And I want to fly: Willem-Alexander dreamed of being a pilot, but became a monarch

And

______________________________

On April 30, 2013, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicated in favor of her eldest son, the Prince of Orange, and became princess. King Willem-Alexander ascended the throne. In honor of the 10th anniversary of his enthronement, here are ten interesting facts about him and his family.

• Willem-Alexander is the first man to sit on the Dutch throne since 1890. His mother Beatrix ruled the country for 33 years, but, having reached the age of 75, unlike her friends – the British and Danish monarchs – she chose a calm old age and voluntarily handed over the crown to her son. She had someone to take an example from, because her mother Queen Juliana and grandmother Queen Wilhelmina did exactly the same in their time.

• The king’s father, Prince Consort Klaus, was a German aristocrat, a distant relative of the royal family of the Netherlands. Before marrying the heiress to the Dutch throne, he bore the name Klaus-Georg Wilhelm Otto Friedrich Gerd von Amsberg. As a teenager, he was a member of the Hitler Youth, the youth organization of the NSDAP. And in 1944 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht in a light infantry division in Italy. But, not having time to take part in the hostilities, he was captured by the American military. In the Netherlands, which during II World War II were occupied by Nazi Germany, for a long time they could not forgive him for this period of his life. However, Queen Juliana gave her daughter her blessing for the marriage, although there was talk in the family about canceling the engagement. Thanks to the firm position of the mother of the bride, the groom received the approval of Parliament – the States General. This was a necessary condition for Beatrix to remain in the line of succession. In 1965, Klaus received Dutch citizenship, and in 1966 he married the Princess of Orange. Subsequently, the prince consort became one of the most popular members of the royal family. His death in 2002 caused truly nationwide grief.

• The full name of the current king is Willem-Alexander Klaus Georg Ferdinand. He was born on April 27, 1967 in Utrecht. In early childhood – before his mother ascended the throne – he lived with his younger brothers Prince Friso and Prince Constantine at Drakenstein Castle.
• The heir to the throne attended a regular high school in the nearby town of Baarna. His parents wanted him to have as normal a childhood as possible and insisted that the prince not receive any favors from his teachers. Then, when his mother Beatrix became queen in 1980, the whole family moved to The Hague – to the ancient residence of Huis-ten-Bos on the outskirts of the city. A touching video has been preserved in which 13-year-old Willem-Alexander, before moving, confesses to a television journalist who interviewed him that he would prefer everything to remain the same.
• As a teenager, Willem-Alexander discovered that being the Prince of Orange – in the Netherlands the title is automatically given to the heir to the throne – is not easy. He studied at the First Open Christian Lyceum in The Hague and cycled to school every day. According to the publication Dutch review The prince often tried to escape from the detectives hired by his parents to keep him safe. At some point, the family decided to send Willem-Alexander abroad. So he ended up at Atlantic College in Wales. Obviously, he had fond memories of this educational institution, where he received his bachelor’s degree. In any case, today, when the question arose of where to send his middle daughter Alexia to study, Willem-Alexander chose his alma mater without hesitation.

• In 1987, the prince followed in the footsteps of his mother Queen Beatrix and grandmother Queen Juliana – he entered the oldest Leiden University in his homeland. In 1993 he graduated with a master’s degree in history. In addition, he, as a future monarch, had to undergo internships in various government institutions and serve in the Royal Land Forces, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. In 1994, he received a military pilot’s license from the 334th Transport Squadron. But back in 1985, he received his first private pilot license, and in 1987 – a commercial pilot, and until 2017 he was trained on various types of aircraft. For example, in 2017 he mastered Boeing-737.

• Willem-Alexander was very responsible in his role as Prince of Orange and, even without being king, often represented the royal family at official events both in the Netherlands and abroad. But at the same time, he secretly worked as a pilot for the Dutch royal airline KLM. In an interview in 2017, he admitted that he started doing it during the reign of his mother Beatrix, and, if he had not been the heir to the throne, he would certainly have become a civil aviation pilot. In addition, the king said that even after accession to the throne, he allows himself to fly once or twice a month on the planes of the KLM Cityhopper subsidiary. In his pilot uniform and cap pulled down over his eyes, he was rarely recognized at the airport, but some smart passengers recognized his voice when he made announcements on board.

• He met his main love in life – the Argentine Maxima Sorregueta Cerruti – in the spring of 1999 during a traditional fair in Seville, Spain. Willem-Alexander generally had a reputation for drinking and having fun, classmates even gave him the nickname “Prince Pils” – after the name of one of the popular brands of beer. No wonder he was at such a fun event with bullfighting, dancing and noisy parties. On one of them, he saw a beautiful blonde, went up to her and introduced himself as Alexander. During a pleasant conversation, the prince learned that Maxima was an economist, and from day to day she had to return to the US capital, where she worked as vice president of the emerging markets division at a bank Dresdner Kleinworth Benson. Willem-Alexander liked the girl so much that he invited her to meet in New York in two weeks. Thus began their love. At first, Maxima did not suspect that she was communicating with the heir to the royal throne of the Netherlands. Later – at a wedding banquet on February 2, 2002 – she admitted that she laughed for a long time when he told her that he was the Prince of Orange by profession and the future king. Coincidence or not, but a year later Maxim moved to Europe. From May 2000 to March 2001 she worked in the Brussels division Deutsche Bank.

• On March 30, 2001, the engagement of the heir to the Dutch throne, Prince Willem-Alexander of Orange, and Argentine Maxima Sorregueta Cerruti was officially announced in The Hague on March 30, 2001. The televised press conference, which was attended by the groom’s parents, Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus, was broadcast live. Maxima addressed the nation in Dutch, her engagement ring gleaming with a rare orange diamond. However, this time was not without controversy. The fact is that the girl’s father was Jorge Sorregueta, the Minister of Agriculture in the government of the Argentine dictator Videla, who established a regime of terror in the country. And although the researchers specially hired by the royal family of the Netherlands managed to prove that Sorregueta was not directly involved in the crimes of the junta, he could not help but know about them. As a result, the States General officially approved the engagement on the condition that the father of the bride would not be present at the wedding. On February 2, 2002, the Prince of Orange and Maxima got married.

• On December 7, 2003, the first daughter of Willem-Alexander and Maxima was born in The Hague, who was named Katharina Amalia Beatrix Carmen Victoria. In 2005, the couple had a second daughter, Alexia Juliana Marcela Laurentin, and in 2007, a third daughter, Ariana Wilhemina Maxima Ines. When Willem-Alexander took the royal oath on the constitution in Amsterdam on April 30, 2013, his subjects already knew that the reign of a male monarch in the Netherlands for the first time in 123 years was a temporary phenomenon. Following Willem-Alexander, a woman will again ascend the throne.