Leopold III of Belgium

Leopold III, Leopold Philippe Charles Albert Meinrad Hubertus Marie Miguel (November 3, 1901 - September 25, 1983) reigned as King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951, when he abdicated in favour of his Heir Apparent, his son Baudouin.

Leopold III was born in Brussels as Prince Leopold of Belgium, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, and succeeded to the throne of Belgium on February 23, 1934 on the death of his father, King Albert I of Belgium.

Crown Prince Leopold, just a teenager, fought as a private during World War I with the 12th Belgian Regiment. At the end of the War, in 1919, the Crown Prince Leopold was enrolled at St. Anthony Seminary in Santa Barbara, California.

In Stockholm, on November 4, 1926, he married Princess Astrid Sophie Louise Thyra, Princess of Sweden who became Queen Astrid of the Belgians. She was born in Stockholm on November 17, 1905, the youngest daughter of Prince Charles of Sweden and Princess Ingeborg of Denmark.

Their children:

• Joséphine-Charlotte Ingeborg Elisabeth Marie-José Marguerite Astrid, Princess of Belgium, born at the Royal Palace of Brussels on October 11, 1927, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. She was married on April 9, 1953 to Prince Jean Benoît Guillaume Robert Antoine Louis Marie Adolphe Marc d'Aviano, Grand-Duke of Luxembourg. She died at the Château de Fischbach on January 10, 2005.

• Baudouin Albert Charles Leopold Axel Marie Gustave, Prince of Belgium, born at Stuyvenberg outside of Brussels on September 7, 1930, and died at Motril, Spain on July 31, 1993.

• Albert Félix Humbert Théodore Christian Eugène Marie, Prince of Liège, Prince of Belgium, born at Stuyvenberg in Brussels on June 6, 1934.

On September 11, 1941, King Leopold III married a second time, morganatically, to Mary Lilian Baels, who was born in Highbury, London on November 28, 1916. Known as Princess de Rethy, she died on June 7, 2002.

Their children:

• Alexander Emmanuel Henry Albert Marie Leopold, Prince of Belgium, born in Brussels on July 18, 1942. In 1991 he married Lea Inga Dora Wohlman, a marriage revealed only seven years later.

• Marie-Christine Daphné Astrid Elisabeth Leopoldine, Princess of Belgium, born in Brussels on February 6, 1951. Her first marriage, to Paul Drucker, lasted 40 days; she subsequently married Jean-Paul Gourges.

• Maria-Esmeralda Adélaïde Lilian Anne Léopoldine, Princess of Belgium, born in Brussels on September 30, 1956, a journalist, who married Salvadore Moncada, a noted pharmacologist, in 1998.

Heinrich Himmler ordered King Leopold deported to Germany. Princess Lilianne followed with the family in another car the following day under an SS armed guard. The Nazis held the family in a fort at Hirschstein an der Elbe in Saxony during the winter of 1944-45, and then at Strobl, near Salzburg, Austria. They were freed by the U.S. Army in May of 1945.

On his return to Belgium after the war, he was met with bitter opposition because of his wartime conduct and the legislature elected Leopold's brother Prince Charles (1903-1983) as Regent. Leopold went into exile in Switzerland while a 1946 commission of inquiry exonerated him of treason. Nonetheless, controversy concerning his loyalty continued and on his return to Belgium in 1950, he was met with strikes and other protests. To avoid tearing his country apart, and to preserve the monarchy, King Leopold III abdicated on July 16, 1951 in favour of his 20-year-old son Baudouin. After his abdication, he retained the personal title and style of H.M. King Leopold III.

In retirement, he followed his passion as an amateur social anthropologist and traveled the world. He went for instance in Senegal and strongly criticized the Belgian colonization process.

King Leopold III died in 1983 at Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. He is interred with his wives in the royal vault at the Church of Our Lady in Laeken.