On 19 December 1911 born in Berlin, he was the youngest son of 
          Crown Prince Wilhelm. After studying law at the Berlin University, he 
          came to England as an undergraduate at Cambridge, and during Cowes 
          Week in 1934 he became the first male Hohenzollern to be received by 
          George V, who was Friedrich's godfather, since the start of World War 
          One. 
               Two years later Friedrich represented his family at the funeral 
          of George V and again, later, for the coronation of George VI. He had 
          been working meanwhile at a bank in Bremen and in December 1937 he 
          took an unpaid job at Schroder's bank in London. This was at the time 
          when the Munich crisis had caused the British Home Secretary to cut 
          down on work permits for German citizens in Britain and questions were 
          raised in the House of Commons as to the wisdom of bending the rules 
          for Fritzi. The fact of the matter was that the prince had become---in 
          private at least---a dissident from the Nazi regime. 
               Nevertheless, he returned to Germany in July 1938 upon being 
          recalled for six weeks' military training in the Wehrmacht, but was 
          back in England immediately afterwards to take a job with the London 
          agency of the German potash syndicate. 
               While in London he became too close to Barbara Hutton, the 
          Woolworth heiress, and her husband, Count von Reventlow, complained 
          toFritzi's father, who came at once to London and ordered his son to 
          stay away from her. In 1936, during the Olympic Games in Berlin, he 
          met 'Chips' Channon and his wife, Lady Honor Guinness. 
               Fritzi chose to stay on in England rather than fight with the 
          Germans and, in 1940, was detained under Regulation 18b and sent to an 
          internment camp in Canada for potential fifth columnists. Released in 
          January 1941, under pressure from Queen Mary who was said to 'dote' on 
          him, Fritzi returned to England and, after serving for a while in the 
          Pioneer Corps, clearing up bobmb-damage rubble in London, he quietly 
          took up farm work in Hertfordshire under the alias of 'George 
          Mansfield'. Through 'Chips' Channon he remained in touch with the 
          Guinness family, and when he was injured in an accident involving a 
          tractor it was Lady Brigid Guinees, then a wartime nursing auxiliary, 
          who came to look after him. 
               In July 1945 he and Lady Brigid were married in the church of St. 
          Cecilia in the village of Little Hadham. All had been done to keep the 
          marriage secret, after all he was still a German, but the British 
          Press splashed the news in the newspapers the next day. 
               Behind the facade of a successful marriage a basic 
          incompatibility of character began to make itself felt after the birth 
          of their third child, Victoria, in 1952. London society held little 
          attraction for Brigid; she was happiest with the country life. By 
          contrast, Fritzi was a dynamo of energy and gregariousness, never 
          happier than when leaping into a jeep to tour his model farm, into a 
          plane for a trip to his large sheep farm in West Africa or to 
          Rheinhartshausen Castle, the family seat on the Rhine near Wiesbaden, 
          converted after the war into a hotel. 
               In 1953 he resumed his German nationality as a duel citizen of 
          both countries because of legal requirements in connection with his 
          properties and estates in Germany. Over the next three years the 
          marriage deteriorated sadly, although 'normal' appearances were kept 
          up so far as the children and the staff at Patmore Hall were 
          concerned. Brigid had found companionship in a divorced neighbour, 
          Major Patrick Ness, and Fritzi had renewed his friendship with the 
          wealty Franco-German aristocrat, the Princess Antoinette von Croy. It 
          was arranged between Brigid and Fritzi that their marriage should be 
          dissolved on grounds of incompatibility in action brought by Brigid, 
          with the minimum of publicity, in the Frankfurt court where divorce 
          proceedings were not publishable in the press. 
               Fritzi was staying in the luxurious apartment permanently set 
          aside for him in the Schloss Rheinharshausen. Shortly before midnight 
          he walked out of the hotel, empty-handed and without a word to any of 
          the staff. He never returned. On the morning of 1 May, 12 days after 
          his disappearance, pedestrians on the bank of the Rhine near Bingen, 
          ten miles downstream from the schloss, sighted a body floating in the 
          river. The police brought it ashore and the corpse was identified by a 
          member of the Rheinhartshausen staff as that of Prince Friedrich. 
          After : "The Silver Salver, The Story of the Guinness Family", by 
          Frederic Mullally.

Source: Leo van de Pas