1978. They had two sons and six grandchildren. After World War II Kira was called upon to testify in the case of Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Kira had met Anderson briefly in 1952 at the urging of her mother-in-law, Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia, who believed Anderson's claim. Kira was not convinced. She found the woman "repellent" and "not a lady" and incapable of speaking the cultured English used by her family. Kira had last seen Anastasia when she was a child of seven. Kira's uncle, Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia had been convinced Anderson was Anastasia, but her father and mother were unconvinced by Anderson's claim. In later years, Kira was disappointed when her eldest son, Friedrich Wilhelm, renounced his rights to the title and married a commoner. She also paid little heed to her health, putting on weight and suffering from high blood pressure in her fifties. She was in good spirits on a visit to her brother Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia at Saint-Briac in September 1967, where she ate well and dumped several spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee, commenting, "God forbid I should eat anything healthy!" That night, she suffered a heart attack and soon died. Ancestry References Sources Peter Kurth, Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson, Back Bay Books, 1983, Michael John Sullivan, A Fatal Passion: The Story of the Uncrowned Last Empress of Russia, Random House, 1997, John Van der Kiste, Princess Victoria Melita, Sutton Publishing, 1991, |- |- 1909 births 1967 deaths Nobility from Paris House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov Russian grand duchesses Princesses of royal blood (Russia) House of Hohenzollern Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France Prussian princesses Dachau concentration camp survivors