by Jim Wilson
Titian haired, 40 year old Stephanie Juliana Richter Princess Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, confidante of the Führer and friend of half of Europe’s great is scheduled to sail from England to the US this week. Since the fall of Austria, Princess Stephanie, once the toast of Vienna, has lent her charms to advancing the Nazi cause in circles where it would do the most good. As a reward the Nazi government ‘permitted her to take a lease’ on the sumptuous Schloss Leopoldskron near Salzburg, taken over from Jewish Max Reinhardt after Anschluss. During the Czecho-Slovak crisis she did yeoman service for the Nazi campaign. When Mr. Chamberlain sent Lord Runciman to gather impressions of conditions in Czechoslovakia Princess Stephanie hurried to the Sudetenland castle of Prince Max Hohenlohe where the British mediator was entertained.3
When he went back to London, Runciman reported to the British government that the Sudetenland wanted to be taken over by Germany and ethnic Germans there were desperate to be returned to their homeland. Stephanie had done a good job, but her efforts did not stop there. She was also involved in preparing the ground for the Munich Conference in September 1938, a summit between Britain, France, Italy and Germany which decreed – without Czechoslovakia even being present – that the Czech government must hand over the Sudetenland to Germany in return for vague promises of an international guarantee of integrity for the rest of Czechoslovakia. Hitler gave his assurance at Munich that the Sudetenland was his last territorial claim, but secretly he had resolved to ‘smash the rump of the Czech State’. It was this that eventually led, inexorably, to Hitler’s designs on Poland that proved to be the direct cause of the Second World War. The piece of paper Chamberlain brought back from Munich proved useless in the face of Nazi ambition. Fourteen months later, in the High Court in London, a judge was to hear that ‘it was the princess’ groundwork that made the Munich Agreement possible’.4 The day after Chamberlain returned in triumph to London with the paper bearing his and Hitler’s signatures, and declared ‘Peace with honour – peace for our time’, Rothermere sent a telegram addressed to Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler in Berlin. ‘Frederick the Great was a great popular figure in England, may not “Adolf the Great” become an equally popular figure? I salute your Excellency’s star which rises higher and higher.’5
From the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, at the end of the dramatic diplomatic exchanges that surrounded the Munich Agreement, the princess wrote to Hitler:
There are moments in life that are so great – I mean, where one feels so deeply that it is almost impossible to find the right words to express one’s feelings – Herr Reich Chancellor, please believe me that I have shared with you the experience and emotion of every phase of the events of the last weeks. What none of your subjects in their wildest dreams dared hope for – you have made come true. That must be the finest thing a head of state can give to himself and to his people. I congratulate you with all my heart.
She signed it, ‘in devoted friendship’.6
In 1938 Hitler began to reveal the true horrors of Nazism and National Socialism. When the year began, apart from the reoccupation of the Rhineland and Saar – portions of Germany temporarily wrested from the Fatherland after the First World War – Hitler had not yet grasped any vital chunks of European territory likely to pitch the Continent to the edge of war. By the time the calendar was counting down to the end of the year, the picture was totally transformed. Hitler, by bullying, bravado and guile, had occupied both his and his princess’ Austrian homeland, together with the Sudetenland – the ethnically German border region of Czechoslovakia – reducing the rest of the Czech territory to a virtually powerless morsel ripe for the swallowing. In Germany, the mass pogroms of Kristallnacht had signalled the way for the Holocaust; and Germany’s armed forces were ready for what now seemed imminent and all-out war. He had outwitted and demoralised his enemies; Europe lay at his feet. Much of his success had been to impose his will on ministers throughout the chancelleries and embassies where the Continent’s fate was decided. That was an environment in which Princess Stephanie moved with ease, where her title gave her access to people with influence and where she was adept at promulgating Hitler’s cause.
