Susanna Margarete of Anhalt-Dessau

Susanna Margarete of Anhalt-Dessau (Dessau, 23 August 1610 – Babenhausen, 13 October 1663), was by birth a member of the House of Ascania and princess of Anhalt-Dessau. After her marriage she became Countess of Hanau-Lichtenberg.

She was the eighth daughter of John George I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, but fifth-born daughter of his second wife Dorothea, daughter of John Casimir of Simmern.

Life

In 1641, at the age of thirty-one, Susanna Margarete was betrothed to John Ernest, Count of Hanau-Münzenberg-Schwarzenfels, the last male heir of the line of Hanau-Münzenberg; however, he died of smallpox shortly before the wedding was to take place in 1642.

In Buchsweiler on 16 February 1651, Susanna Margarete married John Philip of Hanau-Lichtenberg, younger brother of the ruling Count Frederick Casimir, husband of her older sister Sibylle Christine of Anhalt-Dessau.^[1]

Probably on account of the substantial age difference between the spouses (Susanna Margarete was sixteen years older than John Philip), the marriage was childless.

References