Hitler's Spy Princess Read online

  The princess was more than willing to make preparations for this mission, since it was her lover, Wiedemann, who was to take soundings in a preliminary meeting with Halifax in London. She asked her best friend, Ethel Snowden, to approach Halifax, a fact confirmed by Halifax in his diary:

  On Wednesday, 6 July, Lady Snowden came to see me early in the morning. She informed me that, through someone on the closest terms with Hitler – I took this to mean Princess Hohenlohe – she had received a message with the following burden: Hitler wanted to find out whether H.M. Government would welcome it if he were to send one of his closest confidants, as I understood it, to England for the purpose of conducting unofficial talks. Lady Snowden gave me to understand that this referred to Field-Marshal Göring, and they wished to find out whether he could come to England without being too severely and publicly insulted, and what attitude H.M. Government would take generally to such a visit.

  In just three days Stephanie succeeded in arranging a secret meeting between Lord Halifax, Sir Alexander Cadogan, and Hitler’s adjutant, Fritz Wiedemann. She then alerted Berlin. In his official diary for 17 July, the British Foreign Secretary wrote this about his conversation with Princess Hohenlohe:

  Princess H. said that W[iedemann] would be quite happy to spend Saturday and Sunday, 16th and 17th, privately and only come to see me on Monday morning. We therefore agreed on 10 a.m. at 88 Eaton Square. I did nothing more than establish that the sole purpose of W[iedemann]’s call was to discuss the actual visit itself. Without going into detail, I merely pointed out that it was obvious that G[öring]’s visit, should it take place, would be generally known about and that it was doubtless desirable to assure him in advance that it would not be without result.

  Wiedemann left Germany secretly and stayed with the princess in London. Then came the meeting with Lord Halifax. On 18 July 1938, with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s ‘permission’, Wiedemann was received by Halifax at his private residence in Belgravia. Wiedemann claimed he had come to London ‘with Hitler’s knowledge’, but that Ribbentrop had not been informed. He wanted to establish whether ‘a highly placed German figure might come here as soon as possible in order to conduct wide-ranging talks on Anglo-German relations. He hinted that this person was Field-Marshal Göring.’

  Wiedemann apparently went on to state that ‘the Field-Marshal was very keen on this idea’, and that Hitler desired good relations with Britain. However, the Führer had instructed him personally to inform Halifax that at present the critical problem was the suppression of the Sudeten Germans by the Czechs.2 ‘If, in the foreseeable future, a satisfactory solution cannot be found, I will simply settle the question by force. Tell Lord Halifax that!’

  A visit by Göring to London, as proposed by Wiedemann, was, however, rejected by the British Foreign Secretary on the grounds that the problem of the Sudetenland had not yet been resolved. But Wiedemann refused to let the matter drop. He insisted that Göring be invited, since Halifax had been Göring’s guest in Berlin in 1937, on the occasion of a field sports exhibition. Halifax then countered that ‘any such rapprochement with the German government’ would have to be brought to the attention of the French government.

  Having accepted the British refusal, Wiedemann ‘stressed most vehemently that Herr von Ribbentrop must not be apprised of the matter until it was absolutely unavoidable. He added in confidence that Herr von Ribbentrop’s standing with the Führer had long since ceased to be what it had once been.’

  In a memorandum dated 11 August 1938 Halifax made reference to his conversation with Wiedemann, stating:

  The Prime Minister and I have thought about the meeting I had with Captain Wiedemann last month. Of especial importance to us are the steps which the Germans and the British might possibly take, not only to create the best possible relationship between the two countries, but also to calm down the international situation, in order to achieve an improvement of general economic and political problems …

  Our hopes have recently been shattered by the conduct of the German press, which, it seems to us, has not hesitated to incite public opinion in a dangerous manner over every incident that occurs either in Czechoslovakia or on the frontiers.

  The French ambassador in Berlin, André François-Poncet, conveyed the following message to Paris: ‘The idea that Captain Wiedemann should be received by Lord Halifax was cooked up by Princess Hohenlohe, who is extremely well known to the secret services of all the Great Powers, and who at the moment seems to be serving the interests of Britain, although Captain Wiedemann, who enjoys the closest relations with her and frequently visits her in London, is of the opinion that she chiefly feels herself committed to the interests of Germany.’

