The Cedars of Bad Godesberg and Meudon loved by Princess Soraya
There are more links that connect the famous Cedar Trees from Bad Godesberg and Meudon.
One goes through the American Kennedy family. President John F Kennedy drove by the Bad Godesberg Cedar 1963 june 23 to 25, while a quarter of a century earlier, 1939 february, the older brother Joe Kennedy Jr fell into a love affaire with the Brazilian Secret Service agent and Nazi resistant Aimee de Heeren right next to the Meudon Cedre Imperial.
Another link is the former Queen of Iran, Soraya Esfandiary, a half Iranian half German who was one of the world's most photographed women in the late 1950s.
1958 Princess Soraya lived with her parents in Cologne Marienburg. From time to time she drove to the nearby Bad Godesberg where her father worked as the Iranian Ambassador to West Germany.
Soraya loved the Bad Godesberg Kurpark where she sat on a bank facing the Redoute. She also liked the shadow to the magical cedar. The energy from the tree consolated her after her 1958 heartbreaking divorce from the Shah of Iran. As Soraya could not have children the couple had to separate for “state reasons”.
40 years later, at the turn of the century, Soraya lived in Paris 46 avenue Montaigne, only 6 km from the Cèdre Imperial de Meudon. The Cedre Imperial Meudon became a new destination when the Princess wanted to meditate.
The Paris based editor of Visit Bad Godesberg.com had the chance to be Soraya's Internet teacher thus knowing a few private details from her life. Soraya was touched by her internet teacher, a former school boy from Aloisius Kolleg / AKO in Bad Godesberg (just a few minutes from the Kurpark). Also loved the same Cedar Trees she went to see decades earlier. Memories of Johannes Thurn und Taxis, a friend they had in common, also connected them.
The two Cedars, Bad Godesberg and Meudon, reminded Princess Soraya from the Cedars of the Imperial Palace Gardens in Theran.
Sadly the city administration of Meudon showed little interest in it's Cedre Imperial Soraya and many people loved. They paved the surrounding grounds with cement (Bodenversiegelung), cut parts of the roots during a pipe construction. On the eclipse day August 12 2026 the advisors of the French Mayor Denis Larghero decided to cut it down.
Today a strong local controversy goes around the killing of the Meudon cedar. Already back in 2021 a thousand children made drawings of the tree to stop a Larghero construction project. Today many people are frightened a new real estate project is already under preparation.
Sadly Princess Soraya is not there any longer as she would have been there to oppose the betonizing of the grounds of the tree, once the magical garden of a still existing and also very neglected “Villa des Cedres”. The garden was as beautiful as the rose area facing la redoute.
Lets hope there will never be a real estate project in Bad Godesberg trying to replace Kleines Theater and it's Cedar by a hideous building like the one Larghero's advisors had already projected for Meudon in 2021.
Cedar trees have something magical as they can live through centuries, becoming fascinating witnesses of uncountable stories. They can be killed by thunderstorms but their real enemy are humans and real estate promotion that want to take the historic grounds of the trees.