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ORDER OF GERMAN KNIGHTS

And what do Tatranská Javorina and the Order of Teutonic Knights have in common?

Among the important representatives of the Order of Teutonic Knights was the branched Hohenlohe princely family, whose member Kristian Kraft von Hohenlohe did a lot for the development of Tatranská Javorina, Vysoké and Belianske Tatras.

(1848 – 1926)

Christian Kraft Hohenlohe

Öhringen, Duke von Ujest (1848 – 1926) Prince, general, politician, industrialist, owner of landed property in Lower and Upper Silesia and in Hungary, including the Tatras. He was one of the richest German noblemen.

JAVORINA

  • He established the headquarters of his European districts in Javorina, and on July 20, 1885, he received and opened his Javorin hunting lodge (currently the Presidential lodge).
  • On August 24, 1903, the prince, an evangelical but a patron saint, consecrated the newly built Catholic wooden church of St. Anna in Javorina. Evangelical Kristián Kraft was also the patron of the Ždiar Catholic church.

The memorials depicted him as a person aware of his position, but basically approachable and fair. Despite the fact that his knowledge of nature protection at the time was not at today's level and his main interest was hunting, the territory managed by him and his staff represented the most preserved and valuable parts of TANAP at the time of its creation and still today. In addition, many of "his" nature protection measures smoothly passed into the nature protection principles not only of TANAP itself, but how functional they are today known from national parks all over the world. His family life also testifies to the prince's personal qualities.

Family life

He with royal blood, moreover, an evangelical many years older, managed to survive his entire life without offspring with his young partner, born Catholic, Polish artist Otýlia Lubraniec – Dambska.

As was customary in those times, he first married her to Count Dambský and then took her to Javorina. She was a benefactor to the local people and was able to arrange a lot for them at her husband's place. When she died in 1922, he had her buried in Javorina cemetery. When Prince Kristián died in Szomogyszob on May 14, 1926 at the age of 78, his body was taken to Javorina and buried next to Otília. Christian's cousin, Prince August Kraft von Hohenlohe, became the heir to his property. However, the latter, having no proper relationship to this property, moreover, permanently living in Hungary, ignored it during difficult times for the aristocrats. He didn't care about its management, he kept it more and more in debt, mainly by not paying taxes, until he finally sold it to the Czechoslovak state.