May 2, 2023 • 39 mins
In the aftermath of World War I, aristocratic Germans were clinging to whatever sense of identity and social structure they could. They relished the opportunity to parade around with the deposed Prince Wilhelm, delighted to become his friend and shower him with gifts. The only problem? Their new friends wasn't Prince Wilhelm. It was a nobody named Harry Domela who was all too happy to make a new name for himself.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. As a
hint of sun peaked through the two Gothic spires of
the Cologne Cathedral, the sound of a man's footsteps broke
(00:24):
the quiet of the sleeping early morning city streets. Though
the cathedral remained in the man's sights, his destination was
not the salvation of the church. Rather, he was headed
toward a home for the damned, the nearby Cologne Prison.
(00:45):
Being a prison guard wasn't the most glamorous job in
the world. In fact, it probably would be more accurate
to call it bleak. But in the years following the
Great War, a job was a job, and there was
little room for them. This man to complain. By June
of nineteen twenty seven, the fresh wounds left behind by
(01:08):
World War One had mostly healed, though it wasn't difficult
to remember just a few years earlier, in nineteen twenty three,
when the German financial market had all but imploded, with
runaway inflation so rampant that some families resorted to burning
(01:28):
their German marks as kindling to keep warm in the winter.
While those desperate enough to still use the currency for
its intended purpose raced to the markets on payday in
hopes of gathering enough scraps of food before the prices
would inevitably rise again. Luckily, in the near decade since
(01:50):
the war ended, Germany's financial straits had seemingly resolved. But
scars like that don't heal over. The sheer number of
men behind the prison bars, each face haunted by crimes,
likely committed out of poverty and desperation, were in all
(02:12):
too real reminder of that. After clocking in, the guard
went about his typical rounds, observing the inmates with the
same detached air that he had become accustomed to as
a guard. Every day. He walked past everyone from petty
criminals to violent offenders. But the guard's job wasn't to
(02:35):
judge them for their crimes. The court saw to that.
Of course, that didn't stop prison guards from talking amongst themselves.
And while this prison held dozens of men, each with
their own stories to tell since January of that year,
there was only one inmate that the guards were interested
(02:59):
in talking about. From the outside, this man wasn't who
you'd expect to be a hardened criminal. He had soft,
delicate features. His skin was pale and smooth, unmarred by
the calluses and wrinkles that so often signified a life
of hard labor or poverty. But more than this prisoner's
(03:21):
appearance was the way he chose to spend his days.
He may have ventured into the mess hall at meal times,
may have even taken to the fresh air when it
was allowed, But what this man did with his free
time in his cell was the primary source of his
air of mystique. More often than not, when guards walked
(03:45):
past this man's cell, they saw him hunched over on
his cot or over a table with ink stained fingers,
scribbling frantically over pages that he never seemed to tire
of filling. In the months since this man came to
the prison, his quarters had become littered with crumpled pieces
(04:06):
of parchment and stacks of loose leaf paper decorated with
his musings. And perhaps the most unsettling aspect was the
fact that, even after six months in prison, he hardly
showed any signs of slowing down his writings. In the
years after the Great War, men had gone to absurdly
(04:30):
desperate measures to keep themselves and their families afloat in
the bereft New German Republic. But the rumors that swirled
around the prison about this exceedingly prolific man in his
cell topped all those stories of all those prisoners that
came before him. Until six months ago, no one had
(04:55):
ever heard the name Harry Domila. But after his arrest,
the prison guards in Cologne lingered just a moment longer
outside of his cell, each day, craning their necks to
get a glance at the men who fooled a nation
into thinking that he was the recently deposed Prince Wilhelm
(05:18):
of Prussia, the man who conned himself into some of
the most exclusive rooms and parties in Germany with nothing
more than the clothes on his back and the lies
through his teeth. Before nineteen twenty seven, Harry Damila was
a nobody. But as that sixth month came to a
(05:42):
close and Damila stared down at the array of pages
that littered the floor of his cell, a small smile
likely crept onto his face as he no doubt felt
the eyes of the omnipresent guards on his back. After
so long parading in the shadow of someone else, the
(06:06):
eyes of the world were finally turning to him, and
as he took in the mass of pages that made
up the now completed first draft of his memoir, he
was confident that the world would be unable to ever
forget him. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble Blood.
(06:35):
On February sixth, nineteen twenty seven, The New York Times
was decorated with an iconic headline, false German prince lived
a gay life for many weeks. The subhead added, Harry Domila,
soldier and vagabond received honors paid only to royalty. Now,
(06:57):
even if the term had yet to be invented, I
know a clickbait title when I see one, But in
the case of this article, the stranger than fiction premise
is more than just a hollow headline meant to grab
the reader's attention. Notable quotes include Damala attending quote fencing
(07:18):
parties given in his honor every day and champagne suppers
every night, as well as his meeting the Mayor of
Gotha and when asked whether he should be addressed as
your Oyal Highness or your Imperial Highness, allegedly he said,
with a wave of the hand call me Wilhelm if
(07:39):
you like. It is every journalist's dream, a true Aladdin,
Prince Ali, a Babwa parading across Germany, only instead of
a magic, all powerful genie. The only resources at Damala's
disposal were his charm, good looks and an abundant lack
(08:00):
of quite literally anything else to lose. But the subtext
underneath the entire article boils down to one question, how
did he do it? How did one man fool the
upper echelons of an entire nation into lavishing him with
gifts and Champagne suppers without a penny to his name. Well,
(08:25):
in order to fully understand just how Harry Domelup pulled
off his royal deception, we need to take a brief
step back and talk about what Germany looked like in
the aftermath of World War One. When the war ended
(08:49):
in November nineteen eighteen, the German people were in a
state of flux. The country they knew as the German
Empire dissolved in the wake of the November Revolution, a
period of civil unrest from November nineteen eighteen until August
nineteen nineteen, when pressures between the working classes and aristocratic
(09:13):
elite came to a head following Germany's devastating losses in
the war. From the ashes of the German Empire came
the German Republic, a new democratic parliamentary republic, which in
turn cemented the end of the nation's monarchy in addition
(09:35):
to a new form of government. The end of World
War One brought forth the Treaty of Versailles, which, in
the absolute simplest of terms, for the sake of this episode,
blamed Germany for instigating the war and sought financial compensation
to the Allied powers for the damages that it caused.
