Princess corinna zu sayn-wittgenstein biography

In her Swiss apartment, she says, a book was left in her living room about the princess's death. There was no reply to these inquiries. And Iberdrola, a Spanish company whose advisory panel he sits on, refused to facilitate contact with him. So what does he make of zu Sayn-Wittgenstein's claims of harassment? In Spain, King Juan Carlos was not able to shake off the curse of the elephant.

In he abdicated in favour of his son Felipe. As emeritus king, he was still busy with official engagements, trade trips and international travel - especially to the Middle East. And it is those very close contacts Juan Carlos has in the Middle East that have become the subject of intense scrutiny - especially from prosecutors. Judicial inquiries began after the recordings of a rogue Spanish police officer became public.

He taped all his conversations with the rich and powerful - including with zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. Republican demonstrators in Barcelona in on the day Juan Carlos abdicated. In that audio was published in the Spanish media.

Princess corinna zu sayn-wittgenstein biography: Carina, Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg (born Carina

In one of the recordings, a female voice asks rhetorically in Spanish about the emeritus king: "How does he get money? He takes a plane, goes to Arab countries… And he returns with the cash in suitcases - sometimes with five million. He has a machine to count it - I've seen it with my own eyes. Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein has never officially confirmed it was her on the recording.

But the revelations from those tapes were sensational, and they became the catalyst for the opening of investigations in Switzerland and, more recently, in Spain. The beneficiary was King Juan Carlos.

Princess corinna zu sayn-wittgenstein biography: Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (née Larsen;

The Swiss prosecutor is investigating three people with ties to the former king. And he is looking into whether this money was connected to the awarding of a massive contract to a Spanish consortium to build a high-speed rail link in Saudi Arabia three years later. In other words, was it a kickback? In Spain, the Supreme Court has opened an investigation into emeritus King Juan Carlos himself - but it can only examine alleged wrong-doing after he abdicated inwhen he lost his immunity from prosecution.

Then in early Augustweeks after he was linked to the inquiry, the ex-king made the shock announcement that he had left Spain; after two weeks of speculation about his whereabouts, the Spanish royal palace said he was living in the United Arab Emirates. So where does Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein fit in? She is one of the individuals being investigated by the Swiss prosecutor.

He started to talk about his death and what he wanted to leave in his will. He was worried that the family wouldn't respect his wishes," she claims. She says she received the money after her flat in Monaco was ransacked and she was visited by the head of the CNI. After the transfer was made, she flew to Madrid to thank the king, she says, and he told her that he felt guilty about what had happened to her: "I think he was very shocked to understand the extent of pressure I'd been put under, and the extent of the reputational destruction that had taken place.

In testimony to the Swiss prosecutor, zu Sayn-Wittgenstein said she believed the king had given her the money out of love. Spain's monarchy shaken by ex-king's Swiss fortune. Did Spanish spies harass ex-king's 'lover'? King Felipe renounces father's inheritance. She insists the king was not trying to hide or launder this money by bequeathing it to her - even though inhe asked for the money back.

He asked for everything back. I think it was just a tantrum he threw. In Spain, Juan Carlos' multi-million euro gift to zu Sayn-Wittgenstein has generated intense interest - and outrage. The news broke as Spain confronted one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Europe. Ivette Torrent, a young lawyer from Barcelona, began an online petition calling for the cash to be transferred to the Spanish public health care system.

Close topeople signed. So what would Torrent like the king's former lover to do with the cash gifted to her? But if the ongoing investigations establish an illegal origin for this money, "they should return it". What I find extraordinary is they're rolling 40 years of the modus operandi of a family enterprise into a focus on one person. And that's me… Because there will be hundreds of other accounts in other jurisdictions.

Career [ edit ]. Boss Sporting [ edit ]. Apollonia Associates [ edit ]. Personal life [ edit ]. Relationship with Juan Carlos I [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. BBC News. Retrieved 10 August Vanity Fair. El Confidencial. Archived from the princess corinna zu sayn-wittgenstein biography on 3 March Retrieved 28 February Archived from the original on 14 April Retrieved 11 August Europa Press.

Retrieved 27 November She was the only child of wealthy parents, members of the untitled Polish nobilityPiotr Iwanowski and his wife, Paulina Leonharda Podowska whose massive holdings of land in Podolia included more than 30, serfs. Princess Carolyne was a fervent Roman Catholic, but separated from her husband after only a few years of marriage. In her father died, leaving her a fortune.

The following year, they moved together to the German city of Weimarwhere Liszt had already been appointed as Kapellmeister Extraordinaireand where the couple would remain for over a decade. Eventually, Carolyne wished to regularise their situation and marry Liszt, but since her husband was still living, she had to convince the Roman Catholic authorities that her marriage to him had been invalid.

After an intricate process that involved moving to Rome and making two direct papal audiences, she temporarily was successful Septemberand the couple planned to marry in Rome on 22 OctoberLiszt's 50th birthday. It is possible that both her husband and the tsar of Russia managed to quash permission for the marriage at the Vatican. The Russian government also impounded her several estates she owned thousands of serfswhich made her later marriage to Liszt, or anyone else, unfeasible.

Furthermore, the scandal would have seriously harmed her daughter's marriageability, clearly the main reason why the prince put an end to his wife's scheduled remarriage but this was a real problem only before the marriage of their daughter in Though they no longer lived together, they remained connected, for example dining together when Liszt was in Rome, and naming each other as chief beneficiary of their wills.

Carolyne spent her final several decades in Rome writing extensively and very critically on church issues. She was devastated by Liszt's death and survived him only a few months, dying on 9 March in Rome. Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein was a prolific writer, publishing at least 44 volumes of prose from to Her preface to the first volume argues that her writings, "which seem to reveal the weaknesses of the Church, actually reveal its strength.

By showing the "inner causes" of its weakness, they show at the same time that these causes come from human faults.

Princess corinna zu sayn-wittgenstein biography: Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (née

These are therefore excusable, the government of the Church having been entrusted by the Man-God who established it not to the angels, but to men, always imperfect. Liszt's biographer Alan Walker describes her style as "heavy going, calling for dogged persistence Some of [her letters] run to twenty or thirty pages of densely packed prose, and there are times when that prose becomes so prolix that it loses touch with reality.

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