Monday, December 14, 2009

Carl Eduard's Gotha assets seized

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December 14, 1919

The "peoples' commissioners of the free state of Gotha," have forcibly opened the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha's vaults and removed the duke's "securities and other funds and deposited them to the credit of the state," the New York Times reports.

Duke Carl Eduard had filed suit against the commissioners, but they chose to act before the suit was settled. They asked Carl Eduard's lawyer for the keys to the Gotha vault, but he refused. The commissioners then called for a locksmith to open the lock.

The British-born duke is a first cousin of King George V. He was also the Duke of Albany, until an Order in Council stripped him of his British peerages. Carl Eduard served with the German military during the recent war. He succeeded to the Coburg title in 1900 after the death of his uncle, Prince Alfred, who was also the Duke of Edinburgh.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How did this turn out? Did he get anything back?