(09:57):
The ensuing financial strain on an already war torn Germany
caused the newly founded Republic to stumble into one of
the worst financial crisses in history, having gone into debt
to pay for their war efforts. Germany's loss in the
war already had them at a substantial financial deficit, but
(10:21):
with the reparations the Allies saddled them with paying, Germany
was put into even more unimaginable debt, ultimately sending the
country into such a drastic case of hyper inflation that,
in some reports, a loaf of bread that had cost
one hundred and sixty marks in nineteen twenty two, rose
(10:44):
to over two hundred billion by the fall of nineteen
twenty three. This tenuous state of affairs in the newly
founded German Republic left its citizens destitute in a country
already floundering with its national identity. For the working class,
(11:04):
whose fixed salaries were suddenly worthless, survival was their primary concern,
But the former aristocratic elite were forced to reckon with
a new Germany, one which no longer put its stock
in the monarchy or cared much about the status of
high society. Which brings us to our favorite prolific prison
(11:35):
inmate and fraudulent German Prince, Harry Damila. Though I feel
I can't continue this story without mentioning the fact that,
apart from the previously mentioned New York Times article from
February nineteen twenty seven, most of what we know about
Damila's life comes from those pages that lay scattered across
(11:58):
his prison cell. They would eventually be compiled into his
best selling memoir titled A Sham Prince, The Life and
Adventures of Harry Damila, as written by himself in prison
at Cologne January to June nineteen twenty seven. As you
(12:18):
would expect from a man who decided to write a
memoir after being imprisoned for parading around impersonating a former
German prince. This guy had an excessive amount of what
I think we can call main character syndrome, the type
of person who feels it starting to rain and decides
(12:39):
that it must be the universe unfairly singling them out
for some cosmic misdeed, rather than you know that it's
just reigning out. That being said, should you ever find
yourself in possession of a copy of this memoir, it
is no doubt an interesting read. Damila is a compelling,
(13:00):
though at times painfully self indulgent, storyteller who manages to
paint his many, many personal anecdotes with the sides that
give us insight into these stark differences between the working
and aristocratic classes in post World War One Germany. At
(13:21):
the same time, though the book is obviously an interesting text,
I would, by no stretch of the imagination call this
an unbiased account of the event that took place, So
bear that in mind. Whether Damila is begging for help
on the streets of Berlin or tricking German aristocracy into
(13:42):
believing him to be former nobility. Damila predictably paints himself
as the hero of his story, and why shouldn't he.
It's his memoir, his story. But as far as delving
into the historical accuracy of it all, I just want
to reiterate that in the case of Harry Damila, there
(14:04):
really are no quote unquote accurate historical accounts to go by.
That isn't to say he's outright lying about his exploits,
but when going through his work, I find it's more
worthwhile to view his story through a more critical lens,
one that takes into account the fledgling sense of German
(14:24):
identity that citizens struggle to take hold of in their
newly founded republic following their losses in World War One. Okay,
with the historical context and memoir disclaimers out of the way,
let's get into the good parts the story. In nineteen
(14:50):
oh four, Harry Damola was born into a small agricultural
town on the border of the Russian Empire. Today, the
area known as Corland resides within the country of Latvia,
but as Damala came of age in the midst of
World War I, the area in and surrounding Courland essentially
(15:10):
made up the Eastern Front, seemingly surrounded by war at
every turn. At fourteen years old, Damala joined the Free Corps,
a private militia group fighting under the German Empire against
Baltic rebels. Ousted from his home in the fallout of
the Bolshevik Revolution, Damila found a new place to call
(15:34):
home among the ranks of other Free Corps soldiers. It
was during this time when he spent his nights huddled
around campfires with other young men, telling stories that Damala claims,
quote it was here I learned all about lying and bragging,
the sort of lying and bragging that hurts nobody, and
(15:57):
which would only take in somewhat even more stupid than
oneself end quote. Of course, simple lies that have no
consequences except for those stupid enough to fall for them.
It's a wonder Damla didn't succumb to altitude sickness from
the height at which he stood atop his own pedestal.
(16:19):
But I digress. When the war ended, the Free Corp
dismissed Damla on account of his being underage and now
without a home left to go back to, he set
off for Germany to start a new life. Unfortunately for him,
without German citizenship or any papers at all to identify himself.
(16:42):
Damlo is left with few to know resources at his disposal.
Should he try to get work, he would be turned
away for not having German papers. Then, unable to make
a livable wage, he was forced to starve on the
sleeping in train stations to keep warm until police would
(17:04):
arrest him and subsequently detain him for not having papers
proving his identity. Eventually he would be released and the
cycle would start over again. During these years, he would
run into a motley crew of interesting characters that sort
of seem like they're out of an edgy Dickens novel
(17:26):
from a cocaine addict named Wolf who took Domila under
his wing and taught him how to survive on the
streets of Berlin. To a man who called himself Baron Luderates,
who was, in fact, in case you hadn't guessed, not
a baron at all. The man who Damala described as
quote looking like a scarecrow with worn shoes and an
(17:50):
eclectic wardrobe that hung limply off his frame, seemed to
make his living selling pamphlets, and after attempting to sell
Domila some of his wares, the two shared a meal together,
after which the man came clean about his true identity.
Quote my name is simply Luderates. But since old Baron
(18:13):
von Rothschild addressed me in Vienna as her baron, I
am a baron who's going to stop me? Titles of
nobility have been abolished by the constitution of the right,
So I am a baron end quote. Initially Domila laughed
at his odd counterpart, but throughout the meal the quote
(18:34):
baron had taken to calling him her graff, insisting you
look like a count ergo you are one. And while
the quote Baron's words had first made Domila scoff, after
their meal, Damila's laughter seemed to die on his lips.
(18:55):
In his own words, quote was he so wrong? After all? Should?
Did I not have had a much easier time as
a nobleman? Endote? You can probably guess what happened next.
