The "real" Principessa Mafalda

A History as Tragic as that of Her Namesake

The ship was named for the daughter of the King of Italy Vittorio Emanuele III. The Principessa Mafalda Maria Elisabetta di Savoia was born in Rome at the Villa Ada on the 19th of November 1902, the second child of the Italian monarch and Queen Elena.

On the 23 of September 1925, she married Prince Phillip of Hesse-Kassel, a nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm II, at the Castello di Raccongi. The couple had four children. The photo below shows the three boys, Heinrich, Moritz and Otto.

When Italy surrendered to the Allies, the Princess was in Sofia in Bulgaria visting here sister, the Queen of Bulgaria. In transit back to Italy she was arrested by the Nazis for "anti-fascist activities" but it seems she was really a hostage to try and influence the actions of the King of Italy. She was sent to the infamous Buchenwald concentration camp where she was injured in an Allied air-raid in August 1944. She had been buried in rubble of the collapsed barracks. She died, apparently, after a botched operation attempt by SS surgeons.