Anna Anderson

Anna Anderson
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Born	26 December 1896 Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (modern-day Poland)
Died	February 12, 1984(1984-02-12) (aged 87) Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Cause of death	Pneumonia
Other names	Franziska Schanzkowska, Anastasia Tschaikovsky, Anastasia Manahan
Spouse	John Eacott Manahan

Anastasia Manahan, usually known as Anna Anderson (probably 26 December 1896 – 12 February 1984), was an impostor

who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last autocratic ruler of Imperial Russia, and his wife Tsarina Alexandra. Only a few surviving relatives of Grand Duchess Anastasia believed Anderson was the Grand Duchess, who was born on June 5, 1901, and was killed with her family on the night of July 17, 1918, by Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg, Russia. Remains from all seven members of the Imperial family, including two sets of remains that had been missing until August 2007, have now been identified through DNA testing. Scientists announced in July 2008 that the results have been independently verified by laboratories such as the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the United States. This confirms that all members of the Romanov party were killed at Ekaterinburg.

It is now widely accepted that Anderson was actually Franziska Schanzkowska, a Kashubian factory worker. Most historians accept this identity, and major news agencies state as a fact in their reporting that Anderson was Schanzkowska As early as the 1920s, a private detective investigation had tried to identify Anderson as Schanzkowska, who was born on December 26, 1896, in Pomerania (then in Prussia but now in Poland). Anderson's mitochondrial DNA is also a match to the Schanzkowski family, which indicates that she was most likely Schanzkowska.

Anderson's body was cremated upon her death in 1984. Ten years later, DNA tests were conducted on samples of her tissue that had been stored at a Charlottesville, Virginia hospital following a medical procedure. The DNA tests showed that Anderson's DNA did not match the Romanov remains or Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (a great-nephew of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna), but was consistent with the mitochondrial DNA profile of Karl Maucher, a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska. Some supporters of Anderson continued to doubt she was Franziska Schanzkowska, despite the mitochondrial DNA match between Anderson's remains and the Schanzkowski family.

First appearance of Anderson

Anderson's claim caused controversy from the beginning, in part because of the confusion in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the conflicting stories about the fate of the Imperial family coming out of Russia. All of the family, including seventeen-year-old Anastasia, were killed and their deaths verified by eyewitness testimonies. Yakov Yurovsky, the Cheka operative and commissar who oversaw the execution of the Romanovs, stated that the entire imperial family and entourage, including Anastasia, were killed. In the years after the killings of the Imperial family, there were recurring rumors that one or more members of the family might have survived. The Viennese tailor Heinrich Kleibenzetl provided one such account during his testimony in a German trial regarding the identity of Anna Anderson. He claimed to identify a wounded Anastasia immediately following the murders at Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918 being treated by his landlady, Anna Baoudin, in a building directly opposite from the Ipatiev House. Finally a Red Guard, the same man who had brought her came to take her away. Kleibenzetl knew no more about her fate.

Thomas Hildebrand Preston, who was the British Consul-General in Ekaterinburg in 1918, rejected its validity, reporting that Kleibenzetl had delivered clothing to the Ipatiev House and seen the grand duchesses walking in the home's enclosed courtyard but had never spoken to any of them. Preston declared that if such activities had been true, he would have been informed, and gave his reason for why the entire episode would have been impossible:

"On the night of the murder a curfew had been imposed, forbidding anybody to appear in the streets after 8 p.m. on pain of death, a regulation which nobody who valued his life would have dared to disobey. In these circumstances we are asked to believe that Svoboda 'and his friend' were able to produce a hourse and cart, to (enter) the House Epatiev, identify and bring out the wounded Anastasia (whom they had never seen before), and take her to a house nearby when every house in the vicinity was under the strictest surveillance of the ubiquitous agents of the Tcheka."

Anderson's first claim to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia occurred after her failed attempt at suicide in Berlin in 1920, although it was not until 1922 that her claim became world famous. Later, she explained that she had gone by train, and walked across the borders,to Berlin to seek out her "aunt" Princess Irene, sister of Tsarina Alexandra. Once she reached the palace, she claimed that no one would recognize her or, worse, that they would discover she had borne a child out of wedlock. In shame, she attempted to take her own life by jumping off a bridge into the cold water of the Landwehr Canal.

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'Fräulein Unbekannt' in 1922.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the younger sister of Tsar Nicholas II, commented that the suicide attempt "is probably the only indisputable fact in the whole story."

Anderson was rescued by a passing official and became a ward of the state as a patient in a mental hospital in Dalldorf. The young woman was covered, according to her doctors at the asylum, with half a dozen bullet wounds and lacerations, including a trough-like indentation behind her ear and a star shaped scar on her foot from a Russian bayonet. The doctors originally believed this injury led to her original loss of memory. Because she rarely spoke and refused to provide hospital staff with any information about herself, the nurses nicknamed her Fräulein Unbekannt (Miss Unknown). Erna Bucholz testified in Hamburg that "the patient spoke Russian like a native, not like a stranger who had learned it later." ]Anderson remained in the asylum for two years until Clara Peuthert, a fellow psychiatric patient, claimed she recognized Anderson to be the Grand Duchess Tatiana, based upon photos of the Grand Duchesses she saw in the magazine Berliner Illusrietre. The Oct. 23, 1921 issue featured photos of the family with the headline "The Truth about the Murdered Tsar", and a caption under a photo of the Grand Duchesses read "Is one of the Tsar's daughters alive?" Truly, this was the beginning of her claim, and began the visits by Russian emigres'.

A friend of the family, Zina Tolstoy, visited a frightened Miss Unknown, and accepted the patient as Tatiana, declaring "she had the eyes of the Tsar." This was interesting, considering that of all the Imperial sisters, Tatiana's eyes were not blue but famously dark, described by Anna Vyrubova as having "eyes so darkly gray that in the evening they seemed quite black."

At Tolstoy's insistence, Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, a former lady of waiting to Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, paid a visit to the asylum to determine if Anderson's claim to be a daughter of Tsar Nicholas II was legitimate. Upon arrival, the Baroness attempted to get Anderson to speak with her. Upon refusing the Baroness pulled Anderson up off the bed and claimed that she was "too short to be Tatiana." The Baroness declared in her official statement of their meeting: "I tried to attract the young woman's attention as I caressed her hair and speaking to her in English while using the types of phrases I would have used while speaking with the Grand Duchesses, but I did not refer to her by any name other than 'Darling'. She did not reply and I saw that she did not understand a word of what I had said, for when she raised the cover after a certain period of time, and I saw her face, there was nothing in her eyes which showed she had recognized me. The eyes and forehead showed some resemblance to the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nicolaievna, resemblance that disappeared, nevertheless, as soon as her face was not covered. I had to remove the cover by force, and I saw that neither the nose, the mouth, nor the chin were formed like that of the Grand Duchess." She left believing Anderson a fraud and never wavered in her opinion.

After this denouncement, the claimant declared she was not Tatiana, but Anastasia, the only Grand Duchess to share her height of 5'2". Tolstoy had no problem switching her acceptance from "Tatiana" to "Anastasia" She picked up other endorsements, including Marianne Nilov, widow of the royal yacht commander, who, like so many others, based her identification on a perceived family resemblance in the eyes. When Buxhoevedon heard Anderson had changed Grand Duchesses, she stated "I later learned that she supposes that she is the Grand Duchess Anastasia, but she does not physically resemble her in the least. She has none of the special characteristics that would allow any one who knew the Grand Duchess Anastasia well to identify her."

