My time with the Prince

Why I appriciated Prince Philip so much

Our daughter paid us an unexpected visit yesterday. I usually notice this because her Labrador suddenly rushes into my study looking for food or empty bottles, which she then retrieves from my wife for a treat or to greet me. Shortly afterwards, my daughter usually appears at my desk.

Yesterday she had some sad news for me. She told me that Prince Philip had died in the morning. Of course, she knows the high regard I had for this public man and the news really saddened me.

Sure, many will now say, so what, he was just a human being who has to die like all of us and after all he had a long and comfortable life. That’s how you can see it, especially if you didn’t know the Prince and Duke of Edinburgh personally and came to appreciate his kind.

So I want to tell you why he remained as a role model to me until this day.

I have been deeply attached to an organisation he co-founded for over 35 years of my life, and for a total of 12 of those years, I actually worked for that organisation. First as Executive Vice President Marketing, then as a board member and finally in an advisory capacity. It is the organisation that chose the panda as its logo and became known as the World Wildlife Fund (though in most parts of the world it is actually called the World Wide Fund for Nature).

In my full-time time at WWF, Prince Philip was still very much present in the work, although he had already stepped down as regular president by then.
Many of my colleagues had anecdotes ready that they had experienced with the unusual prince. These ranged from bivouacs in the vast Kamchatkas to stormy VW bus rides over Rügen or flights in the royals’ private jet with Philip at the controls. And many revolved around not-quite-parlour jokes that he liked to crack.

My first direct contact with him was at the Frankfurt Opera Ball, the proceeds of whose raffle went to Panda and for which the Prince generously made himself available as patron. He was also personally present at the first ball, and he continued to support us with his patronage in the years that followed. But that was not all; other events for which I was responsible, I was also allowed to adorn with his royal letterhead on his instructions.

What also impressed me was his relaxed elegance. This very special style and his nonchalance, whether in a double-breasted suit or a tropical suit, was incomparable. He simply fitted into every situation and environment.

In all these years, I got to know Prince Philip as a humorous, sometimes sarcastic but never really cynical person. His jovial nature, made him a “touchable” royal. He really camped with staff in extremely rustic conditions in the Russian steppe, without any fear of contact and yet great dignity.

He appreciated it very much if people understood their subject and in species and environmental protection no one could fool him so quickly. Nevertheless, he was always eager to learn something new. Incompetence was obviously anathema to him. His reaction to half-baked ideas or gaps in reasoning could be one of unabashed candour.

This is also what some of his critics found fault with him for. His honesty, shocking to squeamish contemporaries. And yes, by today’s standards, some activists would go into gasps if they read up on his comments on various issues and looked at them under the magnifying glass of the ideology of concern.

But as the years went by, people took less and less offence at his gaffes — at least many people in his native Britain, appreciated him as someone who didn’t mince his words. If you look back in history, it was often people who knew how to inspire with open words who achieved important things. Whether it was Abraham Lincoln, Churchill or Helmut Schmidt, all of them were clear speakers at decisive moments.

The last time he spoke clearly to me, he asked me to speak German with him, because my English, which had been Americanised by long stays in the USA, strained his sense of language aesthetics to the maximum. It was during the Queen’s penultimate state visit at a reception at the British Embassy in Berlin, to which I had received a personal invitation. I was also one of the people personally introduced to the Queen and she chatted with me for a while about the WWF, which made the importance of the WWF to the royals and infuriated somere representatives of German business at that moment (as there was no time for them anymore, to speak to her Majesty).

Years later, I was travelling in London in a taxi and a programme about Prince Philip came on the radio. The driver commented whimsically on the programme and asked me, as a “German”, what I thought of Prince Philip. When he heard that I held the Prince in high esteem and knew him personally, he was completely taken aback and the taxi ride was prolonged by a very intense chat, earning me a companionable pat on the back as we parted. I actually had experiences like this regularly in the UK and for me it is a mark of his life’s achievement.

He who came to the Royal House in 1947 as a “Hun”, a prince without a country, of Danish-German-Greek descent and who spent many years of his childhood not only at the elite German boarding school Salem and with his German aunts, has made it over time into the hearts of the British with his incomparable manner and the firm support he was for Queen Elizabeth II, like hardly any other member of the royal family. A la bonheur!

With him has gone one last representative of his kind. True gentleman in the true sense of the word, open and honest, direct and helpful and as far as I am concerned, without any harm. People we so desperately need, especially in these difficult times. We should all preserve a little of this old-fashioned sense of honour, nobility and practical “common sense”.

That’s how I saw him and that’s the only view I can personally take. My own personal one and I will miss him and his attitude.

Rest in Peace