Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse

Princess Mafalda with her two sons, Moritz and Heinrich in the 1930s.

Landgrave Moritz was born at Racconigi Castle, in Italy. During the Second World War, Moritz's mother, Princess Mafalda of Savoy, was arrested by the Nazis for alleged subversive activities and died in the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944 as a result of a U.S. bombing raid on the camp.

Prince Louis of Hesse and by Rhine, the last head of the Hesse-Darmstadt line, died in 1968, at which time Moritz's father succeeded him as head of the entire house. He had been the head of the House of Hesse since the death of his father Philip on 25 October 1980.

Moritz was a world-famous art collector.[4][5] He was also the proprietor of the Kronberg Palace Hotel up until his death.

He died of lung illness in a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany.

Moritz married Princess Tatiana of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg. Their marriage took place in the summer of 1964 in Giessen and ended in divorce in 1974. They had four children:

• Mafalda von Hessen (born 6 July 1965). Married 1st, Enrico dei Conti Marone Cinzano (born 5 April 1963 Turin) on 8 July 1989 (div. 1990), no issue. Married 2nd, Carlo Galdo (born 26 March 1954, Naples) on 19 December 1991 (div. 1999) and had two daughters.
• Heinrich Donatus Philipp Umberto (born 17 October 1966). Married Countess Floria Franziska of Faber-Castell (born 14 October 1974, Düsseldorf, Germany) in 2003 and has a daughter and two sons.
• Elena Elisabeth Madeleine (born 8 November 1967) has a daughter with Massimo Caiazzo (born 1976).
• Philip Robin (born 17 September 1970). Married Laetitia Bechtolf (born 5 May 1978, Wedel, Pinneberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) on 5 May 2006 (civil wedding) and 10 June 2006 (religious wedding), and has three children.