Historionicus Obscura By Humboldt Fogg: Prince Hermann Pick's His 'Princess' From The Stage! At Least For A Brief 'Matinée' Of A Marriage!

Wanda Paola Lottero

14-VII-1881 + 08-VII-1963

PRINCESS WHO COST A THRONE IS VISITING HERE

Countess von Ostheim, Who Married

The Heir Apparent Of Saxe-Weimar, Is In New York

The New York Times

November 27, 1910

It may be, and prudent persons declare it is, reprehensible for a man to cast aside social considerations and family obligations for the sake of a woman, but the world has a weakness for that kind of unwisdom.  It does not happen so often either, that the spectacle becomes tiresome.  So Count von Ostheim, who is related to most of the European royalties and whose wife is now visiting this city, will not come in for so much criticism as his somewhat varied career might justify.

Count von Ostheim, before his family disowned him, was heir apparent to the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.  The romance of the disinherited Prince has been briefly told from time to time in the news items, that gave the barest outlines of a remarkable story.  It centers round a lovely woman, late of the London ‘Merry Widow’ company.  When it is added that she is an Italian, of the perfect type of beauty which Cavalieri embodies, there is perhaps a slight explanation of her amazing career.  They are very wonderful, those slender, sinuous, exquisite Latin women.

Countess von Ostheim, or Princess Hermann of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, called herself Wanda Lottero on the stage.  Maybe it was really her name and very likely it was not.  She is a bright and entertaining talker, so it is said, but on one subject she is dumb, and that is her origin.  Other stage beauties, suddenly elevated to a position of prominence, have hinted at a dark mystery in their parentage.  Wanda Lottero said nothing at all, and in this she shows her wisdom, for other tongues have told stranger tales than any she herself could have suggested.

She is the daughter of a washerwoman, of a janitor, of a ship merchant, of a Russian Grand Duke, of a King, anything you like to say about her birth, will find a certain amount of credence somewhere.

All that is really known about her is that she took a prize in a beauty contest in Milan as the loveliest woman in Italy, and that she has had a vast amount of admiration from distinguished persons, culminating in her romantic marriage. She was given a part in Edwardes’s production of the ‘Merry Widow’ in London, not because she was known as an actress, but because her singular beauty made her suited to the part of one of the Maxim girls.  She acted very well and she looked very lovely.  And the result was her marriage to a young son of royalty and his prompt rejection from the circle of his family.

Turning to the hero, Prince Hermann, the facts are easier to get.  One cannot be born royal in Europe and escape observation, so all the main facts of the young Prince’s career are noted, together with a good deal of what may or may not be the embroidery of fiction.

Prince Hermann was born in 1886. His years have been few, but they have been filled with activity.  Few young men have spent as much disgrace in twice that length of time.  From heir presumptive to one of the most important of the German Grand Duchies and to a vast private fortune, he has come to exile and comparative poverty.  He arrived there by the ordinary road, enlivened, however, by some features which make the story particularly worth telling.

The reigning Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is older than Prince Hermann by only ten years, but his wife died in a tragic fashion and does not show any inclination to marry again, the scapegoat young cousin was, until a year ago, the heir.  The Grand Duke had married the Princess Caroline of the same great German family.  She did not want to marry him, and the story goes that she did so only at the positive command of the Emperor.  She ran away from her husband – or it amounted to that – and died two years after her marriage under circumstances which suggested suicide.  And the Grand Duke remains a widower.

Hermann Charles Bernhard Ferdinand Frederick William August Paul Philip, as the hero of the Lottero romance is named, was the eldest son of Prince William, closest cousin of the reigning Grand Duke.  It is believed, however, that Prince William, who was had a wild career, has been cut off from the succession.  That left Hermann next to the throne and a person of the highest importance.  Also, until the birth of the little Dutch Princess he was in the line of succession to the throne of Holland.

The Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach has a population of about 500,000 an area of 1,400 square miles, and a history that embraces some of the most interesting literary and religious events of Germany.  Luther’s name is connected with the duchy, but its great glory is Goethe, who lived for years at Weimar, the friend and protégé of the good and brilliant Grand Duchess Amelia. They are very proud of its literary associations in that pleasant German town.  The standard of culture is high.  The muses, they say, have never deserted Weimar.

The young Prince Hermann was also a devotee of the muses, but he chose the least severe of the heavenly nine. He worshipped, to the exclusion of all the others, the fascinating Terpsichore, not in her classic, but in her more frivolous moods.  From his earlier years he loved the stage and the ladies thereof, and he spent as much time in Paris as he could by demand or subterfuge steal from his princely duties.