After his introduction to Baron Ludertz, Damila began to adopt
his own self imposed honorary titles, often passing himself as
(19:19):
Baron Korff during his travels. This worked with varying degrees
of success, until after winning a lucky hand of cards,
Damila decided to travel from Berlin to Heidelberg, and his
career as a fraudulent noble took on a life of
its own. A few decades before all of this, in
(19:51):
nineteen o six, a con man named Wilhelm Voit famously
used a cobbled together military uniform and pretended to be
a captain, And he actually got a number of soldiers
behind him under his command, and he enacted a robbery
under the guise of official duty. It was a famous case.
(20:11):
While Voight was arrested and imprisoned, he became something of
a folk hero in Germany, as the quote captain of
Copenick Kaiser Wilhelm Iond would actually pardon him. There was
a silent movie made about Voight in nineteen twenty six,
the year before Damila's impersonation, and you have to wonder
(20:34):
whether maybe Damla either saw the movie or felt something
in the air, the sense that maybe confidence could be key,
and that pretending to be somebody powerful might actually make
you powerful. Upon arriving in Heidelberg, Damala decided to wander
(20:57):
the historic university town and introduce himself to the known
aristocratic student social group, the Saxo Borussia. He'd known royals
from Courland who had taken part in the famous group,
and upon finding them, he introduced himself as Prince Levin
(21:18):
Lieutenant in the fourth Reichwach Cavalry Regiment Potsdam. The effect
he had on the students was instantaneous. Members of the
Saxo Barassia began tripping over themselves to buy him drinks,
take him out to the most exclusive clubs and shows,
and generally flaunt their wealth and status in front of
(21:42):
a figure that represented a time and way of living
that had been lost after the war, but which they
still romanticized. For Domila, this was his first real taste
into how the other half lived and how out of
touch they seemed to be with the plight of the
working class. When passing a local soup kitchen at the university,
(22:07):
one member of the Saxo Borussia scoffed at the very
thought of disenfranchised students being able to get free food.
In return, Damila, with what I imagine to be a
golden halo of purity and righteousness adorning his now saintly visage,
retorted quote, it must make you feel damned uncomfortable to
(22:30):
live up there in such a fine core house without
a care in the world, while your fellow students down
here don't know how they are meant to keep themselves alive.
The next day, according to Damila, he soon tired of
the Saxo Barosia fawning over him and decided to turn
over a new leaf, leaving his persona of Prince Levin
(22:54):
behind in Heidelberg as he set out for Irfurt, only
to check into his hotel hell there as Baron Korff. Apparently,
the judgment he felt in regards to his counterparts in
Heidelberg wasn't enough to fully convert back to a life
of being simply Harry Domila in any case, similar to
(23:16):
his experience with the members of the Saxo Berusia, Damiala's
noble alter ego soon took on a new life of
its own, unrelated to his new identity. In airport, Domiala
happened upon an old friend who knew him as Harry, and,
upon visiting him at the hotel where he was staying,
(23:38):
asked him a question that would go on to shape
the rest of Domila's life. Quote, I say, Harry, do
you know whom they are taking you for? Here? For
Prince William of Prussia. Damila laughed in turn, telling him quote,
don't make silly jokes, my friend. But unbeknownst to rumors
(24:01):
around the hotel had spread that quote, baron Korff was
a fake name. But it was a fake name being
used by Prince Wilhelm of Prussia in disguise, wishing to
keep a low profile during his travels. Of course, we
know Bhon Korff was actually a penniless nobody named Harry Damila.
(24:25):
But who was he to correct them? And so Damala
chose to embrace his newly bestowed identity writing quote. Odd
glances were directed toward me. It gave me quite a turn.
Everything that I had of the simple Harry Damila dropped
away from me. I felt so isolated, so grand, and
(24:50):
seemed to be raised above all ordinary creeping mortals. As
I'm sure you can tell, the abundance of attention wasn't
at a going to his head. And it's here that
I'd love to make just a small personal interlude. When
(25:13):
I was still in college, I spent a summer interning
at the television show on TBS Conan Conan O'Brien's talk show.
It was filmed at the Warner Brothers lot, and at
the same time Warner Brothers lot also had the show
Pretty Little Liars filming. The lot also had tourists come
(25:34):
on sort of extended golf carts weaving away around the
lot with tour guides pointing out various things that were
filming in stages. My fellow interns and I, young women
in our late teens early twenties, loved the feeling of
(25:54):
putting on baseball caps while we were walking to the
commissary for lunch and shield holding our faces as the
tour groups went by, hoping desperately that they would think
that we, any random trio of young women in athe
leisure with our faces hidden, were actually the Pretty Little Liars.
(26:14):
And people did snap pictures, and yes it was intoxicating.
So this is just to say I understand, but for
better or for worse. With Harry Damola, he was an
Icarus and he decided that he wanted to continue to
fly in style. Wanting to get a wardrobe that fit
(26:36):
his new princely persona, Damla left for a day trip
to Berlin, only to lose his bag with money on
the train ride there. Upon going to the station master
for help. He was almost immediately cast off with little
patience from the man behind the counter and given a
form to fill out. Damala smugly wrote Prince Wilhelm of
(27:01):
Prussia when asked for his name, and he watched the
station master's eyes nearly bulge out of his head when
he realized his mistake. After leaving the train station with
the station master's personal wallet gifted to him and what
I imagined to be a jaunty skip in his step, not
(27:23):
unlike Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Damila later found his
own purse in his pants pocket. How very convenient. When
he was set to return to Rfort, the station master
had organized a personal escort for him, and I feel
like I should note this is just the beginning of
(27:43):
the ridiculous hijinks Domla would revel in in his all
too brief tenure as Prince Wilhelm. From that trip on,
Damila would be treated to luxury suites, box seats at
(28:03):
the opera, which he would critique as being overacted by
performers too awestruck at his presence to do their job well,
and taken out to such lavish dinners and parties he
could barely go a step without unwonted attention. There's not
nearly enough time for me to go into even half
(28:24):
of the stories Domala felt necessary to put in his memoir,
And if I'm being honest, only a quarter of them
are really worth mentioning anyway. But there is one story
I feel best encapsulates how exactly Domila was able to
carry on his charade for as long as he did.
