DEATH OF KAISER’S WIDOW: SEARCH FOR MISSING JEWELS

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 August 1947, Page 7

DEATH OF KAISER’S WIDOW: SEARCH FOR MISSING JEWELS

(Rec. 11 a.m.) BERLIN, Aug. 11. The United States Army criminal investigation branch is asking the Russian occupation authorities in Germany to make a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of the Kaiser’s widow, Princess Hermine, who died on August 7 at Frankfurt-on-Oder in the Russian Zone. An American Army spokesman said that a medical report gave the cause of her death vaguely as heart failure.

He added that there was no trace of Princess Hermine’s valuable Crown jewels. Mr O. R. Carlucci, director of the United States Criminal Investigation Department in Germany, said he had taken into custody a woman emissary who smuggled the jewels of the late Princess Hermine to Prince Ferdinand. The Americans, by accident found the woman still had some of the jewels, which she had not turned over to Ferdinand.

The British United Press says Fraulein Vera Herbst is understood to have led the Americans to a Berlin house where she had allegedly hidden six pieces of jewellery belonging to Princess Hermine. United States Army investigators said tonight that while searching for 29 pieces of jewellery which were missing from Princess Hermine’s collection, they discovered two new caches of hidden jewels belonging to her. Mr Carlucci said Ferdinand’s sister, Princess von Schoenaich-Caro-lath had returned about 30 pieces of the royal jewellery, which she had concealed in her apartment. Reuter’s Frankfurt correspondent says the United States authorities have released 'Fraulein Herbst and have transferred their investigations to the German police.