He was sent to Berlin and given a place in the Cuirassiers of the Guard in Berlin.  Once free from the restraining hand of the schoolmaster, Prince Hermann began to show that he had inherited all the tastes of his spendthrift father, and even extended them a little.  He was given only $10,000 a year to spend, but of course the trades people calculated that there and unlimited money in the family, and that any debts contracted by the young man would probably be paid, so they let him take about what he liked.

At the end of a year or so, by dint of keeping a racing stable and of giving princely gifts to stage beauties, young Hermann was a quarter of a million dollars in debt. His family paid and he was sent to do duty in a small town by way of discipline.

Then he persuaded the family somehow that he was ill and away he was sent to the south of France.  It is said that he sold his mother’s jewels en route in Paris.  Anyway it was not long before the debts were a million.  He was forbidden to go to Paris any more, and he tried the more sedate London, where the fascinating Wanda Lottero shortly afterward appeared.

At the end of a year in London his debts had gone up another quarter of a million.  Some callous creditor, unmindful of the adage that youth must have its fling, served him with annoying papers. He was taken home to Germany and treated as incompetent to manage his own affairs, and in short was held like a lunatic.  He was kept under some sort of restraint and allowed very little money.

The he was given his liberty, because he is of course entirely sane, and away he went to London again.  He announced that he was going to marry Marie Bonaparte, the daughter of the Prince Bonaparte, who is a part owner of the Monte Carlo Casino. The Bonaparte family is of course enormously wealthy, and he promised to pay his debts as soon as he married.  This was excellent for his credit, but the marriage fell through.  The Princess married Prince George of Greece.

The Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach family was thoroughly exasperated.  The debts were pouring and the Prince paid not the slightest attention to them.  His attentions to Wanda Lottero had cost him the rich Bonaparte Princess and had laid the last straw on the family patience, which finally gave way for good.  Prince Hermann was removed from the Grand Ducal succession, read out of the German Army, and allowed a small income on the promise that he keep out of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

Two or three weeks after this decision of the family the world was startled by the announcement of the marriage of the ex-Prince to Wanda Lottero.  The beautiful woman had played her last part as a star of the Maxim scene in the ‘Merry Widow.’ He married her, they say, before a Registrar.  Anyway, not even the Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach family could find a flaw in the ceremony.

The title that the family gave him when they deprived him of his right of succession is that of Count von Ostheim, and as the Countess von Ostheim the lovely young bride made a certain number of friends in England.  She has much tact and is charming. Her fellow-chorus girls had many pleasant to say about her at the time of her marriage.

Now, following in his father’s footsteps, Count von Ostheim has come to America. Prince William, during one of the periods when he was deprived of his income by an irate family, spent some time in making a living here. He tried a number of occupations, beginning with the comparatively elegant business of riding master and running down to that of waiter.  Prince Hermann does not show any sign of turning his hand to quite such desperate deeds as that.  He has an income that doubtless would seem opulence to most people, but hat must seriously hamper the enjoyment of a young man who has been spending money at the rate of hundreds of thousands a year.  But maybe the lovely lady is worth it.  Men have found it so, sometimes.

Prince Hermann of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Duke of Saxony

 14.II.1886 – 6.VI.1964

Hermann was a member of the House of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. After his disinheritance occurred in 1909, Hermann was commonly referred to with the style, Count Ostheim.

Prince Hermann of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was born on Sunday, February 14, 1886 in Düsseldorf. Like most young minor princes of the age, he was educated by a tutor until deemed old enough to enter the German army. Once enlisted, Hermann joined the Cuirassiers of the Guard in Berlin, where as he was separated from the guidance of his family and tutor, like so many before him, he began to build up a reputation as a spendthrift like his father.

Kept on a short financial reign, he was given a $10,000 a year stipend to spend for his needs, and he and those he bought items from realized that any debts contracted would eventually be paid by his family, thus, theoretically  increasing the amount Hermann could spend. By the end the year, Hermann was a quarter of a million dollars in debt, which his family duly paid; as a result he was sent to a small town as a disciplinary measure. On the sly and as a result of having found his provincial exile tedious; Hermann persuaded his family that he was ill, and was able to travel to Paris, racking up more debts along the way; one rumor said he sold his mother's jewels en route to France.