The story of her 'rescue'

In May 1922, she left the asylum in Berlin and was taken in by Baron von Kleist, a Russian émigré who believed her claim. It was here that she began calling herself Anastasia Tschaikovsky, and the details of her 'rescue' by a man named Alexander Tchiakovsky began to emerge, and change. Miss Unknown began calling herself Anastasia Tschaikovsky (she told confidantes the name of the Russian soldier who rescued her, married her, and eventually fathered her a son was Alexander Tschaikovsky). Anna Anderson Manahan always insisted she was raped by Alexander Tschaikovsky. She claimed to have survived the massacre in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg where the Imperial family was killed on July 18, 1918. She said that as the shooting began she passed out and after falling to the ground, she was shielded from additional harm by the body of her sister, Tatiana. The still unidentified Tschaikovsky and his brother, supposedly part of the clean-up squad, noticed she was still alive amongst the corpses after the execution and were able to sneak her out of the building past the armed guards. After her rescue, she was supposedly brought to Bucharest by Alexander and his brother Serge, their sister Veronica, and their mother. She claimed to have had a child with Alexander, and they got married in Bucharest. It was in Bucharest, she said, that Tschaikovsky was killed in a street brawl. It is now possible to accurately name the 10 men who formed the execution squad plus the names of the guards at the Ipatiev House. None of them had the name of Tschaikovsky as claimed by Anna Anderson.The name Tschaikovsky was most likely false. Two brothers of Polish origin appear on the Guard Lists No evidence of the existence of her alleged rescuers has ever been found. Others were skeptical of her claim because the claimant made no attempt to contact her mother's first cousin, Queen Marie of Romania, during the time she was allegedly in Bucharest. Marie knew Anastasia and her parents. They met during visits before the War. No proof of her alleged rescuers has ever been found.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, Anastasia's paternal aunt, commented on the claim by Anderson, "In 1918 or 1919, Queen Marie would have recognised her on the spot ... Marie would never have been shocked at anything, and a niece of mine would have known it ... My niece would have known that her condition would have indeed have shocked [Princess] Irene."

It must be noted that before the 'final' version we see today was perfected by Anderson and her supporters, the story of her 'escape' and how she came to be in Berlin went through various incarnations, some rather absurd. According to one of Von Kleist's signed statements, the claimant allegedly told him "She received, from an intermediary, this person who died in Romania, a device (apparatus), that she used on her face and succeeded a little in changing the form of her nose and mouth." In this version of her story, written to Princess Irene by Clara Peuthert, Anderson went first to Paris, but was followed by unnamed enemies: "When those who followed her discovered the hideout of her family to Bucharest, she had to flee again. She tried to loose their track leaving first to Paris where she knows a Baron Taube. From Paris, she came to Berlin. She was scarcely there for eight days when someone recognized her. One evening, in an automobile, she was drugged to sleep, they removed her clothes for her and put on others, and she was thrown, still totally drugged, in a lake by the zoo. When she was drug out, it was believed that she had tried to commit suicide, and was driven to the Elisabeth hospital." This contradicts the version the claimant allegedly told Baron Von Kleist in June 1922: 'I arrived in Berlin in the middle of the month of February 1920, I do not remember the exact date. I arrived here alone, coming from Russia and having gone through Romania. Immediately in Berlin, I changed clothing, in order not to be recognized, for it seemed to me that I was followed. I no longer know what with that which I changed clothing. I was free for less than a week, for I was first placed in the Elizabeth Hospital, where I spent six weeks, then I was transferred to the Dalldorf asylum." In later versions, the mysterious adversaries who had been 'following' her had, apparently, vanished, or were written out of the drama. It is impossible to check the accuracy of this version due to Gilliard's burning of his archives after publication. According to Rathlef, the "official" version of the escape was written down by Police Inspector Grünberg of the Berlin Police,

There are also several different versions of the birthdate, conception and abandonment of the alleged child, left either with her rescuer's family or in a Romanian orphanage, but no evidence of the child has ever been found and none of the details have been proven. Though it is clear from her letters, published in Gilliard's book, that Clara Peuthert was a major influence from the start, some suspect that von Kliest himself had a hand in inventing Anderson's escape story. Others find his motives suspicious because he had put together an agreement stating that he would receive 50,000 crowns upon the claimant's recognition by the Dowager Empress. Von Kleist's daughter, Gerda, did not accept the claimant as Anastasia, and testified that she knew no Russian or English upon her arrival at their home, and cried out in her sleep in Polish.

The story never stopped changing. In 1974, she declared 'there was no massacre...I cannot tell the rest.' Anderson changed her story again when relaying what she called 'these truths' to her chosen biographer James Blair Lovell. This time, she abandoned her whole original story and told one which tied in with the Perm stories, that the women were taken away separately from the men, whom they never saw again. She claimed to have escaped, been recaptured, raped, and beaten, before meeting up with Tchiakovsky and his cart in a different place under totally different circumstances.

Meeting Princess Irene

While Anderson was staying with Inspector Grünberg, Empress Alexandra's sister, Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, came to visit her under an assumed name. Princess Irene failed to recognise Anderson as her niece. Peter Kurth, a long time supporter of Anna Anderson, asserts that Princess Irene's son, Prince Sigismund later sent Anderson a list of questions that he said only Anastasia could know how to answer. It is claimed that Anderson answered every question correctly, though it took her five days to finish them In addition to Anderson, Sigismund also backed Magda Boots, a woman claiming to be Grand Duchess Olga Princess Irene herself was not impressed.

"I saw immediately that she could not be one of my nieces. Even though I had not seen them for nine years, the fundamental facial characteristics could not have altered to that degree, in particular the position of the eyes, the ear, etc. .. At first sight one could perhaps detect a resemblance to Grand Duchess Tatiana."

"At this time I already had the conviction that she was not my niece, but, at the desire of the Dr Grunberg, I went up to her room, and approached her bed. I addressed her in vain with words in the language that we habitually used, recalled situations from the past, spoke the nicknames or the names of persons we knew: she did not react to anything. She still did not reply when I prayed for her to say a word or to make a sign that she had recognized me; even when -in order to not neglect anything - I said to her: "Do you not know your Aunt Irene?"

To the big disappointment of the Grunbergs, who were so well intentioned, I left with the firm conviction that this unknown one is not my niece; I no longer kept the least doubt in this respect. We had lived, formerly, in such intimacy, that it would have sufficed for a small sign or an unconscious movement to awaken in me a familial feeling to convince me."

During dinner the claimant had reportedly simply left the table and gone to her bedroom. She later claimed her departure was not to do with social pressures but because she realised she had been tricked: She had not been told that her aunt was to be among her fellow guests. In her biography, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna commented that this meeting was unsatisfactory, but Anderson's supporters claimed that Princess Irene had not known her niece very well. Her supporters did not give up on trying to gain Irene's endorsement, and finally her husband, Prince Heinrich, had to send von Kleist a letter emphatically declaring their disbelief in his protegee' asking him to leave them alone.

1925 hospital visits - Grand Duchess Olga, Gilliard, Tegleva

In 1925, Anderson developed a staph infection in her arm, aggravating her condition of tuberculosis of the bones. She was again placed in a hospital. Sick and near death, she lost a lot of weight. It was during this time that Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, the younger sister of Tsar Nicholas II and Anastasia’s aunt, who had survived the Revolution and settled in Denmark, came to Berlin to see the woman who claimed to be her niece. She spent several days with the patient and exchanged letters with her for a time. Artist and sculptor Harriet von Rathlef (author of Anastasia, A Woman's Fate as a Mirror of the World Catastrophe, serialised in a 1928 Berlin newspaper), claimed that Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna appeared conflicted about Anderson's identity, as were Imperial tutor Pierre Gilliard and Gilliard's wife, Alexandra Tegleva, who had been Anastasia's nanny. Tegleva declared the claimant's feet, reminded her of Anastasia's, since both suffered from a condition called hallux vagus Anderson asked Shura to cover her forehead with perfume, a ritual that Shura remembered from Anastasia's childhood when she wanted her nanny to "smell like a flower." "Shura", like many others, never made an official statement in support or denial of Anna Anderson.

After much consideration, the fact she couldn't speak or read Russian, English or French at the time, unlike all the Tsar's daughters, was sufficient proof for Gilliard to decide that Anderson was an impostor. Gilliard commented about Anderson:

"The patient had a long nose, strongly turned up at the end, a very large mouth, thick and fleshy lips; the grand duchess, on the other hand, had a short, sharp nose, a much smaller mouth and fine lips .... Apart from the colour of the eyes, we could find nothing to make us believe that this was the grand duchess."

