Prince Bernhard, the father of the Netherlands’ Queen Beatrix, died Wednesday at the Utrecht University Medical Hospital, the Royal House said. He was 93 and had been diagnosed with incurable cancer in mid-November.

Bernhard had been living at the royal palace in Soestdijk, which he shared for six decades with his wife, the former Queen Juliana, who died earlier this year.

The German-born Bernhard, one of the most popular figures in the Royal Family, had received a stream of family visitors in recent days.

Bernhard’s service as a pilot for the Allies in World War II and his help in rebuilding the Netherlands, devastated by the Nazi occupation, earned him the respect of the Dutch. But his image was tarnished by a bribery scandal late in his wife’s reign and by his openly rocky marriage and affairs.

Tall, handsome, and active into his 90s, Bernhard was a dapper dresser, with glasses and a trademark carnation in his buttonhole. For the Dutch, Bernhard was an avuncular presence in his adopted country throughout the second half of the 20th century.

Outside the Netherlands, he was seen as a jet-setting, charismatic ambassador. He helped found the World Wildlife Fund in 1961 and became its first president and is credited with establishing the Bilderberg Group – a secretive annual discussion forum for prominent politicians, thinkers, and businessmen – which he chaired from 1954 to 1976.

Bernhard was born Bernhard von Lippe-Biesterfeld, of impoverished German nobility, at Jena June 29, 1911.

In 1995, researchers found documents in the U.S. National Archives that said Bernhard was a member of the Nazi party between 1933 and 1937.

In an open letter earlier this year, Bernhard dismissed rumors that he had any contact with Nazis during the war as “nonsense.” The rumors were also rejected by both the Dutch government and the respected Netherlands Institute for War Documentation.

But he didn’t deny having an illegitimate daughter in Paris.

He also said he had accepted the findings of a government inquiry that said he received US$100,000 in improper commissions from American aircraft builder Lockheed in 1976.

“I look back with satisfaction on my life,” he wrote. “I’m sure this [letter] will provoke new reactions, but frankly, I don’t give a damn.”