(28:45):
One night, Doamala went out to dinner with the proprietor
of the hotel he was staying at. The man whom
Domla calls the counselor, mentioned that he saw something weighing
on the young man's mind. Obviously, Domila couldn't answer with
the truth that what was weighing on his mind was
that he was a nobody parading as a prince and
(29:06):
abusing everyone's good will for his own selfish gain. So
when he didn't respond, the man continued, quote, the world
lies open before you. Who knows how the future of
our people will shape itself? Who knows what you may
some day be called on to do. Many people see
(29:26):
in you the future emperor and king. So you must
learn to realize during the years of hoping and waiting
what mistakes the old regime made. Remember the old national hymn,
Neither horses nor men can keep secure the steep heights
where princes stand end quote. The emotion with which Damila
(29:49):
writes the old man speaking is likely the true reason
he was able to carry on his farce for as
long as he did. People want to believe it. Despite
the high esteem Domla no doubt held himself in. I
don't think his skill as an actor is what sold
(30:10):
his persona as the deposed German prince. Really, I think
it had little to do with Domola at all. Inside
by side comparisons between the two men. Other than being
white and young and having generally slender builds, they're not
really twins. But what Damila and Prince Wilhelm did have
(30:33):
in common was what their presence meant to the people
who met them. After the devastating losses of World War One,
the German Republic not only lost an entire generation of
young men, but their sense of nationalism. They were eager
for civil national pride wherever they could find it. The
(30:55):
monarchy may have no longer served a purpose in the
German government, but its presence remained a symbol of hope
and pride, especially for upper class German citizens. While men
like these self proclaimed baron ludates used noble titles as
(31:16):
a way to patchwork together respect in a time when
Germany's social hierarchy was in tatters, men like the Counselor
saw the deposed monarchs as vestiges of a time when
all of their lives had significance before the war and
ultimate financial crisis all but stripped them of their finances
(31:38):
and yes, social status. The truth was, Harry Damla likely
wasn't the best actor, nor did he look particularly close
in relation to the Prince of Prussia. He did, however,
give the people of the upper class a reason to
flaunt their wealth and status. Again. He reminded them of
(32:00):
life before the war, before Germany had lost everything, and
after losing his home, fighting in a war and ending
up on the streets all before turning seventeen, who was
Harry Damila to turn away the affections of those who
were gullible enough to believe him. In the end, Damila's
(32:30):
run as Prince Wilhelm of Prussia couldn't last forever. Eventually,
the imposta prince got tired of the attention given to
him in airport, and decided to leave for France to
join the Foreign Legion in early nineteen twenty seven. Though
the timing of his newfound apathy happened to coincide with
(32:51):
reports being made about the quote unquote Prince's adventures in
Heidelberg some weeks before, likely caused Damila to begin to
feel the fragile walls he had constructed begin to close
in on him. Before he even made it out of
the country, he was intercepted on the train to France
(33:12):
and was apprehended by police for his crimes. From there,
he was transferred to the prison in Cologne, where he
would spend seven months in a sell a waiting trial
and writing what would go on to become a best
selling memoir. When his case finally made it before a judge,
the jury surprisingly acquitted Damola of all charges, with one
(33:37):
source writing of their decision quote, While he had taken
advantage of prominent members of society, his scheme had been
mostly harmless end quote. Upon his release, Damila received his
first advance for his memoir, which would go on to
sell over two hundred thousand copies worldwide and be adapted
(34:00):
for both stage and screen. With that money, he would
send Crown Princess Cecil, Prince Wilhelm's mother a bouquet of
flowers with a note that read to her Imperial Highness,
the Crown Princess Cecil, I was honored to be taken
for your son. Ultimately, Damala wouldn't stay in Germany for long,
(34:23):
with fascism on the rise in Berlin. Some sources claim
that Damala's homosexuality was the reason for his departure, though
as I mentioned before, there are no real accurate sources.
When it comes to Harry Damila, I will say that
his memoir does go into detail about many of his
relationships with men, and while on the page they were platonic,
(34:47):
there were significantly fewer, if any, anecdotes about any relationships
or friendships at all with women. Regardless, by nineteen thirty three,
Damila fled for the Erlands and eventually South America, where
he would live the rest of his life in relative
obscurity until his death in nineteen seventy nine. On paper,
(35:12):
Damila's life seems almost unbelievable. To have paraded around as
a deposed German prince for months and gotten away with
it it seems too good to be true. But in
the months the young Quote Prince spent pretending to be
something he wasn't, people who believed him were, to an extent,
(35:36):
participating in their own folly, falling over themselves to serve
a royal whose throne technically no longer existed. They were
just trying to have a taste of the life that
they had before their country had lost everything, to still
pretend that these structures of monarchy and privilege still mattered. Or,
(35:59):
in the words of Harry Damala, quote the sort of
lying and bragging that hurts nobody and which would only
take in someone even more stupid than oneself. That was
the unbelievable life of Harry Damala, the Fake Prince of Prussia.
(36:22):
But stick around after the sponsor break to hear a
little bit more about the stage and screen adaptations of
The Sham Prince. After his release from prison, Harry Damila's
memoir The Sham Prince became more than just an international bestseller.
(36:48):
Before long, playwright and filmmakers were eager to get their
hands on the story, and you better believe Damila wasn't
going to miss his chance to get into the spotlight
In December of nineteen twenty seven, just months after being
released from prison, Damla would star in the silent film
adaptation of his life's story titled The False Prince. A
(37:13):
quick note here, we have scoured the internet and haven't
been able to find it. So if you were listening
to this podcast and have ever come across that Silent film,
or if you ever do come across it in the future,
please let me know. If you take nothing else from
this episode, let it be remembered that no one has
(37:34):
ever manifested their main character energy harder than Harry Damola.