According to Rathlef and Zahle, both Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and Gilliard left Berlin, "unable to say that she was not the Grand Duchess." Supporters of Anna Anderson have long alleged that both Olga and Gilliard initially accepted Anderson, but later denied her for ulterior motives. However, there is no proof of this other than speculation, and it is likely that due to her condition, positive identification or denial was impossible. At the time of their visit, the patient was feverish, delirious, and had shrunk to a skeletal thinness.Her arm was a 'shapeless mass.' Gilliard had said that the most important thing to do was to keep her alive, and that they would return when her condition improved. Gilliard denounced Anderson as being "a cunning psychopath." Grand Duchess Olga Alexandra noted that Anderson "greatly disliked M. Gilliard" although "little Anastasia had been devoted to him."

According to Coryne Hall, author of "Little Mother of Russia", Olga discussed Anderson with her mother, Dowager Empress Marie. Exactly what she told her mother is unknown but the Empress made it plain that she did not believe the woman's claim and would have rushed to her granddaughter's side if she had believed the claimant was Anastasia. The Empress was angry with Grand Duchess Olga for traveling to Berlin.

Much of Olga's 'support' for the claimant may actually have been misconstrued pity. Olga did feel sorry for her. She sent Anderson presents consisting of a personal photo album , a silk shawl and a knitted sweater. While she admitted to being 'fond of her, whoever she is', she felt 'she is not the one she believes' In her biography, Grand Duchess Olga stated she made these gifts out of pity because Anderson looked so "wretched."

In January 1926, a Danish newspaper published an article quoting Olga as saying she and the other visitors could not find the slightest resemblance between the invalid and Anastasia. In December 1926, she wrote a letter to Princess Irene declaring the claimant's supporters had warned her of her visit, and had made too much of her sympathy. In a later letter, Olga told Irene supporters had 'stuffed her head with our stories..showed her a large number of photographs..until soon she was able to amaze people with her memories'. She also explained how she discovered Anderson had found out about the nickname she had always called Anastasia from an earlier visit by an emigre' who had been on the royal yacht. These reports and letters, not long after her visit, prove that even that early, Olga did not believe she was her niece, and was certain she was getting her info from Russian emigres.'

In Olga's authorized biography, "The Last Grand Duchess", Olga related to her biographer Ian Vorres what happened during her visit: "When Olga entered the room, the woman lying on a bed asked a nurse: “Ist das die Tante?” [Is this the Aunt?]“That”, confessed Olga, “at once took me aback. A moment later I remembered that the young woman having spent five years in Germany, would naturally have learnt the language, but then I heard that when she was rescued from that canal in 1920, she spoke nothing but German – when she spoke at all - which was not often. I readily admit that a ghastly horror experienced in one’s youth can work havoc with one’s memory but I have never heard of any ghastly experience endowing anyone with a knowledge they had not had before it happened. My nieces knew no German at all. Mrs Anderson did not seem to understand a word of Russian or English, the two languages all the four sisters had spoken since babyhood. French came a little later, but German was never spoken in the family”. In a letter to Colonel Mordvinov in 1927, Olga writes: Curiously, she seems to understand Russian, but answers in German.

Olga continued,

"My beloved Anastasia was fifteen when I saw her for the last time in the summer of 1916. She would have been twenty four in 1925. I thought Mrs Anderson looked much older than that. Of course, one had to make allowances for a very long illness and the general poor condition of her health. All the same, my niece’s features could not possibly have altered out of all recognition. The nose, the mouth, the eyes were all different."

The Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna remarked that the interviews were made all the more difficult by Mrs Anderson’s attitude. "She would not answer some of the questions, and looked angry when those questions were repeated. Some Romanov photographs were shown to her, and there was not a flicker of recognition in her eyes. The Grand Duchess had brought a small icon of St Nicholas, the patron saint of the imperial family. Mrs Anderson looks at it so indifferently that it was obvious the icon said nothing to her.

"That child was as dear to me as if she were my own daughter. As soon as I sat down by that bed in the Mommsen Nursing Home, I knew I was looking at a stranger… I had left Denmark with something of a hope in my heart. I left Berlin with all hope extinguished. Still, she wrote to the unknown woman in Berlin: "Remember, you are no longer alone, and we shall not abandon you." Later, she wrote: "I remember when we were together", and "longing to see you." However, Olga's letters disappeared in 1968 but photo copies are still kept at Harvard University.

Olga Alexandrovna offered an explanation and clarification of one of Anderson's alleged 'memories':

"The mistakes she made could not be all attributed to lapses of memory. For instance, she had a scar on one of her fingers and she kept telling everybody that it had been crushed because of a footman shutting the door of a landau too quickly. And at once I remembered the incident. It was Marie, her elder sister, who got her hand hurt rather badly, and it did not happen in a carriage but on board the imperial train. Obviously someone, having heard something of the incident, had passed a garbled version of it to Mrs Anderson. Shura, however, remebered the incident well, as did officer Sablin from the Standart who was present when it happened. Franziska Schanzkowska's former landlady, Mrs. Wingender, stated that her tenant's stiff finger occurred as a result of "a cut sustained while washing crockery". The cut was on the ring finger on the right hand,just under the nail, while Anna Anderson's scar was at the root of the middle finger of the left hand.

Supporters and opponents

Gleb Botkin and his sister Tatiana Botkina, nephew and niece of Serge Botkin, who was at the time head of the Russian emigre' society in Berlin, and son and daughter of the Imperial Family's personal physician Dr Eugene Botkin who perished with his imperial patients in the Ipatiev House in 1918, were two of Anderson's greatest supporters. Gleb and Tatiana Botkin spent much of their youth near the Imperial Family. Gleb Botkin's uncle, Serge Botkin, presided over the Russian Refugee Office in Berlin. He represented the interests of Russian exiles in Germany and came to the aid of Anderson. There has been much speculation by many, including John Godl, that the Botkins may have been the brains behind the whole charade, helping her with memories, in exchange for fame and financial gain should the claim pay off. Both Botkins wrote books about Anderson. Anderson supporter Peter Kurth, author of Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson, believe that the Botkins were sincere in their belief that Anderson was Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Frances Welch author of "A Romanov Fantasy: Life at the Court of Anna Anderson" depicts the Botkins as misguided in their hope/belief that Anna Anderson was their long lost playmate the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Tatiana Botkin was convinced of Annas authenticity when she first saw her up close, a conviction which was strengthened when Anna recalled something that occurred between the Grand Duchesses and Tatiana's father Evgeny Botkin.Very few people were aware of this information that Tatiana Botkin claimed she verified. Gleb Botkin recognized her immediately, and said she could distinguish drawings he had done before the Revolution from those after, and was able to provide information as to who the drawings were about.

However, others question the honest devotion of the Botkins, and believe their motives may have been fame and fortune. Both brother and sister wrote and published books on the claimant. Godl wrote that "Few of Anna Anderson's supporters were more cunning, knowledgeable or influential than Gleb Botkin; nephew of Serge Botkin and son of the Imperial Family's personal physician Dr Eugene Botkin who perished with his royal patients in the Ipatiev House in 1918. Gleb Botkin had an intimate knowledge of palace life, having spent much of his youth near the Imperial Family. As such it's impossible he was deceived by Anderson, he must have known she was a fraud and used her for his own aims. Botkin was one of many sources of obscure information Anderson would recount as "memories" to astound friend and foe alike"

Gleb Botkin met Anna Anderson in May 1927, and declared instantly she was Anastasia. Due to problems she was having in Germany, he decided to help her go to New York, where he provided articles on Anderson to newspapers. In an effort to prevent her being deported, Botkin attacked the sisters of Nicholas II and the Romanov family in general after the publication of the "Copenhagen Statement". Although no immediate relation of Nicholas II believed Anderson's claims, the continued saga was, for many, like salt being rubbed in an open wound. The Romanovs believed that Gleb Botkin and his accomplices were seeking monies, which they did not possess. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna commented, “My own conviction is that all of it started with some unscrupulous people who hoped they might lay their hands on at least a share of the fabulous and utterly non-existent Romanov fortune.”

