IMPORTANT PAPERS STOLEN BY MASKED AND ARMED MEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18585, 10 October 1928, Page 4

IMPORTANT PAPERS STOLEN BY MASKED AND ARMED MEN.

ALLEGED ATTEMPT TO FRUSTRATE EXPOSURE OF GREAT IMPOSTURE. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) BERLIN, October 9. Count Cuno von Hardenberg was entering the palace of the cx-Grand Duke of Hesse at Darmstadt early in the morning when three masked and armed men sprang out, attacked him with knuckle-dusters and knives, and left him lying bleeding and senseless. Then with his keys they entered and ransacked his apartments and stole documents. . Count von Hardenberg had lately taken a prominent part in opposing the claims of the woman .professing to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of 'the late Czar of Russia, and had recently, as the result .of a large reward being offered, secured documents which he believed would conclusively prove the imposture. These are now missing. The Count was court marshal to the Grand Duke of Hesse, who is a brother of the late Czarina.—'Australian Press Association.

The controversy over the claims cf Frau von Tchaikowsky, who claims to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest daughter of the late Czar, began in 1920, when the woman was rescued from a canal in Berlin and taken to the Dalldorf asylum, where she lay for months. -She refused to say who she was, but gradually stories got about that she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and in 1922 Russian emigres took her from the asylum. Finally she was received into the family of the Russian Duke von Leuchtenberg. Her story’ was that she was only wounded when the rest of the Czar’s family were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918, and was left tor dead and rescued by a soldier named Tchaikowsky, who had fallen in love with her. She was smuggled to Bucharest, where she married Tchaikowsky and bore 'him a son. The child was said to have been carried off by the Bolsheviks. In 1921, she said, she was taken to Berlin by a man. to escape from whom she threw herself into the canal. Besides the Duke and Duchess of Leuchtenberg, the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovitch accepted Ffau Tchaikowski as Anastasia, and so did Mrs W. B. Leeds (formerly' Princess Xenia of Russia), with whom the claimant is now staying in New. York,. Another believer in Frau Tchaikowsky’s claims is Mr Gleb Botkin, son of a late physician to the Imperial Russian family, who was a playmate of Anastasia in his youth. On the other hand, the claimant is repudiated by the Grand Duchess Olga, sister of, the Czar, the Grand Duke Cyril, the ex-Grand Duke of Hesse, Prince Yussupoff, Professqr Gilliard, who was the Swiss tutor to the Imperial family, and also the valet de chambre of the Czar, who went from Lithuania to see the woman. The official account of. the murder pf the Czar and his family said that Anastasia feigned death, but that her head was smashed in. Professor Gilliard afterwards went to the spot where : the bodies were buried and found six corset busks—those of the Czarina, her four daughters and her maid.

Opponents of the claimant say that she is really Franziska Sclianzkowski, a Polish general servant. She was placed in the Dalldorfasylum in 1920 as incurably insane, but was latgr released as harmless. She was lost till 1922, when she visited a former landlady, who claimed to recognise her as tlie supposed Anastasia. During those three days, it was alleged, the supposed Anastasia was missing from the home of the Duke von Leuchtenberg.

There was a libel action* over the case in February of this year, when the newspaper “ Xachtausgabe,’’ which had first .supported and then der nounced the claimant, on information received from the aforesaid landlady’, proceeded against Fran von RathlefKeilmann, the custodian of. Frau Tchaikowsky''. The alleged libel was that the paper’s change of front was induced by a bribe from the ex-Grand Duke of Hesse, who was said to havesome material interest; in the extinction of the Russian Imperial family. In July a dispute was reported between friends of Frau Tchaikowsky and Mr and Mrs Leeds, her hosts in New York. There was supposed to be a fortune of £200,000 waiting in London banks for the heir-s- of the Czar.;

Mr t-ecds said that the supposed Duchess tvould not attempt to prove her claim to the alleged fortune, but Mr Gleb Botkin said that she would, because i£ she did not the monev woul J go to the Grand Duchess Oiga arid Princess Xenia (Mrs Leeds),.