September 25, 1949
Prince Alexander zu Hohenlohe, 30, is in critical condition at a New York City hospital, following what officials have called a suicide attempt, reports the Chicago Daily Tribune.
He was found tonight in his midtown apartment with "a bullet wound in his chest." Police said that "he had shot himself in a suicide attempt."
The Prince was rushed to the hospital by ambulance and was accompanied by a doctor and a priest. The doctor told reporters that one lung had collapsed from the bullet's impact. He added that "I think he has a chance" to survive.
The prince was arrested at his bedside "on a charge of illegally possessing firearms." Police said that he did not have a license for the pistol that he used to shoot himself, or for another pistol found in his home.
Francis P. Garvan, the prince's attorney, and friend said that the Prince has been "depressed and brooding" since the separation from his wife several months ago. Prince Alexander recently spent three weeks in the Payne Memorial Clinic at New York Hospital, where he was treated for a "mental disorder." Garvan told police that Alexander had telephoned him earlier tonight and "instructed him to open a sealed envelope left with the lawyer last night. He said "the note worried him," but Garvan "would not admit that it was a suicide note. He left immediately for Prince Alexander's apartment, stopping only to pick up a doctor and a policeman.
Prince Alexander is a partner in the Fifth Avenue dress firm, Cassini-Dardick Ltd. He married the former Peggy Schulze, 27, a stepdaughter of Anthony J. Drexel Biddle in Paris on October 5, 1939.
Although his title is German, Prince Alexander is a Polish national. He was born in Austria, but his branch of the family acquired Polish nationality "through adoption by another branch of the Hohenlohe family. He is half-American, as he is the son of Prince Alfred of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst and the late Catherine Britton.
Prince and Princess Alexander's marriage took place after the fall of Poland, where he had served as a subaltern in the 14th Polish Uhlans during the German invasion. He was later assigned to the Polish embassy in Washington, D.C., as an adjutant to the military attache.
The couple's two young children are with relatives in White Plains, New York. Alexander's estranged wife also lives in New York City, but the police would not release her address.
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