CLAIM TO MILLIONS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVII, Issue 4460, 21 October 1933, Page 2

CLAIM TO MILLIONS

INQUIRIES BY GERMANS. LETTER TO PRINCE OF WALES. Two Germans recently wrote to the Prince of Wales offering him 10 per cent, on some hundreds of millions of marks which they reported to be awaiting distribution in New South Wales, and to which they claimed to be entitled. The letter was passed on by the Prince’s staff to the Dominions Office, which forwarded it to the Governor of New South Wales. The subject matter of the communication is now being inquired into by the Crown Law Office in Sydney for the information of the Governor. Two brothers named Wurdig are the writers, and the letter to the Prince, which had been posted at Pirna, in Saxony, is as follows: — “We beg you to pardon us for troubling you in an inheritance case, but as only evasive replies have been given at consulates, we believe that, assuming your kind permission, we may venture to claim your valuable help. According to a press notice a great-uncle of ours, a German who migrated to Australia, died in 1899. He left Germany about 50 or 60 years ago. His name was Johann Schone and he came from Pirna, district of Dresden. By his industry and economical habits he acquired in the State of New South Wales a fortune of about 320,000,000 marks. We now ask your Royal Highness by your valuable intervention to take up our case, and we are ready to place at your disposal 10 per cent, of the total sum for your trouble if you help us to obtain the inheritance. In the economic distress and extensive unemployment we, being in the building trade, are greatly embarrassed, and it would be just if we could receive at last some part of the inheritance that we continue to exist.” This communication to the Prince was followed by another which stated that Johann Gottlieb Schone had in Australia gone by the name of Gustave Adolp Schone. The Sydney Morning Herald says: “It has been found that one Gustave Adolp Schone, who died some years ago in New South Wales, left an estate of £ISOO. The beneficiaries under his will lived at Adelong. No trace of 320,000,000 marks which might be diverted to the Wurdig brothers can be discovered, or is likely to be.”