He literally became the main character of the movie made
about his life, and if that wasn't enough in the
case of stage adaptations, some sources say that Damala sued
one of the productions that refused to cast him in
(37:56):
the title role. Of course, this is not confirmed, but
considering his track record, I really don't think it's completely
out of the realm of possibility, because if there was
ever one person who would take someone to court over
the right to impersonate his own likeness, it would be
Harry Domela. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and
(38:35):
Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky Noble Blood is created
and hosted by me Dana Schwort, with additional writing and
researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender,
and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by
Noemi Griffin and rema Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh
(38:59):
Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. As a
hint of sun peaked through the two Gothic spires of
the Cologne Cathedral, the sound of a man's footsteps broke
(00:24):
the quiet of the sleeping early morning city streets. Though
the cathedral remained in the man's sights, his destination was
not the salvation of the church. Rather, he was headed
toward a home for the damned, the nearby Cologne Prison.
(00:45):
Being a prison guard wasn't the most glamorous job in
the world. In fact, it probably would be more accurate
to call it bleak. But in the years following the
Great War, a job was a job, and there was
little room for them. This man to complain. By June
of nineteen twenty seven, the fresh wounds left behind by
(01:08):
World War One had mostly healed, though it wasn't difficult
to remember just a few years earlier, in nineteen twenty three,
when the German financial market had all but imploded, with
runaway inflation so rampant that some families resorted to burning
(01:28):
their German marks as kindling to keep warm in the winter.
While those desperate enough to still use the currency for
its intended purpose raced to the markets on payday in
hopes of gathering enough scraps of food before the prices
would inevitably rise again. Luckily, in the near decade since
(01:50):
the war ended, Germany's financial straits had seemingly resolved. But
scars like that don't heal over. The sheer number of
men behind the prison bars, each face haunted by crimes,
likely committed out of poverty and desperation, were in all
(02:12):
too real reminder of that. After clocking in, the guard
went about his typical rounds, observing the inmates with the
same detached air that he had become accustomed to as
a guard. Every day. He walked past everyone from petty
criminals to violent offenders. But the guard's job wasn't to
(02:35):
judge them for their crimes. The court saw to that.
Of course, that didn't stop prison guards from talking amongst themselves.
And while this prison held dozens of men, each with
their own stories to tell since January of that year,
there was only one inmate that the guards were interested
(02:59):
in talking about. From the outside, this man wasn't who
you'd expect to be a hardened criminal. He had soft,
delicate features. His skin was pale and smooth, unmarred by
the calluses and wrinkles that so often signified a life
of hard labor or poverty. But more than this prisoner's
(03:21):
appearance was the way he chose to spend his days.
He may have ventured into the mess hall at meal times,
may have even taken to the fresh air when it
was allowed, But what this man did with his free
time in his cell was the primary source of his
air of mystique. More often than not, when guards walked
(03:45):
past this man's cell, they saw him hunched over on
his cot or over a table with ink stained fingers,
scribbling frantically over pages that he never seemed to tire
of filling. In the months since this man came to
the prison, his quarters had become littered with crumpled pieces
(04:06):
of parchment and stacks of loose leaf paper decorated with
his musings. And perhaps the most unsettling aspect was the
fact that, even after six months in prison, he hardly
showed any signs of slowing down his writings. In the
years after the Great War, men had gone to absurdly
(04:30):
desperate measures to keep themselves and their families afloat in
the bereft New German Republic. But the rumors that swirled
around the prison about this exceedingly prolific man in his
cell topped all those stories of all those prisoners that
came before him. Until six months ago, no one had
(04:55):
ever heard the name Harry Domila. But after his arrest,
the prison guards in Cologne lingered just a moment longer
outside of his cell, each day, craning their necks to
get a glance at the men who fooled a nation
into thinking that he was the recently deposed Prince Wilhelm
(05:18):
of Prussia, the man who conned himself into some of
the most exclusive rooms and parties in Germany with nothing
more than the clothes on his back and the lies
through his teeth. Before nineteen twenty seven, Harry Damila was
a nobody. But as that sixth month came to a
(05:42):
close and Damila stared down at the array of pages
that littered the floor of his cell, a small smile
likely crept onto his face as he no doubt felt
the eyes of the omnipresent guards on his back. After
so long parading in the shadow of someone else, the
(06:06):
eyes of the world were finally turning to him, and
as he took in the mass of pages that made
up the now completed first draft of his memoir, he
was confident that the world would be unable to ever
forget him. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble Blood.
(06:35):
On February sixth, nineteen twenty seven, The New York Times
was decorated with an iconic headline, false German prince lived
a gay life for many weeks. The subhead added, Harry Domila,
soldier and vagabond received honors paid only to royalty. Now,
(06:57):
even if the term had yet to be invented, I
know a clickbait title when I see one, But in
the case of this article, the stranger than fiction premise
is more than just a hollow headline meant to grab
the reader's attention. Notable quotes include Damala attending quote fencing
(07:18):
parties given in his honor every day and champagne suppers
every night, as well as his meeting the Mayor of
Gotha and when asked whether he should be addressed as
your Oyal Highness or your Imperial Highness, allegedly he said,
with a wave of the hand call me Wilhelm if
(07:39):
you like. It is every journalist's dream, a true Aladdin,
Prince Ali, a Babwa parading across Germany, only instead of
a magic, all powerful genie. The only resources at Damala's
disposal were his charm, good looks and an abundant lack
(08:00):
of quite literally anything else to lose. But the subtext
underneath the entire article boils down to one question, how
did he do it? How did one man fool the
upper echelons of an entire nation into lavishing him with
gifts and Champagne suppers without a penny to his name. Well,
(08:25):
in order to fully understand just how Harry Domelup pulled
off his royal deception, we need to take a brief
step back and talk about what Germany looked like in
the aftermath of World War One. When the war ended
(08:49):
in November nineteen eighteen, the German people were in a
state of flux. The country they knew as the German
Empire dissolved in the wake of the November Revolution, a
period of civil unrest from November nineteen eighteen until August
nineteen nineteen, when pressures between the working classes and aristocratic
(09:13):
elite came to a head following Germany's devastating losses in
the war. From the ashes of the German Empire came
the German Republic, a new democratic parliamentary republic, which in
turn cemented the end of the nation's monarchy in addition
(09:35):
to a new form of government. The end of World
War One brought forth the Treaty of Versailles, which, in
the absolute simplest of terms, for the sake of this episode,
blamed Germany for instigating the war and sought financial compensation
to the Allied powers for the damages that it caused.