Grand Duchess Olga's claim can be supported by the fact that the Dowager Empress relied on a pension from her nephew King George V, and her daughter, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, lived in a grace and favour house also provided due to the kindness of the King. They believed that the Botkins wanted to use the money for their own ends and treated him with contempt. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna commented, "Most malicious rumours about that "fortune" began floating about soon after Mrs. Anderson's appearance in Berlin in 1920. I heard that it ran into astronomical figures. It was all fantastic and terribly vulgar. Would my mother have accepted a pension from King George V if we had any money in England? It does not make sense."

Grand Duke Andrei Vladmirovich, first cousin of Nicholas II, who had some contact with Anastasia before the revolution, met Anderson in 1928 before she set out to New York. He wrote to his cousin Grand Duchess Olga,"There is for me no doubt; she is Anastasia. In 1928, Olga wrote to a friend that he must have 'vile motives' to side against them. It was actually Olga herself who allowed Grand Duke Andrei to go ahead with the investigation.

Later after Gleb Botkin wrote his notorious letter,(see 'relatives' paragraph) Grand Duke Andrei wrote to Tatiana Botkin, "Does he realise what he has done? He has completely ruined everything.

Tatiana Botkin wrote, "Grand Duke Andrew also remarked that the case was beginning to take on the aspect of an intrigue for the tsar's fortune, .... This profoundly disgusted the grand duke and he did not further wish to involve his name in it. Andrew had once written to wrote to Sergei Botkin, head of the Russian émigré community in Berlin: “The number of people who have been drawn into this work is very large, and among them such strict discipline is apparent as was never present in Russian circles.” Shortly after, Andrew's brother Cyril ordered Andrew off the investigation.

One of Anderson's strongest supporters, who gave her a home at Castle Seeon, was Duke George Leuchtenberg. As he told his family, 'If she is the Grand Duchess, it would be a crime not to help her and if she is not the Grand Duchess, I do not commit a crime by giving shelter to a poor, sick, persecuted woman, while making investigations regarding her identity." From the notes of the Duke of Leuchtenberg, according to Anderson supporter Harriet Rathlef: In the eleven months of her stay with us, I and my whole household have confirmed the following: 1. That the German she speaks is so faulty that it must be clear to everyone that German cannot be her mother tongue. 2. That she understands Russian excellently well, and could also speak Russian if she were not suffering from an inhibition. 3. That she not only understands English, but also reads, writes, and speaks English. 4. That she neither speaks nor understands a word of Polish. At Easter, the invalid made her confession and received the Sacrament, and our most cultured and judicious priest said to me after the confession that she was whithout doubt a member of the Orthodox Church. Despite his claims of 'his whole household' agreeing, Leuchtenberg's son, Dmitri, was completely certain Anderson was an imposter all along. In a letter to Olga Alexandrovna's biographer, Ian Vorres, he listed his reasons: First, when she arrived at Castle Seeon in 1927, she spoke no Russian, English or French, all languages the Imperial children knew well, and used only "German with a North German accent", a language he said the children did not speak. He stated she knew no English before taking lessons at Lugano before coming to live with them. He also said she was not familiar with Russian Orthodox rites, and acted as a Roman Catholic (the religion of Franziska's family) He also noted that he was present when Anderson met Felix Schanskowsky, Franziska's brother, it was clear the two recognized each other and he admitted he recognized her, but later, after speaking with Anderson out of earshot, he came back and denied her, refusing to sign a statement to claim her. Dmitri said it was not to spoil her 'career' as Anastasia, since it would leave her better financial support than her family. Young Mr. Leuchtenberg went onto say that those who knew Anastasia well did not recognize Anderson as the Grand Duchess, and in his opinon a lot of other White Russians accepted her out of wishful thinking." It is interesting to note that, when first told she would be welcome at the home of these people, Anderson replied "What are the Leuchtenbergs?" and refused to go unless Tatiana Bokin accompanied her. It is alleged that this does not correspond with the notes of Dr. Eitel, who helped her prepare for the move to Seeon. Allegedly Anderson recalled "a duke of Leuchtenberg" and having played with his children.

Lord Louis Mountbatten, a first cousin of the Romanov children who once had a crush on Anastasia's sister Maria, told the BBC not to patronize Anderson by doing a television program on her. "I can assure you that there is not the remotest doubt that this woman is not my cousin. She was seen by all our closest mutual relations, all of whom declared there was no resemblance." He once told the BBC, strongly advising them against interviewing her and helping her supporters, who, he claimed, "simply wanted to get rich on the royalties of further books, magazine articles, plays, etc." Mountbatten was one of Anderson's fiercest lifelong opponents, and funded much of the later legal battles against her claim.

Charles Sydney Gibbes, English tutor to the Imperial children, met Anderson much later in Paris and denounced her as well. He was certain she was a fraud. "If that's Grand Duchess Anastasia," Gibbes exclaimed, "I'm a Chinaman." Gibbes put his views more formally in an affidavit: "She in no way resembles the true Grand Duchess Anastasia that I had known .... I am quite satisfied that she is an impostor.

Prince Felix Yussopov, husband of Princess Irina of Russia, daughter of Grand Duchess Xenia, wrote to Grand Duke Andrei about Anna Anderson, "I claim categorically that she is not Anastasia Nicolaievna, but just an adventuress, a sick hysteric and a frightful playactress. I simply cannot understand how anyone can be in doubt of this. If you had seen her, I am convinced that you would recoil in horror at the thought that this frightful creature could be a daughter of our Tsar ... These false pretenders ought to be gathered up and sent to live in a house somewhere."

The Tsar’s former mistress, who married Grand Duke Andrei after the revolution, Mathilde Kschessinska met Anna Anderson towards the end of her life, in the late 1960s, out of curiosity, and remarked that "she had the eyes of the Tsar.". It should be noted Mathilde had never met the Tsar's children when they were alive.

Prince Christopher of Greece, first cousin of Nicholas II, wrote about her in his memoirs:“Dozens of people who had known the Grand Duchess Anastasia were brought to see the girl in the hope that they might be able to identify her, but none of them could come to any definite conclusion. ... The poor girl was a pathetic figure in her loneliness and ill health, and it was comprehensible enough that many of those around her let their sympathy over-rule their logic. But at the same time there was little real evidence to substantiate her story. Even when the Grand Duchess Olga, the favourite aunt of the Tsar's children, was brought to see her, she gave no sign of recognition and could not remember the pet name by which she was always known in the family.She was unable to recognize people whom the Grand Duchess Anastasia had known intimately, her descriptions of rooms in different palaces and of other scenes familiar to any of the Imperial Family were often inaccurate." Prince Christopher never met Anna Anderson. When asked by Gleb Botkin about Grand Duchess Olga's attitude to the case, he answered: "Of course Olga knows better than anybody that she is Anastasia." It is interesting to note that, according Faith Lavingon, when presented with photos from the Livadia Palace, published in an American newspaper and shown to her with all captions removed, she recognized them instantly and named each room correctly.

Harriet Rathelf-Keilmann, a Russian emigre' who had never known the real Anastasia, became a strong supporter, moving her to a better hospital, and writing serialized articles about her which eventually became an entire book. Rathlef was a follower of the Rudolf Steiner Anthroposophy movement, and along with other German Anthroposophist Anderson supporters believed Anderson was a victim of the psychic upheaval caused by the Russian Revolution and it was their duty to help her. Rathelf, well known to dominate Anna's bedside, when Alexei Volkov, valet to the Tsar, commented that "the conduct of the people who surrounded Madame Tchiakovsky seemed to me very suspect. They intervened all the time, completed her inadequate answers, and excused all her errors under the pretext she was 'ill.'" He also gave an interview with a Russian newspaper declaring she was not Anastasia. Peter Kurth alleges that at the end of his life, Volkov confessed that he believed her to be the Grand Duchess.