  This statement by the highly respected diplomat was nothing if not explosive. The princess – ‘extremely well known to the secret services of all the Great Powers’ – did not allow even a man like François-Poncet to know for whom she was really working – or spying. He was not the only one who enquired about her activities without reaching any firm conclusion. In his report, the French ambassador pointed out that Wiedemann, who was moderately intelligent and well-meaning, was also naive, and spoke very little English. Wiedemann did in fact speak reasonable English, but he was clearly not capable of conducting such a delicate political mission in a foreign language. This meant that throughout the whole conversation with Halifax, Stephanie von Hohenlohe acted as interpreter. This was an astonishing state of affairs, which turned her more and more into a secret agent.

  Stephanie later had this to say to her ghost-writer, Rudolf Kommer, about the ill-fated exercise: ‘Very shortly afterwards, I learned that as soon as Ribbentrop heard the news from London, he went straight to Hitler and protested in the strongest terms about this interference by the Field-Marshal, the Captain and myself, and that he succeeded in completely changing Hitler’s mind … Ribbentrop’s star was at that time in the ascendant, but the rumblings of war were getting nearer. For me this chapter was closed.’

  At all events the princess’s suite in the exclusive Dorchester hotel, overlooking Hyde Park, where she had been living since 1936, became a London ‘base’ for Nazis. It was possibly an outpost of German espionage as well. That was certainly the impression gained by the British ambassador to Austria, Sir Walford Selby, who had followed the Viennese woman’s route to becoming an ‘international adventuress’. He warned his government against her: ‘There is no doubt that German propaganda was very active in London during those years. The Austrian government was watching these manoeuvres with the deepest disquiet, especially those of Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe, who they knew was an agent of Hitler.’

  To Ribbentrop, Wiedemann presented the subject of the Göring visit as though it had been Halifax and not he who had broached the matter. His report ended with the extravagant claim: ‘Lord Halifax asked me to convey his regards to the Führer and to tell him that he, Halifax, would like, before he died, to see his work culminate with the Führer entering London at the side of the King of England, amid the cheers of the population. He then accompanied me to his front door, where we said goodbye to each other very warmly.’

  Yet this doorstep farewell yielded less pleasant results. A newspaper reporter had been watching the two men. The next morning, as Wiedemann boarded the plane at Croydon aerodrome, he saw a banner headline in a left-wing newspaper announcing that Hitler’s adjutant had had a secret meeting with the British Foreign Secretary. The anonymous author of this explosive piece was in fact a man named Willi Frischauer. Coincidentally, he was the uncle of Eduard Frischauer, the second husband of Stephanie’s half-sister, Gina Kaus. Willi Frischauer had published a successful monthly magazine in Vienna until he was forced to emigrate. At the time in question he was writing for the Daily Herald and was extremely interested in the political ‘career’ in London of his Viennese compatriot, Stephanie von Hohenlohe. Writing stories about her was always a lucrative occupation. What is more, Frischauer knew Stephanie ‘socially’ from her Vienna
days, when she had worked with his friend, ‘Feichtl’ Starhemberg, so he claimed, on ‘all kinds of international wheeling and dealing – arms, finance and political intrigue’. ‘Feichtl’ was the brother of a leading figure in pre-Anschluss Austria, Count Rüdiger Starhemberg, Vice-Chancellor of the republic and commander of the Home Defence Force.

  Needless to say, the sensational revelation from London quickly reached Berlin. In the middle of a press conference at the German Foreign Office on Tuesday morning, someone burst in with the news that Wiedemann had been to see Halifax. It was a bombshell. As Wiedemann wrote in his memoirs: ‘I must confess that it was an embarrassing matter for Ribbentrop, and he immediately put through a phone-call to Hitler.’

  The foreign press reacted promptly, as Goebbels noted in his diary: ‘23 July 1938 … Wiedemann’s visit to Halifax on the Führer’s instructions continues to dominate the foreign press more than ever. A welter of rumours.’ In Goebbels’ view, the whole business had been ‘unduly exaggerated by the British press. The Führer has no particular intention other than simply to soothe the British.’