(09:57):
The ensuing financial strain on an already war torn Germany
caused the newly founded Republic to stumble into one of
the worst financial crisses in history, having gone into debt
to pay for their war efforts. Germany's loss in the
war already had them at a substantial financial deficit, but
(10:21):
with the reparations the Allies saddled them with paying, Germany
was put into even more unimaginable debt, ultimately sending the
country into such a drastic case of hyper inflation that,
in some reports, a loaf of bread that had cost
one hundred and sixty marks in nineteen twenty two, rose
(10:44):
to over two hundred billion by the fall of nineteen
twenty three. This tenuous state of affairs in the newly
founded German Republic left its citizens destitute in a country
already floundering with its national identity. For the working class,
(11:04):
whose fixed salaries were suddenly worthless, survival was their primary concern,
But the former aristocratic elite were forced to reckon with
a new Germany, one which no longer put its stock
in the monarchy or cared much about the status of
high society. Which brings us to our favorite prolific prison
(11:35):
inmate and fraudulent German Prince, Harry Damila. Though I feel
I can't continue this story without mentioning the fact that,
apart from the previously mentioned New York Times article from
February nineteen twenty seven, most of what we know about
Damila's life comes from those pages that lay scattered across
(11:58):
his prison cell. They would eventually be compiled into his
best selling memoir titled A Sham Prince, The Life and
Adventures of Harry Damila, as written by himself in prison
at Cologne January to June nineteen twenty seven. As you
(12:18):
would expect from a man who decided to write a
memoir after being imprisoned for parading around impersonating a former
German prince. This guy had an excessive amount of what
I think we can call main character syndrome, the type
of person who feels it starting to rain and decides
(12:39):
that it must be the universe unfairly singling them out
for some cosmic misdeed, rather than you know that it's
just reigning out. That being said, should you ever find
yourself in possession of a copy of this memoir, it
is no doubt an interesting read. Damila is a compelling,
(13:00):
though at times painfully self indulgent, storyteller who manages to
paint his many, many personal anecdotes with the sides that
give us insight into these stark differences between the working
and aristocratic classes in post World War One Germany. At
(13:21):
the same time, though the book is obviously an interesting text,
I would, by no stretch of the imagination call this
an unbiased account of the event that took place, So
bear that in mind. Whether Damila is begging for help
on the streets of Berlin or tricking German aristocracy into
(13:42):
believing him to be former nobility. Damila predictably paints himself
as the hero of his story, and why shouldn't he.
It's his memoir, his story. But as far as delving
into the historical accuracy of it all, I just want
to reiterate that in the case of Harry Damila, there
(14:04):
really are no quote unquote accurate historical accounts to go by.
That isn't to say he's outright lying about his exploits,
but when going through his work, I find it's more
worthwhile to view his story through a more critical lens,
one that takes into account the fledgling sense of German
(14:24):
identity that citizens struggle to take hold of in their
newly founded republic following their losses in World War One. Okay,
with the historical context and memoir disclaimers out of the way,
let's get into the good parts the story. In nineteen
(14:50):
oh four, Harry Damola was born into a small agricultural
town on the border of the Russian Empire. Today, the
area known as Corland resides within the country of Latvia,
but as Damala came of age in the midst of
World War I, the area in and surrounding Courland essentially
(15:10):
made up the Eastern Front, seemingly surrounded by war at
every turn. At fourteen years old, Damala joined the Free Corps,
a private militia group fighting under the German Empire against
Baltic rebels. Ousted from his home in the fallout of
the Bolshevik Revolution, Damila found a new place to call
(15:34):
home among the ranks of other Free Corps soldiers. It
was during this time when he spent his nights huddled
around campfires with other young men, telling stories that Damala claims,
quote it was here I learned all about lying and bragging,
the sort of lying and bragging that hurts nobody, and
(15:57):
which would only take in somewhat even more stupid than
oneself end quote. Of course, simple lies that have no
consequences except for those stupid enough to fall for them.
It's a wonder Damla didn't succumb to altitude sickness from
the height at which he stood atop his own pedestal.
(16:19):
But I digress. When the war ended, the Free Corp
dismissed Damla on account of his being underage and now
without a home left to go back to, he set
off for Germany to start a new life. Unfortunately for him,
without German citizenship or any papers at all to identify himself.
(16:42):
Damlo is left with few to know resources at his disposal.
Should he try to get work, he would be turned
away for not having German papers. Then, unable to make
a livable wage, he was forced to starve on the
sleeping in train stations to keep warm until police would
(17:04):
arrest him and subsequently detain him for not having papers
proving his identity. Eventually he would be released and the
cycle would start over again. During these years, he would
run into a motley crew of interesting characters that sort
of seem like they're out of an edgy Dickens novel
(17:26):
from a cocaine addict named Wolf who took Domila under
his wing and taught him how to survive on the
streets of Berlin. To a man who called himself Baron Luderates,
who was, in fact, in case you hadn't guessed, not
a baron at all. The man who Damala described as
quote looking like a scarecrow with worn shoes and an
(17:50):
eclectic wardrobe that hung limply off his frame, seemed to
make his living selling pamphlets, and after attempting to sell
Domila some of his wares, the two shared a meal together,
after which the man came clean about his true identity.
Quote my name is simply Luderates. But since old Baron
(18:13):
von Rothschild addressed me in Vienna as her baron, I
am a baron who's going to stop me? Titles of
nobility have been abolished by the constitution of the right,
So I am a baron end quote. Initially Domila laughed
at his odd counterpart, but throughout the meal the quote
(18:34):
baron had taken to calling him her graff, insisting you
look like a count ergo you are one. And while
the quote Baron's words had first made Domila scoff, after
their meal, Damila's laughter seemed to die on his lips.
(18:55):
In his own words, quote was he so wrong? After all? Should?
Did I not have had a much easier time as
a nobleman? Endote? You can probably guess what happened next.
