ECCENTRIC MILLIONAIRE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21020, 8 May 1930, Page 15

ECCENTRIC MILLIONAIRE.

WEALTH LEFT TO OTHERS. The story of the Loeske millions, the unfolding of which began in the Berlin Civil Courts recently, is a theme truly worthy of Dickens. Britain’s great novelist would have delighted in the eccentricities of the human oddity who, when already a very wealthy man, dined daily for in a modest pot-house, alongside underpaid clerks and shopping assistants; lived to be one of the greatest international authorities in certain provinces of antique art; and over whose immense fortune 300 relatives are now en gaged in a great legal battle. The exact value of the estate of Albert Loeske, who died on October 1, has not yet been revealed, and perhaps is not even known. It is said to be certainly not less than £2,500,000, and probably as much as £6,000,000. Whatever may be its exact total, this great fortune includes: Valuable house property in. Berlin, Frankfort, and other German towns; oil wells in Galacia and Rumania; 'clock factories in Switzerland; half a dozen art dealing firms, each with its own title; and the three shops of Margraf and Co., the best-known jewellers in Berlin. The nominal head of this last-known business was merely a salaried employee of Loeske, though the world has only just become aware of the fact. But, though he kept as much as possible in, the background, it was known that Loeske was for some time the largest taxpayer in Berlin, and it was flatteringly said of the. invisible man that he was the only millionaire in .Germany who filled up his income tax return with scrupulous precision. During his lifetime Herr Loeske kept his numerous kith and kin 'at arm’s length. Not one of them held a post, however humble, in the numerous undertakings controlled by him. It is reported that one or two specially favoured individuals occasionally received from him a friendly letter, or even, in cases of innocent pecuniary embarrassment, a little money. However, it was hoped that on his death he would make good the disregard for ties of blood which he had manifested consistently during his lifetime. Great, therefore, was the consternation of innumerable nephews and nieces and cousins of various degrees of propinquity when his will was opened and it was found that not one of them was to have as much as a pfennig. One of his art manr era was to pick out for himself from the various galleries belonging to Loeske pictures to the value of £16,000; another was to receive the equivalent of £2500 in cash; the clock and watch business, in which the Loeske millions had their original source, was to be divided among certain members of its staff; and all his employees were, left a year’s salary or wages. But the whole of the immense residue was to bs divided between two ladies who had been his friends from his youth upward. One of them is the wife of his general manager, Herr Jakob Oppenheimer, and the other is Frau Rosa Blaus tein. ■That Herr Loeske’s relatives had great expectations and\ suffered correspondingly great disappointment is clear from the fact that they have already united in a solid block to contest. the will. The plaintiffs comprise 11 branches of the kinship, 42 “ heads of families,” and about 300 persons in all. They put forward • several alternative pleas in support of their claim. To begin with, they declare that the will, which professes to' be a holograph, was not written by Herr Loeske, and, as proof of this contention, point out that in one case a letter has been omitted from the German word for “ payment.” This, they maintain, is perhaps the one word which Albert Loeske could not possibly have'misspelt. It is further urged that the testator whs not in his right mind when he made the will, and that the residuary legatees should be disinherited on the grounds of their " unworthiness to .succeed ” to his wealth, ■ Finally, it has even been suggested that Herr Loeske did not die a natural death, though one newspaper states that this insinuation has already been disproved by exhumation. and autopsy, which showed him to have fallen a Victim to cancer.