Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick
Hanoverian Royal (1887-1953)
Ernest Augustus (Ernest Augustus Christian George; German: Ernst August Christian Georg; 17 November 1887 – 30 January 1953) was Duke of Brunswick from 2 November 1913 to 8 November 1918. He was a grandson of George V of Hanover, thus a Prince of Hanover and a Prince of the United Kingdom. He was also a maternal grandson of Christian IX of Denmark and the son-in-law of German Emperor Wilhelm II. The Prussians had deposed King George from the Hanoverian throne in 1866, but his marriage in 1913 ended the decades-long feud between the Prussians and the Hanoverians.
Early life
Ernest Augustus was born at Penzing near Vienna, the sixth and youngest child of former Crown Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover and his wife, Princess Thyra of Denmark. His great-grandfather, Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the fifth son of George III of the United Kingdom, became king of Hanover in 1837 because Salic Law barred Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom, from inheriting the Hanoverian throne.
His father succeeded as pretender to the Hanoverian throne and as Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale in the peerage of Great Britain in 1878. The younger Ernest Augustus became heir apparent to the Hanoverian claim and to the dukedom of Cumberland upon the deaths of his two elder brothers, George and Christian. Through his mother, he was a first cousin of Christian X of Denmark, Haakon VII of Norway, George V of the United Kingdom, Constantine I of Greece and Nicholas II of Russia.
In 1884, his paternal great-granduncle the reigning Duke of Brunswick (a male line descendant of Henry, the older brother of William, his male line ancestor) died. Since the younger branch of the House of Welf ended with him, under house rules it would have passed to Ernest Augustus's father, who immediately claimed the throne.
The public source identifies “Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick” as hanoverian Royal (1887-1953). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ernest, Augustus and Duke.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q57672. VIAF identifies the subject as 8335489. The Library of Congress control number is nr98031000. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 1953, 1913 and 1918.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.