Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine

After studying archeology and art history, Louis was appointed as an attaché at the German Embassy in London.^[1]

In her book Noble Endeavours, Miranda Seymour describes the circumstances of how and when Louis first met Margaret Campbell Geddes, daughter of Sir Auckland Campbell Geddes, later created first Baron Geddes and the development of the relationship.

"Margaret Geddes, a young Scotswoman who was known to one and all as 'Peg', travelled out to Germany towards the end of 1935 in order to join two beloved brothers at a pension [in Grainau ] in Bavaria. Unknown to Peg, a little advance plotting had been going on. Waiting to meet her at the local station in the place of her brothers and all ready to conduct her to Haus Hirth was a dark-haired and extremely good-looking young German. His name was Ludwig ('Lu') and he was the music-loving second son of Grand Duke Ernst of Hessen-Darmstadt [the last Grand Duke of Hesse]…

"While Peg’s younger brother, David, went off on cultural trips around the Bavarian towns…, Peg spent most of her time with Lu. The result, as Prince Ludwig came from a family who had always used English as their preferred language, was that Peg's German grammar progressed less well than did her romance with a kind, sensitive and humorous young man.[endnote]"^[2]

They were married on 17 November 1937 at St Peter's Church, Eaton Square, dressed in mourning, as on the previous day Louis's older brother Georg Donatus, the last Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, his mother Grand Duchess Eleonore, his sister-in-law, and his nephews, were all killed in the Sabena OO-AUB Ostend crash, on their way to the wedding. The couple swiftly travelled to Darmstadt for the funerals.^[3]

As a result of his brother's death in the Sabena air crash, Louis succeeded him as head of the formerly grand-ducal House of Hesse-Darmstadt.^[3]

The couple had no children. Soon after the death of Georg Donatus and his wife, Louis adopted his one-year-old niece Princess Johanna,^[4] who was left as the nominal heiress of the Grand-Ducal House of Hesse and by Rhine,^[5][6] but the little girl died of meningitis in 1939.^[7]

During the Second World War, Louis was drafted into military service. Soon after, however, he was eliminated from the Wehrmacht along with other members of formerly ruling houses, because of "political unreliability" according to the Prinzenerlass, although he had joined the Nazi Party as a precaution to protect his position and property.^[8] He then withdrew to his estate Schloss Wolfsgarten near Frankfurt with his wife, who aroused suspicion because of her British origins.^[9] They made Wolfsgarten available as a military hospital of the German Red Cross during the Second World War. Louis and his wife adopted and took care of the younger children of Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse, after the latter had been arrested first by the Nazis and then by U.S. forces, while his wife Princess Mafalda of Savoy had died in the Buchenwald concentration camp after it was bombed by the Allies.^[10]

After the end of the war, the couple helped with the reconstruction of Darmstadt, in art, museums, and charitable institutions such as the Alice Hospital, the Eleonora Home, and the German Red Cross, of which Margaret was a board member for two decades from 1958.^[11]

Louis's sister-in-law Cecilie of Hesse, Princess of Greece and Denmark who had died in the Sabena plane crash, was a sister of the future Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. As a result, a close friendship developed between the Hessian royal couple and Elizabeth II and her husband Philip.^[12] They are credited with helping the British royal family to reestablish connections with their German relations after the Second World War.^[13] The royal couple paid a visit to Louis (called Lu) and Margaret (called Peg) at their home in Wolfsgarten on 20 May 1965.^[14]

As a lover of classical music, Louis promoted the Ansbach Bach Festival and the Aldeburgh Festival. He translated texts for his friend Benjamin Britten (1913–76) and had the English composer come to Wolfsgarten, where parts of his opera Death in Venice, published in 1973, were written. He introduced Britten to the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), and Britten dedicated his song cycle Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente (1958) to Prince Louis.^[15]

In 1964, he stood as godfather to Prince Edward. In 1960, Prince Louis adopted his distant cousin, Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse.^[16][17] With the death of Prince Louis in Frankfurt in 1968, he was succeeded by Moritz's father, Philipp, Landgrave of Hesse (died 1980) as head of the house. Moritz (died 2013) in turn was succeeded by his son, Donatus (born 1966).