Ellen Bischoff-Korthaus, Princess of Schaumburg-Lippe

by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2023

Ellen Bischoff-Korthaus, Princess of Schaumburg-Lippe

In 1647, the County of Schaumburg-Lippe was formed through the division of the County of Schaumburg by treaties between the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel and the Count of Lippe.  In 1808, the County of Schaumburg-Lippe was raised to a Principality and Georg Wilhelm, Count of Schaumberg became the first Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe.

At the end of World War I, Adolf II, the last Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe, was forced to abdicate on November 15, 1918, and lived out his life in exile. In 1936, Adolf and his wife were killed in an airplane crash in Mexico.

Today the territory that encompassed the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe is in the German state of Lower Saxony.

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Born Elisabeth Franziska von Bischoff-Korthaus on November 6, 1894, in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria, now in the German state of Bavaria, and known as Ellen Bischoff-Korthaus, she was the wife of Adolf II, the last reigning Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe.

Ellen was an actress under the stage name Ellen Korth. She had roles in two silent films in 1918: Othello, a play by William Shakespeare, directed by Max Mack, playing Desdemona, Othello’s wife, with renowned German actors Wilhelm Diegelmann, Julius Falkenstein, Max Gülstorff and Rosa Valetti, and Wanderratten (link in German) also directed by Max Mack and also with Wilhelm Diegelmann, Max Gülstorff and Rosa Valetti, and Rudolf Lettinger. After the films, Ellen concentrated on her stage career.

Adolf was not the first prince Ellen married. On August 24, 1918, she married Prince Eberwyn of Bentheim and Steinfurt (1882 – 1949), son of Alexis, Prince of Bentheim and Steinfurt, and Princess Pauline of Waldeck and Pyrmont. Ellen was the second of Prince Eberwyn’s three wives. The couple divorced on December 13, 1919.

Adolf II, Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe; Credit – Wikipedia

On January 10, 1920, in Berlin, Germany, 25-year-old Ellen married 37-year-old Adolf II, the last reigning Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe, the son of Georg, Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe and Princess Marie Anna of Saxe-Altenburg. Upon his father’s death on April 29, 1911, Adolf became the reigning Prince of Schaumberg-Lippe. After the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, Adolf II was forced to abdicate on November 15, 1918, and the Principality of Schaumberg-Lippe became the Free State of Schaumburg-Lippe, and later part of Germany. Adolf was exiled from the Free State of Schaumburg-Lippe and lived mostly in the Brionian Islands, then Italy, now in Croatia. After her marriage, Ellen used the title Princess of Schaumburg-Lippe. In 1919, Germany abolished noble and royal titles and the privileges that the titles endowed but titles were allowed as part of surnames. The marriage of Ellen and Adolf was childless.

While living in Italy, Ellen and Adolf were investigated by the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police) beginning in June 1934. They were later denounced by Kurt von Behr, head of the Nazi Party in Italy.

On March 26, 1936, Adolf, aged 53, and Ellen, aged 42, were killed in an airplane crash in Zumpango, Mexico, along with eight other passengers from Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and four crew members. Their plane developed engine trouble and crashed between the volcanoes Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl as they were flying from Mexico City, Mexico to Guatemala City, Guatemala. The plane had been chartered by Hamburg-American Line which brought the Europeans to Mexico on a tour. It was the worst Mexican plane crash at that time.

Bückeburg Mausoleum; Credit – Von Corradox – Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7328133

The bodies of Adolf and Ellen were recovered and returned to Germany thanks to the intervention of Adolf’s youngest brother Friedrich Christian who was aide-de-camp to Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Friedrich Christian joined the Nazi Party in 1928, one of the first German princes to do so. He never distanced himself from the Nazi ideology and championed it until the end of his life. Initially, Friedrich Christian was against the idea of burying Ellen’s remains in the Bückeburg Mausoleum because he thought that she was not of Aryan origin. When Friedrich Christian was proven wrong, Ellen was buried with Adolf at the Bückeburg Mausoleum (link in German) on the grounds of Bückeburg Castle

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Works Cited

  • Flantzer, Susan. (2020) Adolf II, Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe, Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/adolf-ii-prince-of-schaumburg-lippe/ (Accessed: 01 September 2023).
  • IMDb (no date) Ellen Korth | actress, IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0466765/ (Accessed: 01 September 2023).
  • Timesmachine.nytimes.com. 1936. 14 Die In Worst Mexican Air Crash; Three Titled Germans Among Dead; Plane Carrying Ten Tourists From Europe And Four In Crew Falls Between Two Volcanoes, Killing All — Prince And Princess Adolf Of Schaumburg-Lippe Lose Lives. [online] Available at: <https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/03/27/87926235.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0> [Accessed 1 September 2023].
  • Staedeli, Thomas. (no date) Portrait of the actress Ellen Korth by Thomas Staedeli. Available at: https://www.cyranos.ch/smkore-e.htm (Accessed: 01 September 2023).