Franz von Bayern

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Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria Herzog von Bayern (born 14 July 1933), commonly known by the courtesy title Duke of Bavaria, is the head of the House of Wittelsbach, the former ruling family of the Kingdom of Bavaria. His great-grandfather King Ludwig III was the last ruling monarch of Bavaria, being deposed in 1918. Franz was born in Munich. During the Second World War, the Wittelsbachs were anti-Nazi. The family initially left Nazi Germany for the Kingdom of Hungary but were eventually arrested following Operation Panzerfaust in 1944. Franz, who was only 11 at the time, spent time in several Nazi concentration camps, including Sachsenhausen, then Flossenbürg and finally Dachau. After the war, Franz was a student at LMU Munich and became a collector of modern art. Franz succeeded as head of the House of Wittelsbach, and as pretender to the defunct Bavarian throne, on the death of his father in 1996. He lives at Nymphenburg Palace in Munich and Berg Palace. In the Jacobite succession,...

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