All this did not escape the notice of British intelligence. Her file notes: ‘Schloss Leopoldskron is only an hour’s drive from Hitler’s home and she is frequently summoned by the Führer who appreciates her intelligence and good advice. She is perhaps the only woman who can exercise any influence on him.’7 The secret service, through the Home Office, issued a further warrant authorising the opening of all letters and telegrams addressed to the princess, both at her London address and those originating in England addressed to her at the schloss. The reason given to justify this action was stated: ‘Her connections with highly placed members of the Nazi Party and the fact that previous warrants had yielded results of considerable interest.’ It was urgently desired in the public interest, MI5 recorded, to find out more about how far the princess’ activities reached.
14
COMIC OPERA IN THE HIGH COURT
The highlife Stephanie was enjoying at Schloss Leopoldskron was destined to come to an abrupt end as questions started to be asked in Berlin about her and her lover, Fritz Wiedemann. Their enemies amongst the Nazi hierarchy, particularly Ribbentrop, seemed intent on stirring up trouble for them, and now it looked as if Hitler himself was beginning to take the allegations about Stephanie’s Jewish origins seriously.
Aware she faced questioning and probably considerable danger, the princess and her mother, who had been staying with her for the last few weeks, left the mansion in a hurry at the end of January 1939. Hitler had fallen out with his long-time adjutant and friend, probably over the plan hatched up between Wiedemann and Goering for talks in London with the British Foreign Secretary. Dismissing him from his inner circle on 19 January 1939, Hitler had appointed him to the post of German Consul General in San Francisco. Hitler told his former close colleague: ‘I have no use for men in high positions, and in my immediate circle, who are not in agreement with my policies.’1 In his diary in the autumn of 1938, Goebbels noted that the Führer had intimated he would have to get rid of Wiedemann: ‘During the Munich crisis he apparently did not perform well and lost his nerve completely … When things get serious he has no use for men like that.’2
Another factor weighing with the Nazi leader was Wiedemann’s close relationship with the princess. Hitler told his adjutant he must break off the association immediately, since Princess Stephanie was ‘under suspicion’. Goebbels, closely observing what was happening in the Führer’s immediate circle, again noted in his diary:
Princess Hohenlohe now turns out to be a Viennese half-Jewess. She has her fingers in everything. Wiedemann works with her a great deal. He may well have her to thank for his present predicament, because without her around he probably would not have made such a feeble showing in the Czech crisis.3
The SS was gathering information about the princess and her racial origins were being closely re-examined at the highest level. A member of Adolf Eichmann’s Department for Jewish Affairs gave his verdict to Himmler, having thoroughly researched her background in Vienna, that the princess was certainly ‘half Jewess’. The Nazi military intelligence service, the Abwehr, were also taking an interest in Wiedemann and his mistress, and Ribbentrop, who had been no friend of either of them, was happy to use the situation to his advantage. In his memoirs, Wiedemann stated that when he took his leave from the Führer, on his appointment as Consul General, Hitler had warned him against Princess Stephanie, saying he had come to the conclusion that she could not be relied upon and alleging that various anti-German articles published in the foreign press could be traced back to her.4 Wiedemann said he told Hitler that he could vouch absolutely for the princess’ integrity and loyalty to the Third Reich, and that he could prove that the princess had had a decisive influence on the attitude of Lord Rothermere and the Daily Mail, and the impact this had had, in turn, on furthering Nazi propaganda in Britain and in London soci
ety.
