelm and a number of other aristocrats were acting in a romance about the fictional daughter

• 1:19Dana Schwartz?

  of a 17th-century Mughal emperor falling in love with another man instead of the king she was arranged to marry. Little did Prince Wilhelm know that life would imitate art. He too would fall for a forbidden partner that very night. Her name was Princess Elisa von Radzwill, or Rajivu, a Polish noblewoman who happened to be playing a goddess, Heavenly Desire, in the production. Wilhelm was enamored with her performance, noting that it had overcome the audience. He wrote in his diary, quote, "Magical, idealistic, an ethereal touch hung over the whole. Unforgettable, Elisa forever."

• 2:07Dana Schwartz?

  When Alyssa and Wilhelm showed up together at her parents’ silver wedding shortly thereafter, people began to suspect that the two were an item. One minister sought out more information about Alyssa and discovered that her family was of relatively low rank within the Polish aristocratic hierarchy. Even though Alyssa’s mother was a Prussian princess, she married into a lower rank, meaning that Alyssa was ineligible for the throne. The minister put together his findings in a report titled “A memorandum on the legally

• 2:46Dana Schwartz?

  inappropriate status of the marriage of a royal prince of Prussia to Princess Radzwill,” which speaks to the disastrous results of the investigation. With the disapproval of Wilhelm’s family codified in writing, a union between Prince Wilhelm and Alyssa seemed less of a heavenly romance and more like a tragedy. But that wouldn’t be the end of Alyssa and Wilhelm’s love story. The two would do everything in their power to overcome the odds and stay together, much to the chagrin of Wilhelm’s royal family.

• 3:27Dana Schwartz?

  I’m Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Alyssa and Wilhelm had actually first met as children, although under less-than-ideal circumstances. It was during a politically tumultuous time, as Napoleon was advancing into Germany and Prussia, culminating in a battle at Jena and Oesterstaden in October 1806. Wilhelm’s father, King Friedrich Wilhelm III, was leading the Prussian forces, but he suffered a crushing defeat, with Napoleon and his troops occupying Berlin.

• 4:07Dana Schwartz?

  This sent the king’s family into a three-year exile in Konigsberg, which was a center of resistance to Napoleon, where they met met up with the Radswells, who were also in exile. At that time, Eliza was three years old and Prince Wilhelm was six. While the adults were fretting about their potential return to Germany, the children were enjoying their newfound freedom. One contemporary recalled, "They spent the summer on the amber coast of the Baltic Sea, the winter tobogganing together, and there were places to play in front of the Stein dammer tor and in the old castle."

• 4:47Dana Schwartz?

  Eliza could not only play with her siblings, Wilhelm, Ferdinand, and Louise, but also with Prince Wilhelm, his brother, the crowned prince, who was two years older than he was, and his favorite sister, Charlotte. In 1809, King Friedrich Wilhelm III agreed to Napoleon's repatriation claims, so the royal family and the Radswells could end their exile and return to Berlin. But the families would grow even more intertwined. After Wilhelm's mother, Queen Louise, died at the age of 34, Eliza's mother became something of a mother figure to Wilhelm,

• 5:29Dana Schwartz?

  who was only 12 at the time of his mother's death. The Radswells moved from Poland to Berlin depending on the season, and when they moved more permanently to Berlin, the love affair between Eliza and Wilhelm began to flourish. Wilhelm was 20 at the time and began cavorting with the 17-year-old Eliza at the palace where Wilhelm's sisters lived. The two were spotted at parties, salons, and receptions, even at times taking trips to the country together. Wilhelm noted in his diary, "Eliza has really grown up and become somewhat stronger, and more to the point, charming." By 1820, Wilhelm began to visit the Radswells more frequently,

• 6:14Dana Schwartz?

  which drew even more attention, because in March of that year, Elisa was confirmed by the court chaplain and the dean of the cathedral in the chapel of the royal castle, which made Elisa eligible for marriage, putting her relationship with Wilhelm under scrutiny. Some even suspected that King Friedrich Wilhelm had engineered the confirmation so Elisa could become his daughter-in-law. Wilhelm announced that he was in love with Elisa at the Prussian King's summer residence in June 1820. When the two returned to Berlin, Wilhelm was seen coming out of the Radzwill Palace almost every day.

