Archduchess Regina, Crown Princess of Austria, Hungary,
and Bohemia (6 January 1925 – 3 February 2010) née Princess
Regina of Saxe-Meiningen (Regina Helene
Elizabeth Margarete Prinzessin von Sachsen-Meiningen) was a member of the House of Wettin. She was born
in Würzburg, the youngest of four children born to the marriage
of Georg, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen and Countess Klara Marie von Korff genannt Schmissing-Kerssenbrock.
Regina was the only one of her siblings to have children: of her two older
brothers, Anton Ulrich died aged twenty, killed in action during World War II, and Frederick Alfred became a Carthusian monk who renounced his succession rights. Her
only sister, Marie Elisabeth, died aged three months in 1923, before Regina's
birth. Regina was a second cousin of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and a
great-great-granddaughter of Princess Feodora of Leiningen,
half-sister of Queen Victoria. Although
the Saxe-Meiningen dynasty was Protestant, she was raised in the Roman Catholic
faith of her mother. Regina grew up in the Veste Heldburg which overlooks the Heldburger Land in south Thuringia. Her father, a judge in Meiningen and
Hildburghausen, died a captive at the Soviet POW camp at Tschernpowetz on her 21st birthday in 1946. Her mother
had fled with her to West Germany. There, while working at
a Caritas home for
Hungarian refugees, Regina met her future husband. On 10 May 1951 she
married Otto von Habsburg, eldest
son of Emperor Charles I of Austria and
former crown prince, in the Church of
Saint-François-des-Cordeliers in Nancy, capital city of Lorraine, her husband's paternalancestral lands, with the blessing of Pope Pius XII. After her marriage she used the names Regina,
Crown Princess of Austria or Regina von Habsburg. From 10
May 1954 until her death Regina and Otto lived together at his official
residence in the Villa Austria, also called the Kaiservilla,
in Pöcking near Lake Starnberg. Regina held several chivalric orders, including Dame and Supreme Protectress of
the Order of the Starry Cross, Grand Mistress of
the Order of Saint Elizabeth,
Dame Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion of
the Sovereign Military Order of
Malta On 2 December 2005 she suffered a brain
injury and was taken to a hospital in Nancy. Nevertheless, by 22 February 2006
she had recovered sufficiently to participate in the transfer of the remains of
her mother and her brother, Anton Ulrich, to the vault of the Veste Heldburg in
the churchyard of Heldburg. The transfer of
the remains of her father thither from Tschernpowetz took place in the spring
of 2007. Regina died in Pöcking on 3 February 2010, aged 85, and was entombed
at Veste Heldburg on 10 February. Her remains, except for her heart, were moved to Mariazell and then to the Kaisergruft in Vienna at the time of her husband's
funeral on 16 July 2011.