by Greg King
Still, this linguistic nightmare did nothing to resolve the issue of Anderson’s claim. Attempting to explore more relevant concerns, the courts tried to address the question of the claimant’s scars, and precisely what they indicated, but here they were thwarted not only by the loss of most of the original documentation during the Second World War but also by Anderson herself. She absolutely refused repeated judicial requests to submit to new physical examinations by independent experts, something that might have clarified the nature of her injuries, and a position that drove her supporters to despair. “Your refusals to undergo such an examination,” Gleb Botkin wrote to her in November 1963, “however justified, give the court a pretext for refusing to rule in your favor and allow your enemies to declare that you are afraid of such examinations.”35 Ten months later he tried again, saying that “however irksome, it is but a minor unpleasantness. I beg, nay, beseech you, therefore, to agree to that examination.”36 But she was unbending, and the courts were forced to rely on expert analysis of the remaining medical reports.
The catalog of Anderson’s injuries had been argued and used to bolster her claim for more than forty years when the Oberlandesgericht Court took up the issue. There was the damage to her skull, the alleged depression behind her ear that Rathlef-Keilmann had insisted was “due to a glancing bullet wound.”37 But no medical documentation supported anything other than a single, minor scar above the ear, one that no doctor ever attributed to a bullet. There was a small scar—so minor no doctor bothered to mention it—on Anderson’s forehead, the result, the claimant said, of a childhood fall and the reason why Anastasia had worn her hair in bangs.38 Anderson said a small white scar on her right shoulder blade had come when a mole was cauterized so that she could wear a Russian court gown.39 Journalist Bella Cohen insisted that Alexandra Gilliard confirmed that Anastasia bore such a scar, but this was not true; Rathlef-Keilmann quoted the former nurse as saying that she “could not remember” any such mark.40 Instead, Rathlef-Keilmann wrote that former officer Nicholas Sablin recalled the scar, then confusingly provided no evidence to support this.41 The Oberlandesgericht Court found no confirmation that Anastasia had any such scars.
Then there was the scar on Anderson’s middle left finger, another childhood accident, she said, when a servant had shut a carriage door too quickly.42 Was this true? Rathlef-Keilmann had asked Alexandra Gilliard. The former nurse said it sounded familiar, but she could not recall which of the grand duchesses had suffered such an injury, although Cohen once again insisted—contrary to Rathlef-Keilmann—that the former nurse had confirmed it all.43 The judges examining Anderson’s case heard from several émigrés who related second- and-thirdhand tales of such an accident.44 But Olga Alexandrovna rejected this. In 1925 she had written to Princess Irene of Prussia, “It was Marie who had pinched her finger, and some one who thought it was Anastasia must have told her that.”45 This was later confirmed by former imperial page F. van der Hoeven, who placed the incident about 1909; in her memoirs, Olga essentially repeated this, adding only that it had occurred aboard the imperial train.46
And the scar on Anderson’s right foot, the transpiercing wound: this, her supporters held, matched exactly the triangular (or star—both were insisted upon) shape of the bayonet blade used by Bolshevik soldiers during Russia’s Civil War.47 It was an important piece of circumstantial evidence in her favor; proof, as Peter Kurth wrote, that she “had been stabbed in Russia.”48 No doctor who examined the claimant, though, ever seems to have described this wound as bearing a particularly recognizable and distinct shape; Faith Lavington, who saw it at Seeon, called it a “round mark right through the foot.”49
Arguments over the state of the claimant’s teeth were equally vague and contradictory. Serge Kostritsky, one of the former dentists to the imperial family, survived the Revolution and lived in exile in Paris. He never personally examined the claimant’s teeth, as Rathlef-Keilmann admitted, because her supporters and the doctors treating her believed that the damage she had suffered to her jaws would have made any comparison impossible.50 But the duke of Leuchtenberg had plaster casts made of Anderson’s jaws and teeth and dispatched them to the dentist, whose only reply was a dismissive, “As if I would have left the teeth in such a condition!”51 This avoided the issue, for the claimant was missing sixteen of her teeth and her jaws had been fractured, but Kostritsky declared, “These two plaster casts, in the placement of the teeth and in the shape of the jaws, bear no resemblance whatever to the placement of the teeth or the shape of the jaws of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaievna.” He also found something interesting: Hutchinson’s incisors, a peculiar development of the teeth indicating that the claimant had been born with congenital syphilis, inherited from one or both of her parents.52 Kostritsky relied, as he admitted, on memory in making this assessment, for he had left all of his records in Russia, but still he seemed convinced.53 He told Victoria, marchioness of Milford Haven, that “the build of the jaw and the teeth, such as remained, were radically different” from those of Anastasia.54 The judges hearing Anderson’s appeal appointed a specialist, Dr. Volker Krüger, to analyze all of the dental evidence; after reviewing the plaster casts and the reports, Krüger stated that it was impossible to determine when and how her teeth had been damaged.55
And this was the problem with all of Anderson’s scars: too much time had passed, and too many medical records and X-rays had been lost, for any modern review to conclusively establish how she had been wounded. The best that could be done was sort through the decades of often erroneous claims about her injuries—and the nature of her injuries—and determine which scars she actually bore. Their meaning, though—as with so much of Anderson’s case—was subject to interpretation.
