A JUNKER SCHEME

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 32, 6 August 1921, Page 14

A JUNKER SCHEME

THE HOHENZOLLERN

FORTUNE

CLAIMS ON STATE AND CROWN

PROPERTY

STRUGGLE IN PRUSSIAN DIET AND GERMAN REICHSTAG. '

Lawyers of the State of Prussia drew up a "compact" on 26th January, 1920, for a final adjustment of all outstanding financial claims between Prussia and the House of Hohenzollern. If this Junker ■scheme is ever carried out, as the conservative elements in the Prussian Diet seriously hoped and still hope, it will make the ex-Kaiser's family one of the richest in the world; thus faT, however, it has been blocked by the Socialists.

The property intended to be turned over to the Hohenzollerns, as shown by a writer in the Contemporary Eeview, included (1) State property, (2) Crown •property, and (3) private property. In the past no clear distinction was made between these different kinds of holdings in royal hands. Now the Hohenzollerns are claiming (all three kinds of property as their own) and. the pro-Kai«er party in Prussia is bent on recognising the claims on a wholesale scale, and paying the Imperial exiles a cash indemnity on them amounting to hundreds of millions of marks. \ , Opponents at 1 first tried to fight the compact on political' grounds, arguing that it vrna contrary to the ideals of the revolution to indemnify the Hohenzollerns the same as, innocent iprivate citizens, and that, as the members of the Royal family-mother than the Kaieor and Crown Prince—had failed to issue any public renunciation of the throne, it was sheer folly to supply them with funds for a restoration propaganda. The question dragged on for months in the Jurist*' i Committee of the Prussian House} where the pro-Kaiserites took their stand on Article 153 of the Constitution, which lays down the general ■principle that no expropriation can take place without indemnification.

\ Acting strictly on this basis, and allowing full value for all the art and museum treasures included in the Crown property, the advocates of the Hohenzollern rights came to the conclusion that an "indemnity" of 100,000,000 marks was owing to tho Hohenzollerns ; this sum, besides, was to be free of capital tax, to which every other German citizen is now liable, making it really equivalent to 162,000,000 marks. But the total fortune that would ultimately be handed over to the Hohenzotlprns. under this plan is still more vast, as indicated in the speech quoted later in the present article. In view nf this fact, the Socialists shifted their ground somewhat and 'argued that much of the proparty under discussion was really State property which had -hern wrongfully" transferred "to the Crown; and that, in any case, Grown property could be held only by a reigning house; that all Crown possessions had reverted to the people when the Emperor fled from the country. ■ ' . DODGING WAR TAXES. While the question was still in the committee stage a. new turn was given to events by tho. Berlin Government's sudden arrest, on I3th November, 1920, of the whole personnel of the Dutch-Ger-man banking house of Grosser} Philipson and Co., on the charge of smuggling capital out of the country to avoid taxation. Grusser and Co. were known to be the banking agents of the Hohenzollerns. There was great excitement' in the Reichstag, therefore, on 22nd November, when the ex-Chancellor, Hermann Muller, interpellated the Government of the ■ Realm on the whole snbject. In the debate ■ that followed, Herr Muller said : "I ask the Government whether it is a fapt that the huge amount of money has been smuggled out of the country, and also a huge amount of goods a.nd of personal property, of salvarsan, for: in stance, whether a largo number.of highly placed persons are involved in these operations; whether the Government is already in possession of the names of 100 such persons; whether 250,000,000 of money are in question, or an even greater sum. . . . And, above all, what about the relations of Grusser and Co. with the House of HohenzolLern ? My information contradicts the denials published by the Deutsche Tageszeitung and the Deutsche Zeitung, and gives the following list of those involved :— "The Crown Princess Cecelia. "Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia. "The late Prince Joachim of Prussia. "The morganatic wife of Prince Oscar of Prussia, "Prince Oscar himself is not involved, nor is Prince Leopold of Prussia; but the Prussian Government had its attention drawn some time ago to the latter's huge operations for the smuggling of silver. ... Ws wish, to know what steps the Treasury has taken against Grosser and the rest of these smugglers ? We demand the most exact information and the most energetic action. . . It is not enough to tdl v; that the Treasury lawyers have the case in hand. This business demands publicity, and those who are found guilty must receive exemplary punishment, so as to frighten others." Finance Minister Wirth replied that he could not answer questions on cases thai were pendiTij; bcifor* a Court of Justice, but the, the Government had no intention of showing favour to high or low. With this tiie Socialists expressed themselves as satisfied for the time being. (Nevertheless, in order 1 that the proposed compact between Prussia and the Hohenzollerns might be available for debate in the Reichstag, the Socialists found it necessary to raise the question in the Prussian Diet. This they ' did during the last stages of the debate on the new Prussian Constitution, on 30th November, by bringing in two alternative motions, one calling for the confiscation of all the Hohenzollern property, the other referring the matter back to the Jurists' Committee with instructions to reconsider the terms of the compact. REVELATIONS BY HEILMANN. In introducing thif double-b'areled: measure, Herr Heilmann made a vigorous speech, in which he said : "During the recent debate in the Reichstag about the part played by the Hohenzollerns in the smuggling of money out of the country, we were approached on the score that the whole motion only arose because my party was so hard up for good election arguments. The absurdity of this allegation has been proved by the results of the elections in Saxony, where 1 W6 gained over 3000 votes, while the German People's Party had to -register heavy losses. To-day's motion, in the same way, owes its origin solely to the merits of the question at issue. The press of the conservative parties make it a reproach to me, that I, a Jew, dare to lift up my voice against the former Royal house; my answer is to remind you that there exists a certain member of the Bar, by name Lowenfeld, who defends Hohenzollern interest against the State, and that therefore I, a German, am well entitled to defend,the people's interest against tho HohenzpJlerns.