After his introduction to Baron Ludertz, Damila began to adopt
his own self imposed honorary titles, often passing himself as
(19:19):
Baron Korff during his travels. This worked with varying degrees
of success, until after winning a lucky hand of cards,
Damila decided to travel from Berlin to Heidelberg, and his
career as a fraudulent noble took on a life of
its own. A few decades before all of this, in
(19:51):
nineteen o six, a con man named Wilhelm Voit famously
used a cobbled together military uniform and pretended to be
a captain, And he actually got a number of soldiers
behind him under his command, and he enacted a robbery
under the guise of official duty. It was a famous case.
(20:11):
While Voight was arrested and imprisoned, he became something of
a folk hero in Germany, as the quote captain of
Copenick Kaiser Wilhelm Iond would actually pardon him. There was
a silent movie made about Voight in nineteen twenty six,
the year before Damila's impersonation, and you have to wonder
(20:34):
whether maybe Damla either saw the movie or felt something
in the air, the sense that maybe confidence could be key,
and that pretending to be somebody powerful might actually make
you powerful. Upon arriving in Heidelberg, Damala decided to wander
(20:57):
the historic university town and introduce himself to the known
aristocratic student social group, the Saxo Borussia. He'd known royals
from Courland who had taken part in the famous group,
and upon finding them, he introduced himself as Prince Levin
(21:18):
Lieutenant in the fourth Reichwach Cavalry Regiment Potsdam. The effect
he had on the students was instantaneous. Members of the
Saxo Barassia began tripping over themselves to buy him drinks,
take him out to the most exclusive clubs and shows,
and generally flaunt their wealth and status in front of
(21:42):
a figure that represented a time and way of living
that had been lost after the war, but which they
still romanticized. For Domila, this was his first real taste
into how the other half lived and how out of
touch they seemed to be with the plight of the
working class. When passing a local soup kitchen at the university,
(22:07):
one member of the Saxo Borussia scoffed at the very
thought of disenfranchised students being able to get free food.
In return, Damila, with what I imagine to be a
golden halo of purity and righteousness adorning his now saintly visage,
retorted quote, it must make you feel damned uncomfortable to
(22:30):
live up there in such a fine core house without
a care in the world, while your fellow students down
here don't know how they are meant to keep themselves alive.
The next day, according to Damila, he soon tired of
the Saxo Barosia fawning over him and decided to turn
over a new leaf, leaving his persona of Prince Levin
(22:54):
behind in Heidelberg as he set out for Irfurt, only
to check into his hotel hell there as Baron Korff. Apparently,
the judgment he felt in regards to his counterparts in
Heidelberg wasn't enough to fully convert back to a life
of being simply Harry Domila in any case, similar to
(23:16):
his experience with the members of the Saxo Berusia, Damiala's
noble alter ego soon took on a new life of
its own, unrelated to his new identity. In airport, Domiala
happened upon an old friend who knew him as Harry, and,
upon visiting him at the hotel where he was staying,
(23:38):
asked him a question that would go on to shape
the rest of Domila's life. Quote, I say, Harry, do
you know whom they are taking you for? Here? For
Prince William of Prussia. Damila laughed in turn, telling him quote,
don't make silly jokes, my friend. But unbeknownst to rumors
(24:01):
around the hotel had spread that quote, baron Korff was
a fake name. But it was a fake name being
used by Prince Wilhelm of Prussia in disguise, wishing to
keep a low profile during his travels. Of course, we
know Bhon Korff was actually a penniless nobody named Harry Damila.
(24:25):
But who was he to correct them? And so Damala
chose to embrace his newly bestowed identity writing quote. Odd
glances were directed toward me. It gave me quite a turn.
Everything that I had of the simple Harry Damila dropped
away from me. I felt so isolated, so grand, and
(24:50):
seemed to be raised above all ordinary creeping mortals. As
I'm sure you can tell, the abundance of attention wasn't
at a going to his head. And it's here that
I'd love to make just a small personal interlude. When
(25:13):
I was still in college, I spent a summer interning
at the television show on TBS Conan Conan O'Brien's talk show.
It was filmed at the Warner Brothers lot, and at
the same time Warner Brothers lot also had the show
Pretty Little Liars filming. The lot also had tourists come
(25:34):
on sort of extended golf carts weaving away around the
lot with tour guides pointing out various things that were
filming in stages. My fellow interns and I, young women
in our late teens early twenties, loved the feeling of
(25:54):
putting on baseball caps while we were walking to the
commissary for lunch and shield holding our faces as the
tour groups went by, hoping desperately that they would think
that we, any random trio of young women in athe
leisure with our faces hidden, were actually the Pretty Little Liars.
(26:14):
And people did snap pictures, and yes it was intoxicating.
So this is just to say I understand, but for
better or for worse. With Harry Damola, he was an
Icarus and he decided that he wanted to continue to
fly in style. Wanting to get a wardrobe that fit
(26:36):
his new princely persona, Damla left for a day trip
to Berlin, only to lose his bag with money on
the train ride there. Upon going to the station master
for help. He was almost immediately cast off with little
patience from the man behind the counter and given a
form to fill out. Damala smugly wrote Prince Wilhelm of
(27:01):
Prussia when asked for his name, and he watched the
station master's eyes nearly bulge out of his head when
he realized his mistake. After leaving the train station with
the station master's personal wallet gifted to him and what
I imagined to be a jaunty skip in his step, not
(27:23):
unlike Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Damila later found his
own purse in his pants pocket. How very convenient. When
he was set to return to Rfort, the station master
had organized a personal escort for him, and I feel
like I should note this is just the beginning of
(27:43):
the ridiculous hijinks Domla would revel in in his all
too brief tenure as Prince Wilhelm. From that trip on,
Damila would be treated to luxury suites, box seats at
(28:03):
the opera, which he would critique as being overacted by
performers too awestruck at his presence to do their job well,
and taken out to such lavish dinners and parties he
could barely go a step without unwonted attention. There's not
nearly enough time for me to go into even half
(28:24):
of the stories Domala felt necessary to put in his memoir,
And if I'm being honest, only a quarter of them
are really worth mentioning anyway. But there is one story
I feel best encapsulates how exactly Domila was able to
carry on his charade for as long as he did.