Lacking the opportunity to compare Anderson’s fingerprints against those of Anastasia, the courts turned to photographic comparisons and to handwriting analyses. Pierre Gilliard had arranged the earliest photographic studies between the claimant and Anastasia, asking Professor Marc Bischoff, director of the Criminal Sciences Department at the University of Lausanne, to undertake three different analyses in 1927. Bischoff, who two years later founded the International Academy of Criminology in Lausanne with forensic science pioneer Edmond Locard, selected three photographs of Anastasia, one taken at Tsarskoye Selo in 1914, one taken in 1917 after the Revolution and showing the four grand duchesses and Tsesarevich Alexei after their heads had been shaved following measles, and one taken in 1918 at Tobolsk, and three photographs of the claimant, taken in 1920, 1921, and 1922. Bischoff admitted that the photographs did not depict “identical representations” and did not repeat the same angles and lighting conditions, but cavalierly suggested that these differences “posed no obstacle” to accurate comparisons. He compared the profiles, the shape of the right ears, and the facial features and their relationship to one another and found significant differences in the widths of the foreheads; in the shape of the eyes, eyebrows, noses, mouths, and chins; and in the contours of the ears. “It is impossible,” Bischoff declared, “that Mrs. Tchaikovsky could be Grand Duchess Anastasia.”56
Comparisons for the civil trial in Hamburg of the profiles of Anastasia at Tobolsk (left), winter 1918, and Anna Anderson in the 1920s in Berlin.
Bischoff undertook two further photographic comparisons, using additional images. The first was another analysis of the ears, which he again deemed negative, while the second appraised any physical similarities between the claimant and Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, and Marie Nikolaievna, to preclude the unlikely possibility that Anderson was not Anastasia but rather one of her sisters. This, too, was described as completely negative in outcome.57 In her book, Rathlef-Keilmann contended that Gilliard had purposely misidentified Anastasia in the 1917 photograph depicting her with a shaven head; after showing the image to Prince Felix Yusupov, Maria von Hesse, Gleb Botkin, and, though an intermediary, Olga Alexandrovna, all four insisted that the figure Gilliard called Anastasia had actually been Olga Nikolaievna. She descri
bed this as “monstrous,” contending that “in order to prove the lack of resemblance between the invalid and the real Grand Duchess Anastasia,” Gilliard had lied.58 When this accusation was published, Maria von Hesse flatly contradicted Rathlef-Keilmann, calling the assertion that she had refuted Gilliard’s identification “pure invention” on Rathlef-Keilmann’s part.59 In fact, and despite what Rathlef-Keilmann insisted, Gilliard had correctly identified Anastasia in the photograph.60
Anderson’s right ear being photographed for comparisons during the Hamburg trials.