Anderson supporter Peter Kurth alleged that Lili Dehn, friend of Tsarina Alexandra, did not see Anderson until 1957. Much time had passed since she had met the real Anastasia. Kurth alleges Dehn accepted Anderson 'from signs that do not deceive' and declared she 'waved goodbye like my Empress'. Kurth also alleges Dehn denied Anderson had gotten her information from books. He also alleges Dehn stayed with Anderson for a week, and claimed that "she never made a mistake.

It is curious that Anna Vyrubova, closest friend and confidante of Tsarina Alexandra, was never asked her opinion on the claimant. It was mentioned by Tatiana Botkin that since she was a "disciple of Rasputin" association with her was not welcome, but a more likely reason is that Anna, more than anyone else left alive, could have exposed the claimant as a fraud, and having become an Orthodox nun, her testimony in court would be harder to discount than the others framed as liars by Anderson's supporters.

The Romanov Family's position

After the DNA tests proved her an imposter, a member of the Romanov family explained their position over the years, and why they usually kept silent on the subject. Prince Michael Romanov, (Grandson of Xenia and Sandro by their son Andrew), born in 1920 in exile in France, stated that while growing up he heard quite a bit of discussion on the topic of Anna Anderson, and that it was obvious to them that she was false and 'dubious' people were aiding her:

"From the very beginning of the affair it was obvious to my family Anna Anderson was an impostor," recalls Prince Michael, "that there were dubious people and motives behind her claims, but few would listen to our protestations at the time."

"We were a very close-knit family in exile and I remember as a youth listening to several conversations between my grandmother (Grand Duchess Xenia), relatives and friends. All were appalled by the claims being made by the hordes of impostors, there were just so many people claiming to be Ekaterinburg survivors. Several members of my family or representatives went to see Anna Anderson during the early days and dismissed her claims, and were amazed anyone could seriously believe a woman unable to speak Russian or answer specific questions about the lives of the Imperial Family could be the daughter of Nicholas II.

Over the years friends and acquaintances who had seen the movies or read the books on Anderson would lecture me on why she was genuine," Prince Michael recalls, "few would listen to or accept the other side of the argument. It was infuriating but after a while I just stopped arguing, what point was it?, how could I compete with the glamorous tales being created by the entertainment industry?

I remember the day I heard DNA tests had proven beyond conjecture Anna Anderson wasn't the Grand Duchess Anastasia, just another in a long and undistinguished like of fakes. Of course it came as no surprise!, it only validated what my family had been saying for 60 years and now people were finally paying attention.

My family looked upon Anderson and the three ringed circus which danced around her, creating books and movies, as a vulgar insult to the memory of the Imperial Family".

Another grandson of Alexander and Xenia, Prince Alexander Nikititch Romanov, said after meeting Anna Anderson that she reminded him in her appearance of his grandmother, Grand Duchess Xenia, and in her manner of his "Aunt Irina", Princess Yussoupov. It is interesting to note that the real Anastasia favored neither relative.

Prince Rostislav Romanov, another grandson of Sandro and Xenia was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, upon learning of the 1994 DNA results, "I never had a shadow of a doubt. My father was raised with Anastasia, and this woman would never see him."

Ernst Ludwig and Franziska Schanzkowska

At around the time when Anderson was suffering from yet another severe illness, she claimed that Alexandra's brother, Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, had been visiting Russia in 1916 during the First World War. The Romanov family believed that the allegation, which would have been tantamount to treason, might have been revenge for the family's intense criticism and opposition to their activities. There has never been proof; travel documents, photographs or any tangible evidence to support the allegation. The only evidence ever produced was witness testimony solicited by Anderson's legal teams, which was dismissed as unsubstantiated hearsay by the courts. The Grand Duke's "supposed" trip, and the incident has been flatly denied repeatedly by the Hessian royal family. Grand Duchess Eleonore, Ernst Ludwig's second wife, stated about Anderson that she was "an impostor, a lunatic, a shameless creature." It should be noted that German books existed at the time alleging the trip so the information was not as unique to Anderson's memory as supporters have claimed. One such book was "Im Angesicht der Revolution", 1922, Steeler, by B. Himmelstjerna. The diary of Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig places him in Verdun in France during the time of the "supposed trip". The Hamburg Tribunal overseeing the Anderson case eventually ruled, "The trip did not take place".

Ernst Ludwig hired a private investigator, Martin Knopf, to investigate her claims. It was strongly implied that Anderson was a missing Kashubian factory worker, Franziska Schanzkowska. Franziska was reported to have received wounds from dropping a grenade in munitions factory where she worked. A foreman was eviscerated before her eyes Such an injury would account for the body scarring of the claimant.This was denied by her family. Anderson claimed that her scars were from the execution, which she barely escaped.

Upon seeing Miss Unknown's photo in the newspaper, a blurb from, according to a judge in Hamburg, which you could recognize anybody or nobody Doris Wingender, daughter of Franziska Schanzkowska's former landlady, came forward and identified her as their missing boarder. Wingender explained that during the summer of 1922, she had reappeared at her home, telling she had been living with Russian emigres' who had mistaken her for someone else. According to Mrs. Grabitsch, Franzisca reappared in spring, but detective Knopf said it had to be August to coincide with Anna's three day disappearance from the Kleist's. So they compromised and said "summer". Doris and Anna had even allegedly exchanged clothing, and the von Kleists, according to the Nachtausgabe and Knopf, verified the attire in Wingender's possession as that of their guest. In spite of Baroness Kleist signing a notarized affidavit stating that the Nachtausgabe was lying. In a meeting of the two women face to face after this accusation, the reporters present noticed that they obviously knew one another. The claimant became upset when she saw Wingender, shouting in German "That thing must get out!" The Duke of Leuchtenberg, who at first believed the Schanzkowska story, was also present, and he realized that the two women had never met before. According to the Duke of Leuchtenberg, the claimant said politely: "Bitte, das soll rausgehen." Faith Lavington, English nanny at Castle Seeon, wrote in her diary that her belief in Anderson was shaken after the meeting, since Anderson was obviously upset by the visit from Wingender. "Why would one treat an unknown person in such a way?" Anna's supporters refuted Wingender's identifaction on the grounds that she would be paid 1500 DM by the newspaper if her story turned out to be true. Harriet von Rathlef Keilmann together with her lawyer set up a meeting between Anderson and Franziska Schanzkowska's brother Felix. When Felix saw Anderson and asked who she was he declared "That is my sister Franziska". Felix, upon being asked to sign an affidavit, changed his mind and stated that he would not sign a false affidavit that could land him in jail. "I will not sign it. That is definitely not my sister." He then pointed out several differences between his sister and Anna Anderson. Dmitri Leuchtenberg, son of the Duke, was present at the meeting and later wrote that Felix did say she was his sister, but later, after the two talked alone out of earshot, he came back and denied her. It must be considered that claiming such a sister would not have helped either of them, and would have caused numerous legal and financial woes for her, and possibly her relations, should it be revealed she filed a false claim. Felix said to Dr. Völler that "it was totally clear to him that the lady had no idea who he was."

It is interesting to note that in 1938, Anderson had a final meeting with the Schankowski family. Gertrude Schankowska hammered her fists on the table and shouted, "You are my sister! You are my sister! I know it! You must recognise me!" But none of the siblings ever signed an affidavit to the fact that Anna Anderson was their sister. , Felix Schanzkowski was later quoted by his daughter as saying "We left her to her 'career' as 'Anastasia.'" Much consideration should be given to the family's 'denial' due to the fact that since the Nazi government had arranged the meeting to determine her identity, she would have been incarcerated if she had been accepted as Schanzkowska.

