The great merchants, whose
acquaintance I made, as well as the literary and artistic people,
I had to seek out; because most of them were not _hoffahig_
and I did not come in contact with them at any court functions,
official dinners or even in the houses of the court nobles or
those connected with the government.
A very interesting character whom I met during the first winter
and often conversed with, was Prince Henkel-Donnersmarck. Prince
Donnersmarck, who died December, 1916, at the age of eighty-six
years, was the richest male subject in Germany, the richest subject
being Frau von Krupp-Bohlen, the heiress of the Krupp cannon
foundry. He was the first governor of Lorraine during the war of
1870 and had had a finger in all of the political and commercial
activities of Germany for more than half a century. He told me, on
one occasion, that he had advocated exacting a war indemnity of
thirty milliards from France after the war of 1870, and said that
France could easily pay it--and that that sum or much more should
be exacted as an indemnity at the conclusion of the World War of
1914.
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