Shortly after Bischoff conducted his first study, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse asked a Sergeant Riesling of the Darmstadt Police to also undertake a photographic comparison of the claimant and Anastasia. This focused exclusively on the ears. According to Empress Alexandra’s sister Victoria, Anastasia’s ears “closely resembled those of my father’s brother, and were unlike the ordinary ones. Both Irene and my brother are in agreement with me in this opinion. Now it is an acknowledged fact that the modeling, especially of the curl over and lobe of an ear, remains unaltered from the day of birth of a person until death.”61 And Ernst Ludwig contended that he “remembered precisely” the shape of his niece’s ears, “which had on their upper portion a deformity” consisting of a flat and long edge to the lobe.62 The police examined photographs and plaster casts of the claimant’s ears against images showing Anastasia’s ears, and reported “no similarity” between the claimant and the grand duchess.63
The courts received into evidence and reviewed six further photographic studies of the claimant, conducted over four decades: four refuted the idea that Anderson was Anastasia, while two supported her claim. In March 1940, as part of their petition for revocation of the Mendelssohn inheritance certificates, Leverkuhn and Vermehren commissioned Professors V. Müller-Hess and F. Curtius to undertake a photographic analysis of the claimant and Anastasia. Known in the records of the Hamburg tribunal as “Study M,” this concluded that Anderson was not Anastasia, citing in particular “distinct differences in the thickness and turn of the right earlobes.”64 A year later came “Study F,” when as part of the proceedings Dr. Eugen Fischer, former director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics, submitted his own photographic comparison. Fischer did examine, measure, and photograph the claimant in person, attempting to replicate angles and lighting conditions in archival images of Anastasia. He cited a disparity in the philtrums—the thin indentation running from the middle of the top lip to the bottom of the nose—observed in the grand duchess and the claimant. He also found substantial variation in the shape of the noses and in the two profiles, though it was later found that he had used a profile photograph of Grand Duchess Marie rather than one of her sister Anastasia, which invalidated at least a portion of his negative conclusion that “Frau Anderson cannot be Grand Duchess Anastasia.”65 In 1955 came “Study C,” commissioned from Professor Karl Clauberg, an anthropologist specializing in hematology. He, too, found against the claimant, citing a number of factors. Clauberg noted a significant difference in the philtrums and in the shapes of the mouths of the two women, particularly in the width of Anderson’s upper lip; he also found that the bridges of the two noses varied in their curve when viewed in profile.66
In July 1958, Baron Egon von Eickstadt, professor of anthropology at the University of Mainz, together with his partner Dr. Werner Klenke, submitted to the Hamburg tribunal an extensive photographic study of the claimant and Anastasia, commissioned by Leverkuhn and Vermehren. They faulted the previous negative studies of the claimant with Anastasia, citing a variety of reasons ranging from “insufficient photographic materials” to the assertion that these professors had “only been looking for differences, and ignored similarities between the two women.” Interestingly, they concluded, “no external injuries had altered the claimant’s face, ears, or distinctive characteristics,” which conflicted with the belief of many of her supporters that physical trauma had altered her features and thus led to difficulties of recognition. After examining 301 photographs, they noted “some similarity” in the ears of the claimant and Anastasia, though not enough to be deemed of importance. They did, however, declare an “unmistakable similarity in the shape of the face, in the root of the nose, in the bridge of the nose, in the cheekbones, in the width of the mouth, in the position of the lips relevant to the chin, and in the eyes” in the two women. They asserted, “Examination has revealed such a number of similarities that we must speak of a thorough physiognomic correspondence between Frau Anderson and Grand Duchess Anastasia. It is not only possible that we are dealing with the same identity but, in our opinion, it is the only acceptable conclusion.”67
Hoping to resolve the conflict, in 1958 the Hanseatic Landesericht Court appointed its own independent expert, anthropologist and blood specialist Professor Otto Reche. Reche spent some six months collecting and examining hundreds of photographs of Anastasia and the imperial family, as well as her Hessian relations; to make adequate comparisons to Anderson, he traveled to her Black Forest home in Unterlengenhardt, where the usually uncooperative claimant allowed herself to be photographed in poses, at angles, and under lighting conditions matching archival images of Anastasia.68 “For one year, at the rate of fourteen hours a day,” Reche said, “I studied hundreds of these photographs.” In his report he declared, “Frau Anderson is Grand Duchess Anastasia.” He based this judgment on four points: the width of the cheekbones; the relationship of the lower jaw to the cheekbones; the position and size of the eye sockets; and the width of the forehead. From these he asserted, “Frau Anderson is identical to Grand Duchess Anastasia. Such coincidence between two human faces is not possible except when they are the same person, or identical twins.”69 Hoping to counter these results, Berenberg-Gossler again called upon Professor Karl Clauberg, who had produced a 1955 study, to offer a new analysis to the court. Not surprisingly, Clauberg simply echoed what his earlier examination had found: there was no resemblance between the claimant and Anastasia.70