"Wo I never looked on the compact with the Hohonzollarns from thp purely

legal point of view • as Bismarck said, we did not turn.ourselves into a bench of. prize court Judges. The compact! is surely also a' question of high politics, a question of prune importance both in home and in .foreign affaire. Articles in the French press are an incontrovertible proof that no alleviation will be shown to Germany, seeing that Germany would only use such concessions-to payout hundreds of millions of- money to the Hohenzollerns. We Socialists do not admit the victor's right to have a deciding voice in such a question ; they simply assume it, nevertheless, ■ and we must each of us realise that for every million we pay to the Hohenzollerns we shall have a billion of extra indemnity to pay ourselves. That was why we proposed on the Jurists' Committee that the Foreign Minister be heard before the compact be put to the vote. The bourgeois bloc refused that motion. But when information was demanded about the exact amount of the Hohenzollern fortune, the reporting member refused to give it, and alleged as his reason 'questions of foreign policy.' Then the numerous Royal estates outside Germany were assigned to the Kaiser, and we raised the question of reimbursement in the event that the Entente should requisition such estates; we were fold that in that case this country would have to make good the amount to the Hohenzollerns. The Jurists' Committee has still passed no resolution on our motion against recognising such ah obligation in any circumstances. Any demand of ours for a revision of the Versailles Treaty would be made much easier in proportion as we repudiate old times and repudiate any sympathy with the Hohenzollerns. '

"There are othei reasons arising out of the situation at home which are no less important. It is all the moi-e necessary to file a' clear .declaration of faith in the cause of the republic,- because the Centre Party has so far omitted to do so beyond equivocation; the Democrats also displayed a remarkable love of the Hohenzollerns. We have not the least, wish to handle this business in a petty 01 hateful spirit; we don't want to send the Hohenzollerns a-begging; on the contrary, we are ready to assign > to them suitable means of support, although we are well aware that other victims, whose sufferings are far greater, are in this country without such means of support; in particular, those who above all others' are to be pitied, the heavily disabled and the dependents of the fallen. . ■ '", "MAD MONARCHIST PROPAGANDA." s . I "What was Biianarck'a policy in the similar cases of the King of Hanover and the Kurfurst of Hessen? He expressed himself in a very contemptuous way in the ;presence of tjhe North German Alliance on the subject of the moral indignation' which tho despoiling of these Princes had evoked, and the Conservative parties of his day applaud ed him vigorously. He said that a Minister must secure bis country against every kind of danger, even a danger so small and so remote as the danger of a Guelph restoration.- To-day's danger is neither small nor remote. With the exception of the Kaiser and the CVown Prince, the Hohenzollerns. have not renounced the throne; they *re deliberately playing the pretender's role, and we cannot assign any funds of State for such propaganda. All the Kune, our policy is not. Bismarck's policy of force majeure. I shall prove our motion to ,be as unimpeachable from a juristic a* it is from a political point of view. '

"Even supposing that the first sine qua non for the conclusion of any compact were present, I mean the public renouncement of all rights to,the throne by all the Hohenzollerns, payment would still be improper in view of the mad monarchist propaganda being carried on by important political parties. That we owe nothing whatever to William 11. inihe political sphere is proved by the opinion- of a man who must count with ithe Right as well as with others, the opinion of their leader, yon Kardorff. But if they" insist, I could say something on the topic of William ll.'s political activity, on the topic of the, Chinese campaign, of his letters* and his speeches, and all the unhappy effects of this man's personality on our fortunes. , There are two kinds of guilt,' the'guilt of an evil intent and the guilt of incapacity. I am hot dealing withi the first; but the incapacity of the old Government cannot be a matter of doubt to a single member in this House.