Protocols from Dalldorf allege that she spoke Russian with the nurses. Nurse Erna Buchholz testified under oath that she "spoke Russian like a native." Later, she refused to speak Russian, and although she clearly understood it, she would only respond in German. She explained her unwillingness to speak Russian by saying that she was unwilling to use the language spoken by the people who murdered her family, as they were not allowed to speak any other language in the Ipatiev House. Prince Christopher of Greece said "In the first place she was unable to speak Russian, which the Grand Duchess Anastasia, like all the Czar's children, had talked fluently, and would only converse in German.

Though her supporters tried to embellish her Russian abilities, they frequently made excuses for her failures. Tatiana Botkin and Harriet Rathlef claimed "Anastasia" had 'forgotten' the languages after her injuries. "She has not only forgotten languages, but she has in general lost the power of accurate narration...even the simplest stories she tells incoherently and incorrectly; strung together in impossibly ungrammatical German." It must be noted that Franzisca Schanzkowska was a German native and, according to her brother Felix, spoke German well.

In 1927, the Berlin police did officially accept Darmstadt's identification of the claimant as Schanzkowska But the police never revoked her passport under the name of Tschaikovski, and refused to give in to repeated requests from Darmstadt that she be expelled or arrested for fraud. Franziska Schanzkowska was always the only other possible suspect for the identity of Anna Anderson besides Anastasia. With the successful match of her mtDNA with that of Franziska's great nephew, Karl Maucher, it seems highly likely Knopf, despite decades of demonizing by Anderson's supporters, was right all along.

Anna Anderson vs. relatives of Grand Duchess Anastasia

Franziska Schanzkowska in 1916

Anderson's legal battle for recognition was the longest running case that was ever heard by the German courts. As early as 1925, Anderson had allegedly claimed that there was a large fortune awaiting the heir of the Tsar. The first signs of trouble began in 1928, when 24 hours after the Dowager Empress's death, a statement signed by 12 Romanovs and three of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna's family was released making their views abundantly clear:

"It was their "unanimous conviction that the person currently living in the United States is not the daughter of the Tsar." The signatories were Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna; Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, her six sons, and her daughter; Princess Irina, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich; Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna; the Grand Duke of Hesse and his sisters Princess Irene of Prussia and Victoria, Dowager Marchioness of Milford-Haven. Of these people, only Olga had actually seen Anna Anderson. To the end of his life in 1979, Lord Mountbatten and other members of various royal families believed this to be the case.

It was then that Gleb Botkin reacted with the infamous insulting letter which forever drove a wedge between Anderson's supporters and opponents:

"Your Imperial Highness!

Twenty four hours did not pass after the death of your mother when you hastened to take another step in the conspiracy against your niece...Before the wrong which Your Imperial Highness is committing, even the gruesome murder of the Emperor, his family and my father by the Bolsheviks pales! It is easier to understand a crime committed by a gang of crazed and drunken savages than the calm, systematic, endless persecution of one of your own family, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna, whose only fault is that, being the only rightful heir to the late Emperor, she stands in the way of her greedy and unscrupuous relatives."

According to Gleb Botkin, the claimant had been told by Danish Ambassador Zahle that if she did not act soon, any money left in English banks in the names of the Imperial family after ten years would be given to Grand Duchess Xenia. Since the tenth anniversary of the deaths of the family was in the summer of 1928, it now became urgent for her backers to get some sort of legal claim going in order to fight them. Gleb Botkin secured the services of New York Attorney Edward Fallows to represent her interests. Botkin and Fallows were the people who brought out the essentials of her monetary claims. Fallows moved to block any of the rumored fortune in English banks from being paid out before AA was identified. This was the beginning of what was to become a long legal struggle. Anderson first refused to take the case to court. She finally changed her mind after she learned that Grand Duchess Xenia had sued for return of the Tsar's land in Finland.

Fallows was given Anderson's power of attorney and set up "Grandanor" (it stood for Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia)Corporation to finance her case. It sold shares in the supposed fortune "Anastasia" stood to gain. Fallows himself was to receive one fourth of all monies obtained in her name under $400,000 and 10% thereafter. Dr. Gunter Von Berenberg-Gossler, attorney for the opposition in the Anderson trials of the 1950s-60s, believed that although wishful thinking in Russian émigré circles played a part in the affair, money was the principal motivation behind Anderson's claims: the supposed lost fortune of the Tsar was estimated at US$80,000,000. “I believe it was at the beginning of the 1930's a corporation (Grandanor) came into existence," he says, "which sold certificates in proportion to tsarist gold rubles allegedly held by the Bank of England and redeemable if or when Anderson should "inherit" said funds. These papers were not worth anything. They served only to enrich the initiator."

Anderson claimed Nicholas II had told her-as "Anastasia" in Siberia- that he had deposited five million rubles in the name of each of his daughters in The Bank of England. Gleb Botkin stated his father had told him he had heard the same. Later, when no money was found there, it was believed that she had meant a bank in England. By the end of 1929, the New York Times had run stories stating there was reason to believe large sums of money and gold, which had been hidden from the Tsar's enemies and totaling as much as in the thousands of millions, lay in banks in England, Paris, the US, and Canada. This left no question, Anderson's claim had turned from 'recognition' to a fight for her 'inheritance.' From a letter to Mr. Kügelgen, July 8, 1928 from Grand Duke Andrew: "The second question is that of material interests being involved. Long before the "Unknown" appeared, I carefully investigated all the rumours concerning the existence of the millions alleged to have been left by the late Tsar; in every case these rumours proved to be unfounded, as I expected. Unfortunately it has to be borne in mind that this statement is being used as a means of throwing suspicion on all who took any part in my inquiries, by accusing them of being influenced by self-interest and speculative motives."

In October 1935, Fallows wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler in an attempt to gather his support. Fallows addressed the Führer as 'Honored' and 'esteemed' sir, and used unkind comments about Jews, claiming they had killed "Anastasia's" family, while she had 'miraculously escaped'. Hitler never responded.

In 1938, when several relatives of the Tsar and Tsarina were to collect a certificate of inheritance in German court to gain access to what funds of the Tsar were left in the Mendellsohn bank,(about $100,000 US) Anderson's lawyer petitioned the court to claim the money before it was handed out to relatives, who declared all the Imperial family to be dead. Anderson’s lawyers claimed that Grand Duchess Anastasia was still alive. Her supporters fought for her claim. Later, once the money had been distributed to the relatives, Anna's lawyers decided to sue Barbara Mecklenburg, granddaughter of Anastasia's aunt Irene, for 'denying Anastasia's identity and spending her money', though it's thought she was chosen simply because she lived in Germany.

Through the years, both sides brought many witnesses, and there totaled some 800 pages of testimony. Experts were called to compare the features of Anna Anderson with the Tsar's daughter. Professors Eyckstedt, Klenke and Reche all concluded that, according to photographic comparisons, the faces of Anna Anderson and Grand Duchess Anastasia were identical., Her ear was declared by an expert, Moritz Furtmayr, to be identical in 17 anatomical points to Anastasia's. , Some 20 years later, Dr. Peter Vanezis confirmed the likeness of the ears.(In 1994, British forensics expert Geoffrey Oxlee compared photos of Schanzkowska and Anderson using computer fusion, and found them to be identical.) Her handwriting was declared by graphologists Lucy Weiszäcker and Dr. Minna Becker to be identical to that of the Grand Duchess. Anderson's handwriting was also analysed by Maurice Delamain, the former president of the French Graphological Society, and he concluded in Anderson's favor. Anderson's legal teams, like their opposition, were articulate and well organized. German Courts heard an almost endless procession of handwriting experts, historians, and forensic scientists scrutinizing photographs and documents usually contradicting opposing depositions. Her opponents, including Anastasia's first cousin, Lord Mountbatten, nephew of Tsarina Alexandra and the Grand Duke of Hesse, fought just as hard, to prove she was the missing Kaschub factory worker, Franziska Schanzkowska. According to Dr. Gunter Berenberg-Gossler, opposing attorney in the Anderson case for twelve years, blood tests proved Anderson shared a blood type with the Schanzkowska siblings.