  On 22 July 1938 the Czech ambassador in London, Jan Masaryk, wrote in great indignation to Prague: ‘If there is any decency left in this world, then one of these days there will be a big scandal when it is revealed what part was played in Wiedemann’s visit by Steffi Hohenlohe, née Richter. This world-renowned secret agent, spy and confidence trickster, who is wholly Jewish, today provides the focus of Hitler’s propaganda in London. Wiedemann has been living with her. On her table stands a photograph of Hitler, signed “To my dear Princess Hohenlohe – Adolf Hitler” and next to it a photograph of Horthy, dedicated to “a great stateswoman”.’

  It was with very mixed feelings that Wiedemann flew back to Berlin, and since Hitler happened to be staying ‘on the mountain’, he went straight on to Berchtesgaden. When he landed there at about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, he was told that the Führer had gone for a walk with the English fascist girl, Unity Mitford, and was expected back shortly before dinner.

  When Hitler returned, a little before 7 p.m., he summoned Wiedemann to hear about the trip. Wiedemann began cautiously with the greetings from Halifax and his hope one day to see Hitler in London as a guest of the king. He was just starting to say: ‘As to Göring’s visit …’, but he got no further. Hitler cut him off immediately. ‘It’s out of the question now … Gentlemen, will you come in to dinner, please!’ Wiedemann himself found it scarcely credible that, even later on, he was unable to return to the subject.

  Thus Wiedemann had no choice but to send a message to Lord Halifax, after a decent delay, saying he regretted that his mission had failed. He wrote later: ‘In Hitler’s mind – given his great uncertainty about Britain – the page had turned once again.’ Wiedemann was not sure whether Unity Mitford had ‘whispered something’ to the Führer, or whether he felt that ‘a raising of Göring’s political profile was more unwelcome than ever’.

  Ribbentrop demanded a written report from Wiedemann on his visit to Britain. Outwardly, that was the end of the matter as far as Wiedemann was concerned. But he freely admitted that Ribbentrop ‘never forgave my attempt to meddle in his foreign policy’.

  In his autobiography Herbert von Dirksen, who was Germany’s ambassador in London at the time, once again went over the events leading to Wiedemann’s London mission:

  The most important political event of that summer was an attempt at rapprochement, undertaken from the German side, which sheds the brightest of lights on the methods of Hitlerian diplomacy – its multi-tracked approach, its bypassing of official channels, its dishonesty and lack of consistency, as well as the complete inability to attune itself to the mentality of the other side … the motivation for the London mission seems to me to stem from two sources: on one hand Göring’s desire for prestige and his wish to maintain peace through an understanding with Britain; and a parallel initiative by a clever woman on the other. This woman, Princess Hohenlohe, a Hungarian by birth,3 divorced from her husband, who had lived for years in London, was able, by reason of her acquaintance with Wiedemann, to gain access to Göring and even to Hitler. The latter had received her for a conversation lasting several hours, a distinction that he notoriously denied the official representatives of the Reich abroad. But since Princess Hohenlohe was a clever woman who was working for peace, this opportunity to exercise influence on the Führer was only to be welcomed. Under her guidance, Wiedemann trod the polished parquet floors of London. Since his mission was completely in line with my own endeavours, and he loyally kept me informed about everything worth knowing, I did all that was possible to promote the success of his mission.

  Dirksen recalled that Ribbentrop had not discussed Wiedemann’s mission with him, other than to warn him to be cautious in dealing with Princess Hohenlohe. ‘I replied that I had considered her above suspicion, since the Führer had granted her the honour of an audience in order to hear her views on Britain. Thus it was that this amateurish attempt to reach a compromise with Britain, made on the highest authority in Germany, ended in a tangled thicket of personal intrigue.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mistress of Schloss Leopoldskron

  On 21 July 1938 the London Evening Standard printed a story in the ‘Londoner’s Diary’ column headed ‘Friend of Hitler’. It read:

  Princess Hohenlohe Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, who is believed to have arranged Captain Wiedemann’s meeting with Lord Halifax, and who acted as Wiedemann’s hostess in London, plans to acquire Schloss Leopoldskron near Salzburg, as a holiday home. The mansion was requisitioned [by the Nazis] after the annexation of Austria.

  The Berlin journalist Bella Fromm wrote about Stephanie at the time: ‘Breaking up the Wiedemann marriage was a mere bagatelle in comparison with the work of the Stephanie–Wiedemann team on behalf of the National Socialists. It was just tough on Frau Wiedemann that she was wounded and inconsolable. For these exceptional services Stephanie was rewarded by Hitler with Schloss Leopoldskron near Salzburg, once the home of that world-famous genius of the theatre, Max Reinhardt.’

