Conrad IV of Germany

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Conrad IV (Andria, Italy, April 25, 1228 – May 21, 1254, Lavello) was king of Jerusalem (as Conrad II) (1228–1254), of Germany (1237–1254), and of Sicily (as Conrad I) (1250–1254). He was a son of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II and the queen regnant of Jerusalem, Yolanda.

Frederick II deposed his eldest son, Conrad's older brother Henry, and in his stead in 1237 had Conrad elected King of the Romans, meaning King of Germany and presumed future Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, with Archbishop Siegfried II of Mainz acting as German regent until 1242, when Frederick chose Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia, and Wenceslaus I of Bohemia, to assume this function. However, when Pope Innocent IV imposed a papal ban on Frederick in 1245, Henry Raspe supported the pope who in turn arranged to have Raspe elected as counter-king of Germany on 22 May 1246. Raspe defeated Conrad in the battle of Nidda in August 1246, but died several months later.

Also in 1246, Conrad married Elisabeth of Bavaria, a daughter of Otto II Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria. They had a son, Conradin, in 1252.

When Frederick II died in 1250, he passed Sicily and Germany to Conrad, but the struggle with the pope continued. Conrad invaded Italy in 1251, but not with enough success to subdue the pope's supporters, and the pope in turn offered Sicily to Edmund Crouchback, son of Henry III of England (1253).

Conrad was excommunicated in 1254, but died of a fever in the same year, and it was left to his infant son Conradin, born in 1252 and beheaded at age 16 in 1268, to continue the struggle with the Papacy.

His widow Elisabeth married second Meinhard II, Count of Tirol, who in 1286 became Duke of Carinthia. That marriage produced much more issue.

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