(28:45):
One night, Doamala went out to dinner with the proprietor
of the hotel he was staying at. The man whom
Domla calls the counselor, mentioned that he saw something weighing
on the young man's mind. Obviously, Domila couldn't answer with
the truth that what was weighing on his mind was
that he was a nobody parading as a prince and
(29:06):
abusing everyone's good will for his own selfish gain. So
when he didn't respond, the man continued, quote, the world
lies open before you. Who knows how the future of
our people will shape itself? Who knows what you may
some day be called on to do. Many people see
(29:26):
in you the future emperor and king. So you must
learn to realize during the years of hoping and waiting
what mistakes the old regime made. Remember the old national hymn,
Neither horses nor men can keep secure the steep heights
where princes stand end quote. The emotion with which Damila
(29:49):
writes the old man speaking is likely the true reason
he was able to carry on his farce for as
long as he did. People want to believe it. Despite
the high esteem Domla no doubt held himself in. I
don't think his skill as an actor is what sold
(30:10):
his persona as the deposed German prince. Really, I think
it had little to do with Domola at all. Inside
by side comparisons between the two men. Other than being
white and young and having generally slender builds, they're not
really twins. But what Damila and Prince Wilhelm did have
(30:33):
in common was what their presence meant to the people
who met them. After the devastating losses of World War One,
the German Republic not only lost an entire generation of
young men, but their sense of nationalism. They were eager
for civil national pride wherever they could find it. The
(30:55):
monarchy may have no longer served a purpose in the
German government, but its presence remained a symbol of hope
and pride, especially for upper class German citizens. While men
like these self proclaimed baron ludates used noble titles as
(31:16):
a way to patchwork together respect in a time when
Germany's social hierarchy was in tatters, men like the Counselor
saw the deposed monarchs as vestiges of a time when
all of their lives had significance before the war and
ultimate financial crisis all but stripped them of their finances
(31:38):
and yes, social status. The truth was, Harry Damla likely
wasn't the best actor, nor did he look particularly close
in relation to the Prince of Prussia. He did, however,
give the people of the upper class a reason to
flaunt their wealth and status. Again. He reminded them of
(32:00):
life before the war, before Germany had lost everything, and
after losing his home, fighting in a war and ending
up on the streets all before turning seventeen, who was
Harry Damila to turn away the affections of those who
were gullible enough to believe him. In the end, Damila's
(32:30):
run as Prince Wilhelm of Prussia couldn't last forever. Eventually,
the imposta prince got tired of the attention given to
him in airport, and decided to leave for France to
join the Foreign Legion in early nineteen twenty seven. Though
the timing of his newfound apathy happened to coincide with
(32:51):
reports being made about the quote unquote Prince's adventures in
Heidelberg some weeks before, likely caused Damila to begin to
feel the fragile walls he had constructed begin to close
in on him. Before he even made it out of
the country, he was intercepted on the train to France
(33:12):
and was apprehended by police for his crimes. From there,
he was transferred to the prison in Cologne, where he
would spend seven months in a sell a waiting trial
and writing what would go on to become a best
selling memoir. When his case finally made it before a judge,
the jury surprisingly acquitted Damola of all charges, with one
(33:37):
source writing of their decision quote, While he had taken
advantage of prominent members of society, his scheme had been
mostly harmless end quote. Upon his release, Damila received his
first advance for his memoir, which would go on to
sell over two hundred thousand copies worldwide and be adapted
(34:00):
for both stage and screen. With that money, he would
send Crown Princess Cecil, Prince Wilhelm's mother a bouquet of
flowers with a note that read to her Imperial Highness,
the Crown Princess Cecil, I was honored to be taken
for your son. Ultimately, Damala wouldn't stay in Germany for long,
(34:23):
with fascism on the rise in Berlin. Some sources claim
that Damala's homosexuality was the reason for his departure, though
as I mentioned before, there are no real accurate sources.
When it comes to Harry Damila, I will say that
his memoir does go into detail about many of his
relationships with men, and while on the page they were platonic,
(34:47):
there were significantly fewer, if any, anecdotes about any relationships
or friendships at all with women. Regardless, by nineteen thirty three,
Damila fled for the Erlands and eventually South America, where
he would live the rest of his life in relative
obscurity until his death in nineteen seventy nine. On paper,
(35:12):
Damila's life seems almost unbelievable. To have paraded around as
a deposed German prince for months and gotten away with
it it seems too good to be true. But in
the months the young Quote Prince spent pretending to be
something he wasn't, people who believed him were, to an extent,
(35:36):
participating in their own folly, falling over themselves to serve
a royal whose throne technically no longer existed. They were
just trying to have a taste of the life that
they had before their country had lost everything, to still
pretend that these structures of monarchy and privilege still mattered. Or,
(35:59):
in the words of Harry Damala, quote the sort of
lying and bragging that hurts nobody and which would only
take in someone even more stupid than oneself. That was
the unbelievable life of Harry Damala, the Fake Prince of Prussia.
(36:22):
But stick around after the sponsor break to hear a
little bit more about the stage and screen adaptations of
The Sham Prince. After his release from prison, Harry Damila's
memoir The Sham Prince became more than just an international bestseller.
(36:48):
Before long, playwright and filmmakers were eager to get their
hands on the story, and you better believe Damila wasn't
going to miss his chance to get into the spotlight
In December of nineteen twenty seven, just months after being
released from prison, Damla would star in the silent film
adaptation of his life's story titled The False Prince. A
(37:13):
quick note here, we have scoured the internet and haven't
been able to find it. So if you were listening
to this podcast and have ever come across that Silent film,
or if you ever do come across it in the future,
please let me know. If you take nothing else from
this episode, let it be remembered that no one has
(37:34):
ever manifested their main character energy harder than Harry Damola.
He literally became the main character of the movie made
about his life, and if that wasn't enough in the
case of stage adaptations, some sources say that Damala sued
one of the productions that refused to cast him in
(37:56):
the title role. Of course, this is not confirmed, but
considering his track record, I really don't think it's completely
out of the realm of possibility, because if there was
ever one person who would take someone to court over
the right to impersonate his own likeness, it would be
Harry Domela. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and
(38:35):
Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky Noble Blood is created
and hosted by me Dana Schwort, with additional writing and
researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender,
and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by
Noemi Griffin and rema Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh
(38:59):
Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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