Duchess Elizabeth in Bavaria will be 80 years old on December 31st.
There is no big celebration due to Corona.
We talked to her about the special date.
Tegernsee -
On Thursday, Duchess Elizabeth celebrates her 80th birthday in Bavaria - under Corona conditions, like everyone else.
Even the closest family circle would be a large group: The Duchess is a mother of five and has a dozen grandchildren.
Duchess Elizabeth, how and where will you celebrate your 80th birthday?
I suggested to my husband that we just get in the car and see where it takes us.
If necessary, we could spend the night in the car.
You should have seen his face there!
He immediately booked a hotel room so that we could be away from home on the 31st.
We don't know whether this will work due to the corona.
But either way: there won't be a big festival.
What I will miss, because it always gives me great pleasure, is the mountain riflemen's birthday shooting.
Something stirs.
Do you hurt that there cannot be a lavish party?
No not at all.
Organizing such a family celebration for everyone is very difficult.
Our family lives all over Europe.
Once - I think it was my 70th birthday - all the children were there and I didn't really notice it.
I did not have the opportunity to talk to everyone in detail.
I also think it's more important that families get together at Christmas.
That is why we decided before Christmas that the money that we would have invested in a birthday party would benefit people in the Tegernsee Valley.
We give it to Pastor Weber and the Tegernseer Tal neighborhood help so that they can help families during the Corona period.
I ask everyone who wants to give me a birthday present to top up my basic donation of 2500 euros.
You have been involved in the social field for years and are thus in the tradition of Queen Caroline. What do you particularly enjoy?
I am very grateful that I can help with the guided tours - four one hour each day - as part of the Tegernsee Week.
People obviously like what I tell them about the story - even if it's mostly very spontaneous, like about the banquet hall that was once the reception hall of the abbots.
The way we as a family have renovated, painted or cleaned something, seems to interest them so much that money comes together every time that I like to donate to local projects of the church, which Queen Caroline helped found.
And it makes me friends to examine family history a bit with an archaeological approach.
Now I know every millimeter of the house.
You have not lived in Kreuth since 1979, but mainly at Wildenwart Castle. But you have renovated a lot in the former Tegernsee monastery. There was also the first ducal flea market here.
Yes, the flea market was fun.
I don't think much of it when things are unused in storage when they are perhaps important to someone.
For example, at the flea market where we all helped together, our son-in-law bought red wine glasses instead of selling them.
There were people who bought chamber pots because they reminded them of their own childhood.
Or soup cups from Bad Kreuth, from which they drink their espresso today.
Some found a ducal flea market revolutionary. You seem to be a democrat. Is that allowed as a member of the Wittelsbach family?
I don't even think about that.
Neither have I, for example, when we were invited to hunt with Queen Beatrix in Holland.
Many representatives of the European royalty are great.
We have a daughter who is married to the Liechtenstein Hereditary Prince, and I see that you learn to live with the office - not the office.
Democrat?
I would put it this way: I never got used to saying anything other than what I feel.
I remember an official press conference for Nymphenburg in Berlin: I grimaced because I was always asked the same thing.
After that, I was never asked for anything like that again and was able to stay at home.
You have five confident daughters and five granddaughters of the same kind: What makes strong women?
I think one should never be too fine for anything or think of oneself as something better.
Women should be open.
A good education opens eyes and doors - also abroad.
Once there, you should always make sure that you don't get stuck and that you can come back at any time.
For example, my eldest granddaughter Sophie no longer lives and works with her husband in London, but in Paris.
My other granddaughter did an internship in Hong Kong for a year and another worked in Beijing - both with the option of being able to go home if things got difficult for them as women.
How did you live “family”?
In my day it was taken for granted that women would be at home with the children and men at work.
I also enjoyed looking after our daughters and seldom attended official appointments.
But our children also went to boarding school at some point because my German was too bad for me to continue doing homework with them.
Today it is the case that women also work - regardless of whether they want or have to.
For families to function today, facilities for children are needed.
Kindergartens and crèches are to be supported.
We are all in demand.
To what extent does life in the European aristocracy correspond to the portrayals in the gossip press? Do free development and self-determination really fall victim to social and political demands?
There are such and such: some do something and others talk about it.
One must not forget that what I read about myself in the press is not always what I actually am.
A lot of the things you read are just not right.
And if you have something in your head, you don't always give interviews about it anyway.
But it depends on how the person is.
Because publicity and your name can be used positively - like my daughter Elizabeth Marie, who is involved in a multiple sclerosis foundation.
If she kneels in front of a wheelchair user, it's not a show, but because she wants to be at eye level with him.
What is your motto in life? What do you have to do to be as fit and healthy as you are at the age of 80?
Straightforwardness is important to me.
And I am very happy about the things that I was allowed to and could do.
The fact that I am still doing quite well at the age of 80 is not due to a particularly healthy lifestyle - apart from the fact that I have walked our dogs every day for decades.
Maybe it's because I have a very good man who lets me get away with anything.
But I'm also a good woman because I let him get away with anything too.
The best thing about it: He plays the piano and brings me music into my life every day - even if he saved ten years before he bought the grand piano and we still have to pretend we don't hear his playing because my husband basically does don't like listening to him.
Donations instead of gifts
Under "Donation call for Duchess Elizabeth", well-wishers can pay into the account of the Protestant Church Tegernsee-Rottach-Kreuth at the Kreissparkasse Miesbach-Tegernsee (IBAN: DE79 7115 2570 0620 0780 48)