Armin Prinz zur Lippe was laid to rest in the family crypt in the Christuskirche in Detmold at the end of a spirited service attended by a large gathering of Germany's Gotha. Dukes, Princes, Counts, from Oldenburg to Hesse and everything in between paid their last respect to the head if the House of Lippe who passed away 20 August, two days after his 91st birthday.
The Prince was praised as a 'great man' and his death meant a great loss to the former independent principality of Lippe, to the German state Nordrhine-Westphalia which incorporated Lippe in 1947, and to the Federal Republic as well, a former chief minister of the state said in his eulogy.
The church was filled to overflowing, with the chief representatives of the German royal and princely families seated in the front, next to Prince Armin's widow Princess Traute, her son Primce Stephan and his young family, and other members of the different branches of the Lippe family.
It was a sweltering hot day in Detmold, the capital of the former principality. After the service, in which the coffin was lowered into the crypt, Princess Traute, 90, and Prince Stephan, welcomed their guests at the Residenzschloss, the beautiful family castle right in the middle of town on a peninsula.
© RB
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