"Whatever inferences we draw from a consideration of the political situation are only confirmed by our consideration of the legal issue, namely, that our debt to the Hohenzollerns is nil. We were at fault in our former discussion on this question; my colleagues, Heine and Sudekum, were at fault no less tham Simon andi Rosehfeld, the Independents. It was the fault of a motion of Rosenf eld's that tha j legal issues were unduly stressed. By a legal error, Rosenfeld and Heine also give the Crown Prince the fief of Oels; we were quite at sea about the legal issues at the start of the Jurists' Committee; we were only put in possession of the facts when the Treasury sent across the necessary papers.

THE COMPACT AN OUTRAGE. "Counsel's opinion, as obtained from, Councillor of the Bar Seelmann, Departmental Director Kuhler, and Assessor Wilhelm, was erroneous; but even on the hypothesis that the regulation of the legal issues had been a proper one, the compact in its details would ail the same be an outrage. Take, for instance, the question of the palace at . Saorow; this wa3 State property, and its assign-, ment as a gift to the' Crown was abaclutely illegal. Xho university site was incontestably Crown domain, yet these sites are now to bo handed over to tha Hohenzollerns. The same thing has happened in the case of a nupber of other sites; many of them have been assigned to the Hohenzqllerns without any explanation. • ' "What is the financial bearing of this compact as affecting the State of Prussial? lam firmly convinced that the estimate which places the value of the IHohenzollem fortune at 1,000,000,000 marks: is far. too low; this is obvious • merely from a consideration of the fact that the Emiperor's annual income in Holland is assessed at 33,000,000 marks. So that, the ex-Emperor's present income is considerably higher than that which he enjoyed as King of Prussia and German Emperor. , "Now, let us consider where the State will be after the compact. The future obligations falling on the State of Prussia , will be as •follows : For special administrations, 3,000,000 marks annually; for administration of property taken over by the State, 12,250,000 annually; for the\upkeep of the theatres, 16,000,----000 to 18,000,000; for pensions and subsidies to officials of the Court, 17,200,----000. The report of the Finance Ministry says : 'It follows that the prosent sum total of charges falling in the State by the torms of the compact will be 46,----000,000 to 48,000,000 marks annually.' No person of ordinary common-sense can , argue that this is consonant with the character of a republic. Nor is there any existing income which covers these expenditures. Paragraph 8 of the compact is typical of. the spirit in which it was drawn up. This paragraph enjoins on the Royal House the duty of the upkoop of the art treasures which a,re to remain in its possession; but the State is under a legal obligation to provide the upkeep of those treasures which it retains. It ought to have been put just the other way round; the legal obligation I

ought to have been laid on private persons, and not on the State. ....

WARNING TO REACTIONARIES.

i "Consequently, the documents <>uDmitted are an incontrovertible' proof that ithe Hohenzollerns cannot claim any indemnity. Even the Democrats and Centre are now no longer prepared to maintain the compact in its original integ-" lity. Our unprejudiced labours have forced all parties to recognise that the compact will not stand. It can never become law. The new compact must ■be drawn up on entirely different principles; Professor Shucking has got the material together.; The proceedings must imitate those adopted by the Hessian Treasury; the property must be classiified, first, as State property!, second, as Crown income and. Crown property (these being inseparably bound up with the State), and, third, as privy purse. Historical .proof can -be supplied that Crown ■ income, together. with an enorunoua amount of Crown real estate, be•long's to'the State; that they served for ithe support of the Royal House as long as it was the Royal House. For, after all, the Hohenzollerns did not sell State property with a viewsto enriching themiselves; they merely said to themselves : 'Wljat we buy is just as much State proiperty as what we sell.' So.there can.be no talk: of the millions of the Hohenzollern fortune, if we confine ourselves *o giving them what is really their own. ■-, ' ■

"If you vote our motion down, and ■the question is tackled purely on the degal basis, the result will be that the Hohenzollerns will in the end get not enough r to live/upon. [Turning to the ißight.] Do not cling to the past, or to the Hohenzollern fortune. The old army 4s over and done with; its power was toverestimated . . . .and the old system of government is done with also; the new Government of Prussia Icannot be icarried on without the consent of the governed. Justice, too, must be put on another basis; she must no longer be the harlot to reaction. [Great excitement.] We cannot go back; we can only go on, and our people can only go onward and upward." [From. Vorwarts, Nov. 23-Dec. 2, 1920.] .. ' ■ ; . ■' Herr Heilmann's speech rallied the 'Centre Party in the House to his side, and, though the confiscation clause was ■voted down, the recommitment clause ■was carried after a violent and disorder: ly scene provoked |by a speech from tJlei Junker side. Later, in the committee, 1 the Centrist, Democratic, and Socialist members combined in a joint motion for a revision of the terms of the compact;: there the matter hangs for the present. Meanwhile the agitation has brought out the fact that Wilhelm has already received between 50,000,000 and 100,000;----000 marks since his flight to Holland.— New York Times Current. History.