With no consensus on the issue of photographic and anthropological analyses, the courts turned to various handwriting comparisons by trained graphologists. Darmstadt had commissioned the first of these studies in the 1920s from handwriting expert Lucy Weiszäcker, a member of the Cornelius Institute of Graphology in Prien. The majority of the historical samples from Anastasia dated from before the First World War, at a time when the grand duchess was still a child and her handwriting had not yet fully formed characteristic patterns, although some exemplars from her teenage years also were included. In comparing these samples to those written by the claimant, Weiszäcker concluded, based on a convergence of stylistic formation, that the claimant was Anastasia. Weiszäcker submitted her report, but authorities in Darmstadt, not wishing to reveal any evidence in the claimant’s favor, apparently suppressed the results; they became known only when Weiszäcker came forward and volunteered them to Anderson’s lawyers.71
The Hamburg courts commissioned several new tests. One, conducted by Maurice Delamain, former president of the French Society of Graphologists, concluded that the claimant was most probably Anastasia, but the most apparently compelling study was the handwriting comparison by Frau Minna Becker for the Hanseatic Landesgericht Court.72 Becker had recently helped authenticate the diaries of Anne Frank. After comparing documents written by Anastasia with samples of the claimant’s handwriting, Becker asserted 137 congruent points in samples from the two women. This, she said, was not only extraordinarily high, but also it led her to believe, “with a probability bordering on certainty,” that the claimant was Anastasia.73
There was one further issue that consumed the courts, particularly the Hanseatic Oberlandesgericht Court: this was what came to be called the Hessenreise, Anderson’s allegation that in 1916 Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse had secretly visited Russia, hoping to arrange a separate peace with his brother-in-law Nicholas II. She first made this claim in 1925 to Rathlef-Keilmann, who conveyed i
t, through an emissary named Amy Smith, directly to Count von Hardenberg in Darmstadt.74 When he heard this, Smith recalled, Hardenberg exploded. It was, he declared, “a terrible libel” against the grand duke, made by “a shameless creature” who was exposing herself to potential legal action if she persisted in “such derogatory and reckless accusations.”75
Comparison of handwriting samples from (left) Anastasia with those from (right) Anna Anderson as submitted during the trials in Hamburg.
This marked the beginning of Darmstadt’s concerted efforts, through Hardenberg, against Anderson; her supporters believed that not only had she revealed one of the grand duke’s secrets but also that, in her careless remark, lay further evidence of her inexplicably intimate knowledge of the imperial family. The alleged visit, said to have taken place in February 1916, became a central point in the case before the court of appeals. Statements were received into evidence and witnesses heard on the question, though only one, Prince Dimitri Golitsyn, claimed actually to have seen the grand duke at the Alexander Palace, and only then because he had been told his identity.76 Still, there was a fairly impressive list of aristocratic and royal witnesses, none with actual firsthand knowledge, who repeated second-, third-, and fourthhand rumors of the alleged mission.77 Among the more intriguing offerings were assertions from former Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s daughter-in-law, and his stepson Prince Ferdinand of Schoenaich-Carolath, who said they had learned about the journey from the former monarch himself.78 Something of the kind had been discussed, said Fritz von Unruh, tutor to Ernst Ludwig’s two sons. He helped plan the route for such a trip, he declared, though he didn’t know if it had actually occurred.79
“The suggestion that Uncle Ernie went to Russia during the middle of the First World War for political reasons,” wrote Lord Mountbatten to his cousin Prince Ludwig of Hesse, “is absolutely ludicrous. My family, and especially my mother, would of course have known all about it. Certainly after the war, there would have been no object whatever in keeping such a visit secret in intimate family circles.”80 Ernst Ludwig denied it; Baron Fabian von Massenbach, his adjutant at the time, denied it; and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s only daughter, Viktoria Luise, insisted that though there had been proposals, her father had never said anything to her of such a trip.81 During the Hamburg appeals historian Professor Egmont Zechlin took the witness stand. He suggested, as had Princess Kira, that Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia had not been entirely sane when she had made her statements supportive of Anderson, and that in exile Wilhelm II had often exaggerated and lied to members of his family in attempts to excuse his lack of action during the First World War and inability to save the Romanovs. Zechlin’s coup, though, was in offering Ernst Ludwig’s diaries and letters to his wife from the period in question, as evidence that he had been with the army in France. Anderson’s lawyers countered that the documents were vague and contained anomalies that allowed for the possibility that the trip had indeed taken place.82 After reviewing all of the statements and documents, the appeals court eventually ruled, “Evidence by witnesses on the subject of the alleged Hessian trip is without merit. The trip did not occur.”83