• 6:58Dana Schwartz?

  Little did Wilhelm know that the minister was drawing up a dossier against the Union, and that many of his friends and family members were working together to try to tear the two of them apart.

• 7:14Dana Schwartz?

  In late 1820, Wilhelm saw Elisa while she was on holiday at the summer palace. But rather than greeting her warmly, as he had so many times before, he ignored her. When Elisa left, he burst into tears. Wilhelm's strange behavior was a result of threats to his relationship with Elisa from behind the scenes. Wilhelm's family had been discouraging him from pursuing her. His sisters suggested he marry a different princess instead, while his adjunctin took a stronger approach, mandating that it would be impossible for him to marry Elisa without his father's approval. Meanwhile, the king had heard these rumors

• 7:58Dana Schwartz?

  that his son was involved with Elisa, and he started meeting with his advisers. Some were actually supportive of the Union. The king's brother-in-law, for instance, fought for the two to be together. He argued that there was actually a precedent for the two to be together. Elisa's father, Prince Radzwill, had aristocratic ties.

• 8:18Dana Schwartz?

  to the Holy Roman Empire from 1515. Moreover, there had been marriages between the princes of Brandenburg and the Radswells for 200 years. That suggested that the Radswells were high status enough to marry into the family, as Wilhelm's father was the elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire before it was dissolved in 1806. But some technicalities complicated what seemed like Eliza's blue-blood bona fides. The Radzwill family had no property within the former boundary of the Holy Roman Empire,

• 8:58Dana Schwartz?

  meaning that they were not members of the Reich Council of Princes, which was an important factor in determining aristocratic rank. Moreover, those previous marriages between the Brandenburgs and the Radswells occurred when the princes of Brandenburg had no regal office, making the two families more similar in status back then. By the 1820s, Friedrich III was the king of Prussia, which elevated the family into a much higher echelon. The law emphasized that princes were only eligible to marry the daughters of ruling princely

• 9:38Dana Schwartz?

  houses or sovereigns recognized by the Reich, making a union between Wilhelm and Eliza actually illegal. Moreover, if Wilhelm's older brother, the crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm, died, Wilhelm would succeed to the throne, which meant there was even more pressure on his marriage. The king's closest adviser compiled a list of daughters of 29 reigning European royal houses who were not yet married to make it easy for Wilhelm to choose a different wife instead. In February 1822, the king sat down with Wilhelm and formally dissuaded his

• 10:20Dana Schwartz?

  son from pursuing Elisa, arguing that it was against the law. After so many reports and dossiers and interventions from family members, Wilhelm seemed to heed his father's warnings. "It's finished, the precious, loving, angelic being is lost to me," he wrote at the time. But in spite of his family's disapproval, he and Elisa continued to meet up at balls and go on secret dates. Whatever was to come, they swore to be friends forever. Wilhelm and Elisa parted, with Wilhelm fleeing to the Rhineland and the Netherlands to escape his romantic woes.

• 11:04Dana Schwartz?

  He spent his 25th birthday, the day he had once wanted to marry Elisa, away from her in Holland. She wrote him a benign, formal birthday message, and if Wilhelm wanted to write her back, he had to send his message to her mother. His sister Charlotte sent him a little portrait of Elisa as a birthday present, which he kept on his desk. After reflecting on his love for Elisa while he was away, Wilhelm returned to Berlin with renewed fervor to stand up to his father and marry the woman he loved once and for all. Wilhelm and Elisa continued to go to the theater together.

• 11:47Dana Schwartz?

