On 1 September 2025, Prince Georg Friedrich received the coffin seals of Frederick William I, the Soldier King (1688\u20131740), in the Christ Chapel of Hohenzollern Castle. They were handed over by Robert Edsel, founder of the Monuments Men and Women Foundation and author of the book on which the film Monuments Men is based.<\/p>\n
The coffins of the Soldier King and his son Frederick the Great underwent a dramatic odyssey in the 20th century: originally buried in the Garrison Church in Potsdam, Hitler had them removed in 1943 to protect them from bombing raids and moved to various locations. In the final weeks of the war, they were finally taken to the depths of the Bernterode salt mine in Thuringia, where they were stored more than 500 metres underground, hidden among flags, paintings and other cultural artefacts. On 27 April 1945, American soldiers discovered this secret depot. Shortly afterwards, Monuments Man Captain Walker K. Hancock documented the spectacular find before the coffins were laboriously recovered and brought to safety. Decades later, they found a temporary home in the Christ Chapel of Hohenzollern Castle, where they remained until reunification in 1991 \u2013 the very place where the long-lost seals were now returned.<\/p>\n
There is a special connection between the House of Hohenzollern and the Monuments Men: Captain Clyde Kenneth Harris, Prince Georg Friedrich’s great-uncle by marriage, was himself a member of this legendary unit, which also included a dozen women. As an art protection officer, he helped save the Holbein Madonna \u2013 and in doing so met his future wife, Princess Cecilie of Prussia.<\/p>\n
Prince Georg Friedrich emphasised: \u2018The return of these seals is more than just a piece of family history. It reminds us of our responsibility to preserve cultural heritage. At the same time, it honours the selfless mission of the Monuments Men.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On 1 September 2025, Prince Georg Friedrich received the coffin seals of Frederick William I, the Soldier King (1688\u20131740), in the Christ Chapel of Hohenzollern Castle. They were handed over by Robert Edsel, founder of the Monuments Men and Women Foundation and author of the book on which the film Monuments Men is based. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":10689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neuigkeiten_en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10707,"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10706\/revisions\/10707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.preussen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}