  In London the princess had frequently been in contact with Dr Rudolf Kommer, Max Reinhardt’s agent, regarding his projects in Britain and the United States. Kommer told Stephanie how Reinhardt’s property, Schloss Leopoldskron, had been confiscated by the Gestapo as being ‘owned by a person hostile to the people and the state’, and that it was now to be used for Nazi purposes. He advised her to take an interest in it. The German tax authorities had imposed a fictitious mortgage on the mansion, which could have led to the assumption that Max Reinhardt was in debt. This was simply not true.

  As Stephanie von Hohenlohe had wanted all along, in March 1938 the expropriated Schloss Leopoldskron was made available to her by Hitler and Göring as a personal residence and ‘political salon’, in recognition of her work as an intermediary with Lord Halifax. As another of Stephanie’s biographers puts it: ‘The man pulling the strings in this travesty, in which a Jewish woman was rewarded for her services to National Socialism with the property of a Jew deprived of citizenship, was none other than Hitler’s adjutant, Fritz Wiedemann.’1

  The actress Helene Thimig, who later married Reinhardt, wrote in fury: ‘What a macabre joke: Reinhardt’s creation – now a palace for the Nazis! And this Aryanised palace has been placed under the management of the Jewish Princess von Hohenlohe!’

  Max Reinhardt (1873–1943) was one of Germany’s greatest actors and theatre directors – in fact he pioneered directing as an independent artistic profession. He had bought Schloss Leopoldskron in 1918, and restored it in the most exquisite style. In collaboration with the poet and librettist Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, he founded the Salzburg Festival, which opened in 1920 with Everyman.

  Hitler always showed a great interest in things theatrical. As Goebbels wrote: ‘He praises great figures like Mahler or Max Reinhardt, whose abilities and services he does not dispute. In interpretative arts the Jew does sometimes manage to achieve something
.’

  In 1933 the Nazis offered Max Reinhardt (whose real name was Goldmann) ‘honorary Aryanship’, a suggestion he rejected as outrageous. Reinhardt saw in ‘Adolf the Colossal’ a man who sits ‘like the flea in Aesop’s fable, on the cartwheel of time, unaware of who is driving the cart. He buzzes proudly: what a lot of dust I am stirring up!’ On 5 October 1937 Reinhardt travelled to America, this time not as a tourist but as an immigrant. A short time earlier a Nazi supporter had thrown a bomb into the hall of Schloss Leopoldskron.

  Also living temporarily in the Schloss was Reinhardt’s theatrical agent, Dr Rudolf Kommer who, ironically, would later become Princess Stephanie’s ghost-writer. In 1941, at the request of Stephanie’s son Franz, Kommer had once more summarised the events surrounding Schloss Leopoldskron, admittedly from his own viewpoint, and with the aim of helping Stephanie resist the threat of deportation from the USA.

  Dear Princess Hohenlohe,

  I hear from Franzi that you are unable at the moment to get at your letters and documents from 1938, and that you wish to clarify matters relating to Schloss Leopoldskron, Prof. Max Reinhardt and myself. I will hurriedly give you a brief survey of the facts:

  (1) Approximately two months after the German occupation of Austria (in March 1938) I was informed by Prof. Reinhardt’s housekeeper at Schloss Leopoldskron, that the Schloss had been requisitioned in March and was being handed over to a Nazi military organisation. This would have meant the physical destruction of assets of great artistic value. When I was definitively informed by prominent Nazi lawyers that there was no legal protection of any kind in Nazi Germany for Prof. Reinhardt (or for myself), I thought about how this architectural jewel might be rescued from the barbarians. When I saw you in London in June 1938, I suddenly remembered that in previous years you had repeatedly tried to buy Schloss Leopoldskron from Prof. Reinhardt. I therefore suggested that you travel to Salzburg and either buy or rent the Schloss from the Nazi authorities. I naturally hoped that your personal connections would be of help to you in these efforts. You succeeded in obtaining a five-year lease from them and thus halted their plans to turn the beautiful baroque property into barracks. It was an extremely kind act towards Prof. Reinhardt on your part, and not a hostile one, as some ill-informed newspapers reported.