Another woman who had made a deep impression on Hitler, the actress and film producer Leni Riefenstahl, is said to have commented that Wiedemann’s ‘relationship with Hitler became more distant because of his half-Jewish girlfriend’.5 At the end of January 1939, Time Magazine in the United States was highlighting Wiedemann’s new role on behalf of the Nazi leadership:
Adolf Hitler’s Man Friday, big, burly, 47 year old Captain Fritz Wiedemann, who has carried out many a delicate mission in Europe as the Führer’s personal adjutant, was last week assigned to another. He will serve as Consul General at San Francisco, replacing the unpopular Baron Manfred von Killinger, recalled to the Reich to report on the bombing of a Nazi freighter in Oakland Estuary, two months ago. Capt. Wiedemann’s mission: to smooth ruffled US-German relations and sell the Nazi regime to an unsympathetic US.6
The Time Magazine report went on to record that the princess was supposedly the daughter of Jewish parents and that many of the Führer’s British friends, particularly Unity Mitford, had protested that a Jewess, however valuable, was no friend for Hitler to be associated with. The Führer had assured Unity some months ago, Time Magazine told its readers, that he would investigate the princess’ parentage. What Hitler had found had not been revealed, but his portrait, inscribed ‘To my dear Princess’, still adorned the desk of the princess’ London flat.7
Given the suspicions that were now surrounding her, stirred up by her enemies in the Nazi Party, the princess’ flight from Leopoldskron to London in January 1939 is understandable. She had strong reason to fear the consequences if she remained in reach of those Nazis opposed to her. Although this did not entirely blunt the princess’ loyalty to the Führer, it did finally poison her relations with Ribbentrop. ‘He began to sense angrily illegitimate outside influences,’ she wrote. ‘He must have traced back – rightly or wrongly – some such occasional scepticism of his leader to me and thus I became an arch-fiend in his eyes.’8 After her reluctant abandonment of the schloss it became the residence of the local Nazi gauleiter until the American Army reached Salzburg at the end of the war, at which point it was returned to the Reinhardt family from whom the Nazis had stolen it. Before leaving Salzburg, virtually overnight, Stephanie tried but failed to get permission for her aunt Olga, her mother’s younger sister, to accompany her and her mother. Olga was instead arrested soon after. She died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in September 1942.
The British intelligence service quickly picked up on the fact that the princess had fallen out of favour in Berlin and, as a result, Nazi funds paying the rent for the schloss had been stopped. MI5 files contain a memorandum to Sir Robert Vansittart at the Foreign Office, which speculates that her relations with Wiedemann had led to disclosures of Nazi secrets through indiscretions committed by them both. British agents on the Continent were keeping a close eye on developments. ‘We have independent evidence, of a very delicate nature, to the effect that the affair between Wiedemann and this lady is still going on,’ her file notes. ‘We also know from a very secret and delicate source that Wiedemann has advised her to recommend her creditors to apply to Major-General Bodenschatz, chef de Minister antes to Field Marshal Goering, for settlement of her debts.’9 Bodenschatz was one of Goering’s principal lieutenants who had been in London on various occasions, notably in November 1938.
Hitler’s change of mind over Princess Stephanie cut off any money she was receiving for working on behalf of the Third Reich. She returned to London badly in need of a new source of finance. Rothermere had paid her a final cheque for the services she had undertaken as his so-called go-between a year earlier, in January 1938. At that point he had made it clear that he did not want her to carry out any further commissions for him. Writing to her on 19 January 1938 he had told her:
My mission to create a better feeling between Britain and Germany has largely succeeded. Mine was a lone voice in the wilderness four years ago but now it is generally accepted by almost every political party in this country that good relations between Britain and Germany are essential for the peace of the world. You have helped much to achieve this better understanding. I do not wish to be considered an international busybody!10
In a bid to revive the remunerative contract, Stephanie wrote to Rothermere from the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo on 2 February 1938, saying:
It is important to know what is currently going on in Germany. The Germans are going through a serious crisis. Changes are taking place, which are of the greatest importance for the future of Europe. All the conservatives are being thrown out and only extremists are keeping their jobs or being recruited. You must be very careful in future. I do not see how it will be possible for you, under these new conditions, to continue to support Hitler in future and at the same time serve the interests of your own country.
She added, clearly with an eye to clear her name with the British authorities should she need to do so: ‘Hold on to this letter, so that it will be evidence of how accurately I have kept you informed. I’m serious; don’t throw this letter away.’11 Nonetheless, Rothermere took little notice of Stephanie’s advice and was not willing to renew her contract. He also persisted with his ongoing correspondence with Berlin and his letters to Hitler continued to eulogise the Führer despite the princess’ warning. Until Wiedemann was dispatched to the United States in March 1938, the princess, through her lover, continued to be informed of the letters that were still passing between Rothermere and Hitler.
