The Washington herald., 1920-07-19
PRINCE JOACHIM,
SON OF FORMER
KAISER, SUICIDE
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self lf-destruction was his grief over
Germany's downfall.
A report from Potsdam declared
the prince had died in st. Joseph's
Hospital from injuries received in
an automobile accident. This ex-
PLANTATION of his end however. is be-
lieved to be official 'camoufiage" for
his suicide.
London newspapers say domestic
grief caused the tragedy. The
princes wife was suing for divorce,
and sensational revelations had been
promised for the trial, which sew
eral times had been postponed.
Joachim, II is recalled, was a con-
spicuous figure among the German
royalists and gamblers at Monte
Carlo.
Joachim, sixth and youngest son
of former Kaiser Wilhelm, will be
known to history chiefly for having
given the Hohenzollern family the
choicest morsel of Kaiserist propa-
ganda that was fed to their 10000
600 subjects during the early part of
the war. The young prince-he was
90 years old recently-got a shrap-
mel wound in the thigh while on a
visit to-the Eastern front, which re-
suited in permanent limping.
The news of his being wounded
was trumpeted through the length
and breadth of the empire as proof
of the "heroism" of the Hohenzol-
lorns, the while young Joachim gave
vent to his feelings by raving with
out end about that damned Amer
ican bullet" which was his personal
contribution to that line of popular
propaganda, namely, that which was
directed against the American mu-
milton mongers."
From the height of national wor-
ship Prince Joachim gradually de-
scended during the past few years
to the depth of universal contempt.
the descent being caused by his own
conduct. His state of mind kept
pace with the sliding scale of con-
sideration he got from his country
men, changing from the swash-
buckling, wound-stripe- displaying
arrogance of a princely poseur to the
peculiarly German morbidness and
dependency that has given the Teu-
ton race first place in the suicide
records.
The pomp and privilege that the
accident of birth had given him
feet and leaving his vanity nothing
to lean on but memories, which
make insecure props, life held for
him neither rhyme nor reason; II
was in an accentuated stage of that
mood, no doubt, that he sent the
fatal bullet through his brain.
Was Seeking Divorce.
Joachim began to fall in the es-
TEEN of his countrymen when his
conduct toward his wife. the beau
tiful z1-year-old Princess Marie Au-
gustine of Anhalt, niece of the for
mer Duke of Anhalt, became known.
The couple had had a hasty war
wedding in lis. In December of
the following year a son was born
to them.
Not long after that scandal busied
itself with Joachim's name. There
was much gossip of his having
taken full advantage of the new
freedom that swept Germany in the
last years of the war. Others had
it that his demeanor toward his wife
had become so obnoxious to her thar
she had left him.-At any rate they
separated an da divorce has been
pending for some time, the petf-
tion having been filed, by grace of
that peculiar brand of chivalry that
dynasties count among their divine
rights" not by the injured party.
but the injurer-the prince himself.
In the last two years Joachim.s
name has figured in stories about
Swiss gambling resorts where he
played fast and loose with whatever
remnants of an unearned fortune
he could lay hands on. Not long
after the revolution that made an |
end of Kaiserism and smashed |
princely pretentions, he was caught |
in the radical upheaval that swept |
Munich. His wife was with him 4, |
the time. the two being engaged in |
an ill-starred attempt at reconcilia- ]
tion. Both were arrested by the |
radicals and expelled from the Ba-
varian capital. After that, the |
prince resumed gambling with |
greater speed and reckiessness and
the state of his exchequer may have
had not little to do with his death