  They took long strolls in the gardens of the palace, and they had long talks at the Radswill's house in Berlin. Wilhelm recorded these conversations in his diary at length, where he wrote, "No one else in the world but her," and that she was "the joy of his life." To win over the rest of his family and the royal officials, Wilhelm commissioned a counter-study from two legal experts that affirmed his right to marry Elisa. But that study did not sway the union's detractors.

• 12:23Dana Schwartz?

  A collection of ministers and the director of police rejected it. Another councillor clapped back with not one, but three further dossiers that called a potential marriage between Elisa and Wilhelm a "mis-marriage" that would destroy the hierarchy of the royal family. The Prussian Foreign Minister was asked to make the final judgment on the case, but he declined, arguing that he didn't have enough information to assess the "Polish aristocracy" that the Radswells belonged to. He suggested that the king be the one to make the final decision, leaving Elisa and Wilhelm's fate in Wilhelm's father's hands.

• 13:09Dana Schwartz?

  Tensions in the royal household reached a fever pitch as the king hemmed and hawed about his decision. The Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm sided with his brother, tearing apart the various official reports written by government officials, who he called "court toadies." He even got into a violent spat with his uncle, who had put together a dossier of his own to try to separate Wilhelm and Elisa. In response to all of this commotion, the Radzwill family had fled Berlin. The king's hesitation to approve the marriage was deeply insulting to the Radswells, especially since Elisa's mother and the king were related.

• 13:52Dana Schwartz?

  The family began to suspect that the king had ulterior political motives for tearing the two apart. In 1795, Poland was split between Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and Russia. Elisa's father had wanted to reunify the country and petitioned both the Congress of Vienna and Wilhelm's father to help, perhaps to unite the country under the leadership of Prussia. Maybe the rejection of the marriage between Elisa and Wilhelm was a signal of the rejection of Polish unification and independence. Elisa and Wilhelm continued corresponding, sending each other flowers, leaves, jewelry,

• 14:36Dana Schwartz?

  and locks of hair. On Elisa's 19th birthday, Wilhelm wrote to her parents, quote, "Elisa is indispensable for the happiness in my life." Meanwhile, the Crown Prince, Wilhelm's older brother, wrote a written statement of his own to counter all of the dossiers that were being drawn up to spite his younger brother's relationship. After all, it turned out that the king's new daughter-in-law from the Crown Prince's marriage to the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria was actually descended from a Radzwill. But that did little to sway the royal officials, who maintained that Elisa did not come from a high-status-enough royal family.

• 15:21Dana Schwartz?

  Wilhelm wrote a letter of his own, asking the king for a decision, pleading with him to let him marry Elisa, but he conceded in the letter that he would agree to whatever decision the king made. Elisa also wrote the king a letter that complained of the "public humiliation" she was enduring as a result of the king's waffling, imploring him to officially condone the marriage. Finally, the king called a family meeting in the Hirschberg Valley, where the royal family and the Radswells met together for the first time since they all were in exile in 1806. The meeting didn't have Wilhelm present,

• 16:03Dana Schwartz?

  but Elisa made a positive impression on the king, who noted her beauty and friendliness. After years of mounting dossiers and counter-dossiers, the king decided to let the couple marry. The plan would be to have Elisa be adopted by a ruling royal house so that the marriage would be legally permitted. The king asked the Russian czar to adopt Elisa, but he declined. The Hapsburgs also declined. That left Prince August of Prussia, the infantry general and the wealthiest landowner in Russia. This whole ordeal humiliated the Radswells, since it reified that their family was so low-status

• 16:48Dana Schwartz?

  that they had to "literally let their daughter be adopted out to another family."

• 16:54Dana Schwartz?

