Harry Domela
Encyclopedia
Harry Domela was a Latvian-born German impostor
Impostor
An impostor or imposter is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often to try to gain financial or social advantages through social engineering, but just as often for purposes of espionage or law enforcement....

 who pretended to be a deposed German crown prince
Crown Prince
A crown prince or crown princess is the heir or heiress apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The wife of a crown prince is also titled crown princess....

.

Harry Domela was born to German parents in 1905 in Kurland, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

 (at the time part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

). At the age of fifteen he fought in the first Freikorps
Freikorps
Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...

 against Baltic rebels. He moved to Germany after the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. His brothers and his father had died in the war.

Domela was too young to join the army and had numerous menial jobs. At the same time, however, he experimented with various titles like Baron Korff but was also imprisoned for his impostures many times.

His big break came when he went to Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

 and impressed himself on the members of German nobility who had been stripped of their official titles by the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

. He presented himself as Prince Lieven
Lieven
The Lievens are one of the oldest and noblest families of Baltic Germans. They claim descent from Caupo of Turaida , the Livonian quasi rex who converted to Christianity in 1186, when Bishop Meinhard attempted to Christianize the region...

 of Latvia
but managed to create an impression that this was only part of the truth. Aristocrats noticed his resemblance to Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern, grandson of deposed Kaiser. In no time, upper class circles were rife with rumors that he was in fact the heir of the German throne who was traveling incognito.

As a result, when he traveled in Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

 and Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

, local pro-monarchy dignitaries and businessmen entertained him in their own expense. He never asked or received money. However, he also begun to attract attention of the press and suspected that his imposture would soon be over. Eventually he decided to leave for France to try to join French Foreign Legion
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...

. He was arrested when he was boarding the train.

For the next seven months he was in prison in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, waiting for his trial. He used the time to write his story, A Sham Prince: The Life and Adventures of Harry Domela as Written by Himself in Prison at Cologne, January to June 1927. In the trial, the court ruled that his imposture had been harmless and he was acquitted.

Domela's book sold well, not to mention its movie rights. There were two plays about his life; in one he played himself (he sued the actor who played him in the other one but lost). However, by 1930 he had disappeared from the public life.

Domela left Germany for Netherlands in 1933 and lived with false papers as Victor Zsajka. He befriended Dutch author Jef Last
Jef Last
Josephus Carel Franciscus Last was a Dutch poet and writer.Jef Last was a writer and socially compassionate man. He had a Catholic background. However, he was very young member of the SDAP and the "AJC"...

 who acquainted him with André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...

. Domela served with Last in Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....

an forces during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

. Afterwards he stayed in Belgium until he moved to France where he was interned by Vichy France
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...

regime. Gide helped him to leave for Mexico.

Domela later resurfaced as a teacher in Venezuela and recontacted Jef Last in 1965. The last sign of him dates from 1978.
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