The judgment came on May 15. "The claim is unfounded," read the verdict. The counterclaim had also been defeated - the claim that Anderson was actually the missing Franzisca Schanzkowska. The counterclaim was dismissed in the judgment merely on the grounds that it was "irrelevant," although the identity with Franziska, in the judges' opinion, was "eminently likely."

The legal case continued until 1970, when the court determined that she had not provided sufficient proof to claim the identity of the Grand Duchess. Her supporter Peter Kurth held that the death of Grand Duchess Anastasia had never been established as a historically proven fact. Repeated DNA testing by independent laboratories on all the Romanov remains have since proved this theory completely wrong. .

Even in years past, there had been declarations by the Bolsheviks that Anastasia had been killed, though they were disregarded by supporters. Peter Voikov had remembered that "The tsarina´s maid Anna Demidova and the youngest daughter Anastasia are still breathing. Two of the Letts from the Cheka ran forward to finish off Anna Demidova and the youngest daughter Anastasia. One of the Letts drove a bayonet through Anastasia´s face." The Bolshevik Sukhorukov had told the story of the burning of Alexei and Anastasia, long denied, but now proven fact: "We decided to burn two corpses on the fire and did so. For our sacrificial altar we got the last heir. The second body was the youngest daughter Anastasia. After the corpses were burned, we scattered the ashes, dug a pit in the centre, shoveled in all the unburnt remainders, made a fire again on the same spot and finished the work"

Dr. Von Berenberg-Gossler said he believed the desire of the press to sensationalise the story led to only one side being told, which caused only the romanticised version to survive. He said during Anderson's German court cases the press were always more interested in reporting her side of the story than the opposing side's less glamorous perspective. He claimed that editors often pulled journalists off the story after they reported testimony delivered by Anderson's side. He claimed journalists ignored rebuttal evidence, which meant the public seldom received a complete picture of the evidence presented.

Marriage and death

After moving to the United States in 1928, Anderson lived for several months on Long Island with Mrs. William B. Leeds (born Princess Xenia Georgievna Romanova of Russia), a daughter of Grand Duke George Mihailovich of Russia and Princess Maria Georgievna of Greece and Denmark, until she was asked to leave after quarreling. Prince Christopher of Greece described the stay: "She stayed with my niece, ... who showed her the greatest kindness, Then her treatment of the Grand Duchess Xenia, sister of the last Tsar, led to a quarrel with William Leeds, who turned her out of the house. According to Botkin, the reason for the break in relations with the Leeds was, that Anna Anderson was offered a house "somewhere in Europe" and an allowance for life as long as she dropped her claim. Otherwise she was to leave the Leeds' estate within 24 hours. Ms. Anderson refused, and decided to leave.

Princess Xenia Georgievna, who had played with Anastasia when they were children, was of the opinion that Anna Anderson was Anastasia and didn't change her mind even when she asked Anderson to leave her home. "One of the most convincing elements of her personality," Princess Xenia recalled later, "was a completely unconscious acceptance of her identity. She was herself at all times and never gave the slightest impression of acting a part. I am firmly convinced that the claimant is, in fact, Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia."

Gilliard pointed out that Princess Xenia had last seen her second cousin when Xenia was 10 and Anastasia was 12. Xenia responded that she didn't recognize Anastasia visually, but felt she was qualified to tell the difference between a member of the Romanov family and a "Polish peasant woman." Anderson bore a strong family resemblance to Tsarina Alexandra's family and her moodiness and temper also reminded Xenia of her cousin Anastasia. Xenia's sister, Nina, met Anderson for five minutes and came to no conclusion about her identity. Princess Nina did indicate that Anderson seemed to her to be a "lady of good society" who could speak Russian. It is interesting to note what Prince Dmitri, son of Grand Duchess Xenia wrote about what Princess Xenia had stated, "Xenia's irresponsible statement should be somehow refuted ... We know she left Russia in 1914 aged 10 years old, I also know that Nina (her sister) and Xenia never saw Uncle Nicky's family very often, and when they did see them that was when they were very young."

The pianist Sergei Rachmaninov arranged for Anderson to live in a comfortable hotel suite at the Garden City Hotel on Long Island. She booked in as Mrs. Eugene Anderson to avoid the press. She never used the name Tschaikovsky again.

In early 1929 she moved in with Annie B. Jennings, a wealthy Park Avenue spinster eager to have a daughter of the Tsar living under her roof. For 18 months she was the toast of New York society. Then a pattern of self-destructive behaviour began to occur culminating in her throwing tantrums and even on one occasion running naked back and forth on the roof. Finally Judge Peter Schmuck of the New York Supreme Court signed an order committing her to a mental hospital, without having her examined by a doctor. She remained in the Four Winds Sanatorium for over a year. In August 1932, Anderson returned to Germany accompanied by a private nurse in a locked cabin on the liner Deutschland. Her Park Avenue benefactress, Annie B. Jennings paid for this voyage, as she had paid $25,000 for the one year stay at the Four Winds Sanatorium, and as she would pay for an additional six months cure at Ilten psychiatric home near Hanover. At Ilten, she was at once told that she was free to go, there was nothing mentally wrong with her.

In 1949, Prince Frederick of Saxe-Altenburg settled her in a former army barracks in the village of Unterlengenhardt, a small village on the edge of the Black Forest in Germany. Anna became a sort of tourist attraction in the area for years. She rarely left the residence. In 1968, Anna arrived home from her visit to Mathilde Kschessinska and was horrified to find Prince Frederich had had her abode cleaned, and her Irish Wolfhound, Baby, and 40 cats put to death. Heartbroken and furious, Anna was more than ready to accept Gleb Botkin's offer to move her to the United States.

In 1968, upon returning to the U.S.A., Anderson married an American supporter, John Eacott Manahan. Manahan enjoyed being Anderson's husband. He sometimes described himself as "Grand Duke-in-Waiting." The couple lived in a house on University Circle in Charlottesville, Virginia, and also owned a farm near Scottsville. The following year, after finding her a final home and support, her old friend Gleb Botkin died.

On August 20, 1979, after several days of vomiting and stubbornly refusing help, Anderson was rushed to Charlottesville's Martha Jefferson Hospital. Dr. Richard Shrum operated immediately. He found obstruction and gangrene in the small intestine caused by attachment to an ovarian tumour. He removed almost a foot of the intestine, resectioned the bowel, and closed the wound. Dr. Shrum commented, "She remained reclusive, did not talk to people and smiled rarely. She would sit around with a handkerchief held up to her nose as if she were afraid of catching something."

Anna and her husband "Jack" Manahan became quite well known in the Charlottesville and Scottsville areas as local eccentrics, driving around in a battered station wagon full of trash and dogs. Her mental illness had deteriorated so badly she suffered delusions of believing the KGB was trying to kill her. She set traps of trash all around her yard to catch them, and refused to eat out of anything metal in fear of being poisoned. Though Manahan was a wealthy man, he and Anna lived in squalor with large numbers of dogs, cats, rats and garbage. Her husband made excuses by saying "This is how Anastasia likes to live". When one of her pets died, Anna would cremate it in the fireplace, believing it was a reincarnated friend, and would be reincarnated again. Also in her later years, she changed her 'escape' story several more times, one time claiming the entire family had escaped and been replaced by doubles. In his book, James Lowell writes that Anastasia Manahan told him different escape stories. She relayed that in the Ipatiev House, the entire Imperial family except the tsarevich had been repeatedly raped, all of them being forced to watch as each other was violated.

In November 1983, she was institutionalised. A few days later she was kidnapped by Manahan, and for three days they drove down Virginia backroads stopping to eat at convenience stores. A 13-state police alarm finally produced an arrest and her return to a psychiatric ward.

On February 12, 1984, she died of pneumonia. Her body was cremated that afternoon and her ashes were buried in the spring in the churchyard at Castle Seeon in Germany.

