Albrecht von Urach

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Prince Albrecht of Urach (German: Fürst Albrecht von Urach, Graf von Württemberg; 18 October 1903 – 11 December 1969) was a German nobleman, artist and wartime author, journalist, linguist and diplomat.[1]

Background

He was the third son of

morganatic branch of the royal family that ruled the Kingdom of Württemberg until 1918. They lived in Stuttgart and at Lichtenstein Castle, and paid frequent visits to Monaco before 1914.[2]

His father's mother was

Charlotte, to ensure a pro-French succession, and Monaco signed a concessive treaty with France in July 1918. Though he was the third Von Urach son, according to the Chicago Daily Tribune Prince Albrecht was in Paris in March 1930, unsuccessfully trying to persuade the French Foreign Office to accept him as the respectable and legitimate heir of Prince Louis after the recent divorce of Louis' daughter and son-in-law.[3]

Artist

Following the German defeat in 1918, Albrecht studied art in Stuttgart under Arnold Waldschmidt and Christian Landenberger, and then in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in 1927–30, while living on the Île de la Cité, developing an expressionist style.[4] He then exhibited in 1930-32 at the Leicester and Redfern galleries in London, Galerie Bonaparte in Paris and at Blomquist in Oslo, but could not make a living from painting with the start of the Great Depression, and took up freelance photography. His artistic friends included Willi Baumeister and Fernand Léger. His signature on his paintings was usually "AvU".[5] His artistic output resumed in the 1950s.

Photo-journalist

In April 1934 he was living in

Nazi party in 1934.[9] By chance the German military attaché and then ambassador in Tokyo, Eugen Ott, had served under his father in 1914–18, and their regular drinking friend was Richard Sorge, the famous Red Army spy.[10][11]

Second World War

In early 1939 he returned to Europe and was posted to

Axis peace with Britain. "Urach also said that the liquidation of Russia still appears to be a very hard task". 11 March: "The Duce was indignant about Urach's declarations".[13]

Seen in Berlin as an expert on East Asia, he spent much of 1939-43 writing about Japan's rapid techological advancements since the mid

press attaché at the German Embassy in Bern, with the rank of Unterkonsul. His children Manuela and Peter were born in Bern. Here he is said to have assisted a group smuggling capital out of Switzerland to the USA via "Banque Charles" in Monaco, where his second cousin Louis II reigned.[14] However, the Swiss Kriminalpolizei files reveal that they had him under surveillance in 1944-45, and found after several months that he was not the well-connected clandestine financier that they had been led to believe.[15]

In May 1945, as the Embassy no longer represented a state, all the German Embassy staff was expelled to the French-controlled part of Germany, and he was interned for questioning until 1946. He was interviewed twice in October 1945 by OSS officers, who concluded that: "He has been cooperative, and his information is considered reliable. He is not an automatic internee and is of no further CI interest".[16] The OSS wartime chief in Bern had been Allen Dulles.

Later life

In 1946-1948 von Urach was charged by a German court for creating and broadcasting propaganda in the National-Socialist style, and for membership of the Nazi party (see Denazification). He apologized and there was no sanction.[17] His superiors were prosecuted in the Ministries Trial in 1948. In 1947-1967 he resumed his career as an artist and freelance journalist.

He was appointed chief press attaché at Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, in 1953-1967, where his elder brother Wilhelm was a director. This suited his ability in languages and he travelled widely. He is jointly credited with encouraging the design of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL.[18] He then suffered a stroke in 1967 and was buried at Waldenburg in 1969.

Family

In July 1931 in Oslo he married Rosemary Blackadder (1901–1975), a Scottish journalist and artist, daughter of John Blackadder and wife Anna Wilson, and this morganatic marriage made him ineligible to be Duke (Herzog) of Urach. They had a daughter Marie-Gabrielle, a.k.a. "Mariga", who married Desmond Guinness. Rosemary returned alone to Britain in 1938.

In 1943 he remarried to Ute Waldschmidt (1922–1984), daughter of Arnold Waldschmidt and his wife Olga Schwartz, and they had two children, Peter (1944, Bern – 1977), and Manuela (1945, Bern - 2018) who later married Sergei von Cube. They divorced in 1960.

Ancestry

Bibliography

German National Library (DNB) author ref. http://d-nb.info/gnd/126970335

  • Ostasien: Kampf um das kommende Grossreich (Steiniger, Berlin, 1940)
    • Det Gula livsrummet. Malmö, 1941. (Swedish edition of the above book)
  • Das Geheimnis japanischer Kraft (Berlin, Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1943); see link [1]
  • Japans schöpferische Aussenpolitik (1944).

References

  1. ^ Stuttgart archives, file Nr. GU129
  2. ^ Von Cube Essay, 2000
  3. ^ Chicago Daily Tribune, March 29, 1930 (now the Chicago Tribune)
  4. ^ "Zeitgenossen Willi Baumeisters: Künstler und Architekten - www.willi-baumeister.com". Archived from the original on 2011-08-11. Retrieved 2007-11-29.
  5. ^ Artnet reference page[permanent dead link]
  6. ^ PENN STATE UNIVERSITY, Mahler-Werfel Papers, fol. 1261
  7. ISBN 0-9516472-5-3
  8. ISBN 978-0-8230-8889-8
  9. ^ Propagandisten im Krieg. By Peter Longerich. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1999, p. 161
  10. ISBN 0-07-050677-9
  11. ISBN 978-1-4088-5781-6
  12. ^ Prange G. op.cit. pp.344-348.
  13. ^ Muggeridge M. ed. Ciano's Diary (Heinemann, London 1947), pp.444-445.
  14. ISBN 2-02-037211-8
  15. ^ Swiss Federal Archives files published in 2010: E2001D#1000/1553#1079* (Von Urach, Albrecht, Prinz, Presseattaché, 1944-1945); E2001E#1967/113#9065* (Von Urach, Prinz Albrecht, 1903, Bern); E4320B#1973/17#671* (Von Urach, Albrecht, 1903, 1944-1957)
  16. ^ National Archives and Records Administration; files CI-IIR/27 and CI-FIR/38, declassified 1978.
  17. ^ Calvin webpages
  18. ^ "Die Alpenfahrt und mehr: Wie aus einem Fotoauftrag eine einmalige Beziehung zu einem Auto wurde: David Douglas Duncan, Mercedes und der 300 SL - Classic".
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