Grand Duke's mistress gets her pension

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January 23, 1926

The Condesa de Mazzenau, the former chorus girl, and mistress of the late Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich V of Mecklenburg-Strelitz will keep her royal pension, according to the New York Times.

The late Grand Duke had bequeathed a "yearly pension of $5000" to the Condesa because "she cheered up his life."   She won the suit against Adolf Friedrich's widow, "who insisted that she and the other mistresses be cut off from the pension list."

A Berlin court, however, cut down the annual pension to $1,500 a year because the Grand Duchess is in "straightened financial circumstances."  She can now afford to pay only thirty people "to look after her personal needs."

The Condesa de Mazzenau can keep her villa in Berlin, which was given to her by the Grand Duke.  She considers the court's ruling to be meager, "in view of her accustomed manner of living.  Her husband is a former officer in the Austrian Army and a member of the "Papal nobility."

With the court favoring the countess, another former confidant of the Grand Duke and his son, Adolf Friedrich VI, Countess Budna de Litic "will press her claims for her allowance of $5000a year and "cash for a check for $225,000, which she claims was genuine but was never cashed."

The Grand Duchess and her two daughters, Princess Lippe and the Crown Princess of Montenegro will again "appeal to the courts" in Strelitz to ask for funds in addition to "the $2,000,000 awarded to them shortly after the establishment of the republican government."