As late as the summer of 1939, Rothermere continued to write to the Führer and to others in the Nazi leadership, paying them glowing compliments and appealing to them not to provoke a war. ‘Our two great Nordic countries should pursue resolutely a policy of appeasement for, whatever anyone may say, our two great countries should be the leaders of the world,’ he told Ribbentrop in early July.12 There were other eyes eager to read this correspondence. As Foreign Office papers now in The National Archives indicate, British intelligence was intercepting Rothermere’s telegrams. Rothermere’s letters to Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Ribbentrop – some of them extremely compromising – were being monitored in Whitehall with rising concern. One note from a senior official that has survived, written in the summer of 1939, comments: ‘The fact that Lord Rothermere is a Privy Councillor makes it in the opinion of [name blanked out] most significant.’13 Significant for what? That a privy councillor was expressing views disloyal to his country, or because it made it difficult for the authorities to do anything to stop it? Perhaps the authorities valued the chance to read the views of the Nazi leaders in correspondence that was not on a government-to-government footing.
At the end of June 1939 Rothermere wrote direct to Hitler: ‘My dear Führer. I have watched with understanding and interest the progress of your great and superhuman work in regenerating your country.’ He assured Hitler that the British government had ‘no policy which involves the encirclement of Germany, and that no British government could exist which embraced such a policy’. He added: ‘The British people now like Germany strongly rearmed, regard the German people with admiration as valorous adversaries in the past, but I am sure that there is no problem between our two countries which cannot be settled by consultation and negotiation.’14 If Hitler worked to restore ‘the old friendship’, Rothermere said, he would be regarded by the British as a popular hero, in the same way they regarded Frederick the Great of Prussia. Rothermere appealed to the Nazi leadership to convene a conference to sort out what he called ‘the misunderstandings’ – concerns about Germany’s intentions, particularly with regard to Poland. Within weeks of Rothermere writing these words, Germany invaded Poland and triggered the start of the Second World War.
To ease her increasing financial problems, Stephanie decided, rashly, to sue the press baron for what she alleged was breach of contract. She protested that Rothermere had entered into an agreement to pay her an annual sum of £5,000 (the equivalent of £200,000 today) to act as his special foreign-political representative in Eur
ope, and she understood that this contract was ongoing, if not for the rest of her life. In a move that smacked strongly of blackmail, she made it clear that should she lose the case she would not hesitate to publish her memoirs in the United States, which would put Rothermere in the worst possible light over his political connections with Hitler and other leading members of the Nazi Party. She intimated she had been offered a sum of £25,000 (around £1 million today) in America to publish her story in which Lord Rothermere’s relationships with women much younger than himself, and in particular with her, would be alluded to. Princess Stephanie further alleged in her writ that Lord Rothermere had failed to implement promises to vindicate her reputation by exposing the falsity of libellous statements and comments inferring she was a spy and an agent of the Nazis, published in the foreign press in Europe in 1932.
To make these allegations so publicly displayed considerable nerve on the princess’ part. She was embarking on a case which could cost her a substantial sum, particularly as she hired one of the most fashionable law firms in London, Theodore Goddard & Partners; the solicitors who, in 1936, had handled Wallis Simpson’s notorious divorce case. Correspondence amongst her papers now in the Hoover Institution Archives makes it clear that even before the case began she was struggling to meet her lawyers’ bills. The consequences of taking such a sensational case to the High Court, with the inevitability that her reputation and Lord Rothermere’s would be exposed mercilessly in cross-examination, were obvious. In Berlin Goebbels followed these events with interest. He realised what the outcome might be and noted in his diary that all kinds of embarrassing details would come out if the case went to court – not only about Rothermere’s letters to Hitler, but also about the princess and her sexual relationship with Hitler’s adjutant.15 It is clear the princess was banking on Rothermere being so alarmed at the public exposure of the flattering letters he had written to Hitler, that he would call the case off and pay up. As was later said in court by Rothermere’s counsel, the princess was indulging in naked blackmail.
