A playboy prince from the historic German Bismarck family is suing his two siblings for a share of their inheritance said to be worth up to €1billion (£840million) in the latest escalation in a decades-long feud.
Carl-Eduard, Prince of Bismarck, a great-great-grandson of the ‘Iron Chancellor’ Otto von Bismarck, is seeking an €83million (£70million) slice of the pie from his younger brother Gregor and sister Vanessa after he was disinherited in 2002 by their father, Ferdinand von Bismarck, for his outrageous party lifestyle.
The prince, nicknamed ‘Calle’, has long been ridiculed for his drunken antics, and was described as ‘Germany’s laziest MP’ for consistently failing to turn up for meetings and votes during his tenure in the country’s federal parliament between 2005 and 2007.
He has been fighting with his siblings for decades in a feud described by his fourth wife as stemming from a ‘dysfunctional environment, unspoken truths, personal dramas, greed and jealousy at Dante’s level.’
During one particularly shocking incident at their baroque estate near Hamburg in 2010, police were reportedly forced to handcuff him after he tried to evict his own mother from his quarters.
He told Bild at the time: ‘The police arrived and suddenly I was lying handcuffed on the ground with my face in the sand.
‘And my brother was shouting at the officers to test me for drugs and alcohol. They did, and when the results were negative, he told them: “Get better equipment.”‘
His mother, he added, had withdrawn a legal complaint against him for bodily harm and had given a sworn statement that he had never threatened her with a hunting weapon.
Carl-Eduard von Bismarck, and Alessandra von Bismarck attend the The Bests Gala 46th Edition At Four Seasons Hotel on December 11, 2023 in Paris, France
Princess Elisabeth Von Bismarck (R) and Gregor Graf Von Bismarck (L) Attend an Opening Ceremony of the German Historical Museum in Berlin in April 2015
That incident came from Carl-Edmund’s claim that his mother, Princess Elisabeth, was a raging alcoholic and antisemite who would often insult his third wife, Nathalie Bariman, a Jewish woman who he has since divorced.
The prince has previously admitted to being arrested for drunk driving, and being visited by bailiffs over unpaid debts.
The siblings this week encountered each other at a court in the northern German town of Lübeck, with the Times reporting that they did not look at each other once and left their lawyers to talk.
No ruling was made in the case, presided over by judge Stephen Schlöpke who requested more documents to understand the full extent of the family’s wealth.
Gregor, the youngest son, claimed his bother had received a loan from their father before his passing in 2019, which if confirmed could mean the playboy prince gets an even smaller slice of the inheritance.
While Schlöpke has suggested that the parties settle the matter out of court, observers believe it is unlikely the dysfunctional family, once at the height of power in Germany, will ever do this.
Carl-Edmund is far from the only Bismarck to disgrace the once-great name.
His younger brother, Count Gottfried von Bismarck, tragically died of a cocaine and heroin overdose in his Chelsea penthouse, with the pathologist at the time of his death claiming his body had the largest amount of cocaine he had ever seen.
The prince claimed that his mother was a raging alcoholic and antisemite who would often insult his third wife, Nathalie Bariman (pictured, left)
Ferdinand Prince von Bismarck-Schoenhausen with his granddaughter Vanessa at Malaga, Spain, 1985
Gottfried was also connected to several other deadly accidents in the UK.
In 1986, Olivia Channon, the 22-year-old daughter of former Trade and Industry Secretary Paul Channon, choked to death on her own vomit after falling asleep while high on heroin at one of Gottfried’s parties Oxford University.
And in 2006, the year before his own death, Anthony Casey fell 60ft from the roof of Gottfried’s Chelsea flat after he took a potentially lethal amount of cocaine following a gay orgy.
Even Otto von Bismarck, the man who cemented the family’s legacy, has been waning in popularity in recent years.
In 2022, the German foreign ministry dropped his name from a hall and removed his portrait from its building after his links to German colonialism were brought to the forefront of public debate.
Bismarck Hall was renamed by Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister, as the ‘Hall of German Unity’.