  To add insult to injury, Prince August of Prussia was a known philanderer who had over twelve illegitimate children, which made him an embarrassing choice as an adopted father for Elisa. Still, the couple was elated. Wilhelm hadn't seen Elisa in three years, but he traveled to Poland in February 1825, where the two officially got engaged. But the marriage hit yet another snag before it could get off the ground. Crown Prince Friedrich had been unable to produce an heir. He and his wife had only daughters.

• 17:36Dana Schwartz?

  This left Wilhelm responsible for the royal succession, putting increased pressure on his potential marriage to Elisa. The royal ministers implored him to call off the marriage. Elisa was forced to wait away from Wilhelm, celebrating her 22nd birthday alone in her family's hunting lodge. Meanwhile, Wilhelm traveled with his younger brother Carl to Weimar to visit the princesses Marie and Augusta von Sakkenweimar-Eisenach. Marie and Augusta had yet to get engaged, and Carl hit it off with Marie instantly. But the princesses' mother, sister of the czar, would only agree to let Carl and Marie

• 18:21Dana Schwartz?

  get married if Wilhelm did not marry Elisa. Grand Duke Carl August von Sakkenweimar-Eisenach doubled down, sending an ultimatum to the king that Carl and Marie could only be wed if the royal family had no links with the Radswells, who the Sakkenweimar-Eisenachs considered to be too low status.

• 18:46Dana Schwartz?

  With that ultimatum in mind, in June 1826, King Friedrich Wilhelm III wrote a letter to his son that prohibited him from marrying Elisa once and for all. Wilhelm, with no choice, reluctantly accepted the decision. He wrote to the Radswells, "The bond of love between Elisa and me has been dissolved. May her friendship with me remain until death." Carl and Marie married in May 1828, and, one year later, Wilhelm proposed to her sister Augusta. Those two were married in June 1829. Meanwhile, the House of Radzwill was suffering setbacks and deaths.

• 19:31Dana Schwartz?

  In response to an uprising in the Russian part of Poland led by Elisa's uncle, the Prussian king revoked Elisa's father's role in the Prussian state. Elisa's two brothers, sister-in-law, father, and godchild, all died within a few years. Elisa herself fell ill after caring for her late brother Wadyslaw, and she died shortly after, on September 27, 1834. Wilhelm would go on to become the King of Prussia in 1861, after his brother's death. Even after all of those years apart, and a marriage to another woman,

• 20:14Dana Schwartz?

  he still longed for Elisa. He kept Elisa's portrait, the one his sister had sent him, on his desk until his death in 1888, more than 50 years after his love had died.

• 20:33Dana Schwartz?

  That's the story of Wilhelm and Elisa, but stick around to hear about the banned film based on their love story.

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• 21:48Dana Schwartz?

  In 1938, the forbidden love story between Elisa and Wilhelm was made into a movie titled "A Prussian Love Story." The film takes some liberties with the story, setting their fateful meeting at Freihenwald, where they spent the day falling in love, before meeting again by chance in Berlin, where Wilhelm listens to Elisa's singing. The rest of the movie follows the king's attempts to break the two apart, albeit in a more dramatic form than a series of dossiers written by various royal officials. The film starred Lida Barova, a Czech actress as Elisa. At the time she was shooting the film,

• 22:30Dana Schwartz?

  Barova had been having an affair with Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist for the Nazi Party. When Goebbels and Barova began to make their affair public, Goebbels' wife asked Hitler himself for permission to divorce her husband. Hitler rebuked Goebbels, forcing him to end his affair with Barova in August.

• 22:54Dana Schwartz?

  August 1938. A Prussian Love Story was set to come out later that year, but the Nazis banned the film because of the purported similarities between Eliza's forbidden love affair with Wilhelm and the actresses with Goebbels. At screenings of her other movies, paid shills yelled out, "Get out, ministers, whore!" when her character appeared on screen. She fled back to Prague that winter. The film wouldn't come out until 1950, when it was renamed Story of Love.

• 23:34Dana Schwartz?

  Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Reema Ilkayali, and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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• 24:46Dana Schwartz?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.