All the while, Prince Hermann was not the only prince of the family that was causing concern. Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach; the titular head of the family had remained childless for much of his early life. Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst had married firstly In Bückeburg on Thursday, April 30, 1903; Princess Caroline Reuss of Greiz, a daughter of Fürst Heinrich XXII Reuss zu Greiz. This marriage was childless and ended in 1905 with the death of Grand Duchess Caroline under mysterious circumstances. The official cause of death was pneumonia following influenza; other sources have suggested suicide.

Failing to remarry, for several years after the death of his first wife, the Grand Duke’s single status fueled speculation with regard to the succession to his throne. As a descendant of Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach through a younger son, firstly Hermann and secondly his brother were heir presumptives and would remain so until the birth of Karl August, Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in 1912. After Wilhelm Ernst had finally married for a second time in Meiningen on Friday, January 21, 1910, with Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen; daughter of Prince Friedrich Johann of Saxe-Meinigen.

A lifelong prodigal son, Prince Hermann was heir presumptive to the duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach until his disinheritance on Monday, August 2, 1909. The Grand Ducal family forced him to renounce his rights of succession to the Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach throne, as well as his royal status, title and prerogatives, granting him a lesser, noble title, Count Ostheim, along with a small allowance on the grounds that he stay out of the family domain.  In a clear support of the old adage ‘the apple does not fall far from the tree,’ Herman was not the only member of his family to have a bad reputation; his father Prince Wilhelm as well as their cousin Prince Bernhard were all viewed with displeasure, so much so, that the still-living Prince Wilhelm had been overlooked concerning the duchy's succession. Hermann had a younger brother, Prince Albrecht, who took up his position as next-in-line to the duchy. Hermann was also driven out of the German army ‘for all sorts of unsavory scraps’, as he was wanted in both England and Austria for debts, and for being a ‘common swindle’. His Austrian arrest warrant was issued soon after his younger sister Princess Sophie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was denied permission to enter into a morganatic marriage; she committed suicide soon after, on Thursday, September 18, 1913.

In 1921 Count Hermann claimed in a lawsuit with Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernest that he and his mother were induced by a ruse and told that he would be forcibly expelled from Paris unless he agreed to travel from there to Germany; instead Hermann was confined in an insane asylum. It was only after he signed documents renouncing all claims to Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and assuming the style Count Ostheim; that he was allowed to go free.  Hermann went on to claim that the Grand Duke was guilty of usury, as he was lent certain sums of money to pay off his debts in exchange for renouncing 48,000 marks appanage in favor of Wilhlem Ernest. During that time, the German government had been completing negotiations for a settlement on the former royal family, their titles had been abolished in 1918; thus had Hermann not been disinherited, he would have stood to inherit quite a large bit of money.

Before he became disinherited, Prince Hermann desired to marry Princess Marie Bonaparte, a great heiress; he might have succeeded but for his unsavory reputation. Though there was a chance he would succeed to the Grand Ducal throne, Marie's father disliked Hermann for possessing an ‘evil’ reputation, and consequently allowed her instead to marry Prince George of Greece and Denmark. Before her refusal however, Hermann was able to obtain a great deal of money, as it was assumed he would soon have a great deal of wealth to spend; when it became clear there was to be no marriage, a ‘crash’ came. It was these money troubles, along with other problems, that led to his disinheritance.

Despite being disinherited, Hermann openly boasted he would travel to the United States in search of a wealthy wife, and then return to Germany and pay off his debts within a year; all this was said while staying in Zurich awaiting funds from his family. Instead, Hermann, now Count Ostheim, morganatically married Wanda Paola Lottero, an Italian stage actress, on Sunday, September 5, 1909 in London. They visited the United States on several occasions. They were divorced two years later, on Thursday, June 22, 1911 after Wanda grew tired of supporting him with her earnings and divorced him on the grounds of financial ‘non-support, cruelty, and infidelity’. Wanda later gained notoriety for having a short-lived affair with King Constantine I of Greece in 1912.

On Tuesday, August 4, 1918, Hermann was married a second time, to Suzanne Aagot Midling at Heidelberg. They had one surviving child before her death on Friday, October 16, 1931; Count Alexander Kyrill von Ostheim, born on Monday,  August 7, 1922; he died unmarried in Stockholm on Sunday, March 28, 1943.

On Wednesday, November 16, 1932, Hermann's engagement with Isabel Neilson, daughter of former British MP and prominent actor and author Francis Neilson, was announced. Hermann and Isabel were married civilly and religiously in Paris on Monday, November 28, 1932. A small family luncheon accompanied the wedding; afterwards, the couple honeymooned to Spain and North Africa. They had no children.

Hermann died in London on Saturday, June 6, 1964 at the age of 78.

NR

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