HUSBAND-BROTHER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 152, 29 June 1945, Page 3

HUSBAND-BROTHER

ON OPPOSITE SIDES

NIECE OP MOUNTBATTEN

LONDON

Peacocks fluttered up on to an ornamental fountain as our jeep drove into the courtyard of Schloss Friedrichshof, a big grey-stoned castle in thickly wooded grounds related a Daily Herald war reporter. A tall, slim, neatly dressed woman spoke to us in perfect English. She was Princess Sophie of Greece, widow of Prince Christopher of Hesse, first cousin of the Duchess of Kent and niece of Lord Lo ris Mountbatten. She brought into the room her five children, two boys and three girls, ranging from 12 to one year old. The youngest had never seen her father, a Luftwaffe major who was killed in an air crash in Italy nearly 18 months ago. The princess said her husband and her brother, Prince Philip of Greece, now fighting with the British Navy, had been very close to each other on opposite sides during the invasion of Sicily. She revealed that about two years ago Hitler ordered all members of royal families serving with the German armed forces to be withdrawn from the fronts, and thought it might have been because the Nazis feared some of the princes might try to set up in opposition to Hitler.