DNA tests

In 1991, the bodies of the royal family were exhumed, and it was discovered that the bodies of Alexei, and one of his sisters, identified as Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia by Russian scientists and as Grand Duchess Anastasia by American scientists, were not in the grave. The mitochondrial DNA of the bones unearthed from a forest grave, presumed to be those of Alexandra and three of her daughters, were compared to that of the Duke of Edinburgh, whose maternal grandmother Princess Victoria of Hesse and the Rhine was a sister of Alexandra. This proved to be a match.

Anderson's tissue sample was later discovered stored at Martha Jefferson Hospital. Anderson’s DNA was compared with those of the Romanovs, at the suggestion of Marina Botkin Schweitzer, the daughter of Gleb Botkin. Anderson’s DNA sample did not match that of the Duke of Edinburgh or that of the bones, meaning that the tissue sample tested belonging to Anderson could not have belonged to Anastasia. At the press conference, Dr. Peter Gill stated,

If one accepts that this sample is from Anna Anderson, then it is almost impossible that she could have been Anastasia.

He further stated,

the sample said to have come from Anna Anderson could not be associated with a maternal relative of the empress or Prince Philip. That is definite.

Subsequent comparisons with DNA samples provided by Franziska Schanzkowska's great nephew Karl Maucher were a match, meaning he shared the same mitochondrial DNA profile as Anderson. Dr. Gill stated about the Anderson tissue and Karl Maucher,

a one hundred per cent match, an absolute identity. This suggests that Karl Maucher may be a relative of Anna Anderson.

There were also several strands of hair tested which produced the same mtDNA sequence as the tissue. The hair came from a woman who claimed she found the hair at a used bookstore in Chapel Hill, NC. Inside a book that belonged to Jack Manahan, there was an envelope which read "Anastasia's hair." Inside were several strands of hair that she gave to Anderson biographer Peter Kurth. He in turn gave them to a BBC reporter who in turn transferred them to Aldermaston for DNA testing. The hair did not match that of the Romanov remains.

The DNA tests came as an unexpected shock to those involved with Anastasia Manahan. Richard Schweitzer and his wife Marina Botkin Schweitzer as well as Brian Horan, a Connecticut lawyer were stunned at the results. Few who had known her were willing to accept that this woman was a Kaschub girl who had been working in the factories. They argue that she could not have known so much about the Imperial family’s life, and have so much inside knowledge of the imperial family and could not reconcile their impressions of Anna Anderson with having been a Kaschub peasant born when, they say, class distinctions were so great. In spite of the DNA evidence, Anderson's supporters have attempted to point out what they say are differences between Franziska Schanzkowska and Anna Anderson, such as the languages they spoke and physical differences. Schweitzer commented,

I know one thing for certain. Anastasia was not a Polish peasant.

The London Evening Standard newspaper described Schweitzer as

displaying the tireless enthusiasm of the sort which keeps the 'Flat Earth Society' in business.

Sir Brian McGrath, spokesman for Prince Philip stated on the release of the DNA results,

Game, set, match! Anna Anderson is out!

Prince Rotislav Romanov declared,

It's over.

while Prince Nicholas Romanov stated,

I've been vindicated.

Peter Kurth, a long-time supporter of Anna Anderson, never wavered in his personal belief that she was Anastasia:

The DNA tests have won the hour, and will probably stand as the final word on the case that has left everyone who came near it, for or against, with a sense of tragedy and persisting, nagging doubts.

He added,

No one doubted that whoever she was, she had been traumatised.

The only surviving photograph of Schanzkowska was taken when she was 20, in 1916. Some have described her as an "attractive, bright eyed, intelligent young woman." Her childhood friends remembered her as pretentious, putting on airs and graces. One historian speculated that Schanzkowska must have taught herself etiquette and deportment, like socially ambitious girls of her class and generation, though such allegations do not account for Anna Anderson's knowledge of the Imperial Family's intimate life, as related by Kurth. Peter Kurth asserted in his Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson that the photo of Schanzkowska has been frequently retouched.

It is worthwhile to look back at what the real Grand Duchess Anastasia's aunt, the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna had said about Anderson many years earlier,

But the whole story is palpably false. I was convinced then, as I am now, that it is so from beginning to end. Just think of the supposed rescuers - vanishing into thin air, as it were! Had Nicky's daughter been really saved, her rescuers would have known just what it meant to them. Every royal house in Europe would have rewarded them. Why, I am sure that my mother would not have hesitated to empty her jewel-box in gratitude. There is not one tittle of genuine evidence in the story.

2007 discovery of remains and 2008 results

On August 23, 2007, a Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of two burned, partial skeletons at a bonfire site near Yekaterinburg that appeared to match the site described in Yurovsky's memoirs. The archaeologists said the bones are from a boy who was roughly between the ages of 10 and 13 years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was roughly between the ages of 18 and 23 years old. Anastasia was 17 years, one month old at the time of the assassination, while her sister Maria was 19 years, one month old, and her brother Alexei was two weeks shy of his 14th birthday. Anastasia's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were 22 and 21 years old at the time of the assassination. Along with the remains of the two bodies, archaeologists found "shards of a container of sulfuric acid, nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber." The bones were found using metal detectors and metal rods as probes. Tests have been repeatedly and independently conducted on the remains to determine that they are the remains of the two missing Romanov children.

Preliminary testing indicated a "high degree of probability" that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters, Russian forensic scientists announced on January 22, 2008. The testing began in late December 2007 and was originally scheduled to be completed by February 2008. However, scientists with the Sverdlovsk Regional Medical Forensic Bureau and a Moscow laboratory were still conducting testing. One report indicated uncertainty about when the final report would be released. The Yekaterinburg region's chief forensic expert Nikolai Nevolin indicated the results will be compared against those obtained by foreign experts and a final report could be issued by April or May 2008. On April 30, 2008, The Associated Press, BBC, Reuters, CBS, CNN and other news organisations reported that the regional governor for the Ekaterinburg, Russia, area, officially announced that the DNA tests indeed proved that the fragments found in 2007 were those of the last two missing children, declaring

Now we have the whole family.

Independent DNA testing carried out by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA, made public in July 2008, on the final two remains confirmed the earlier Russian findings that the last two remains were indeed members of the Romanov family murdered in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg. All members of Nicholas II's immediate family have now been accounted for officially. In March 2009, the complete scientific results on the DNA tests were published by Dr. Michael Coble of the US Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, proving all four Grand Duchesses with four separate nuclear DNA profiles have been found and identified. This is the final proof that Anna Anderson and all other claimants were imposters.

Anna in popular culture

In 1928, a film was made based very loosely on the woman who would one day be called "Anna Anderson". It was a silent film called "Clothes Make the Woman".

In 1956 there was a film made about a figure based on Anna Anderson, Anastasia, starring Ingrid Bergman as Anna/Anastasia, and Yul Brynner; however, this film is highly fictionalised.

The 1997 animated film of the same name was based on the 1956 film, but is even more fictionalized; the only connection between that film and Anna Anderson is that her story inspired the earlier film. Indeed, in the 1997 film the title character (only known as "Anastasia" or "Anya", never "Anna") unbelievably turned out to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, even though that film was released after the discovery of the Romanov remains (though not the second gravesite) and the DNA tests on Anna Anderson's remains.

NBC ran a two-part fictionalised mini-series in December, 1986 titled "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna" which starred Amy Irving and won her a Golden Globe nomination. It was based on Anna Anderson's biography, written by Peter Kurth.

Kevin Hearn of the band Barenaked Ladies wrote a song called "Anna, Anastasia" for his solo album H-Wing.

Tori Amos wrote a song titled 'Yes, Anastasia' for her Under the Pink album inspired by the spirit of Anna Anderson.

In 2006, Diana Norman, writing under the pseudonym Ariana Franklin, published a novel "City of Shadows," a fictionalised account of Anderson's time in Berlin from 1920 to 1933. In it she seems to accept that Anderson was in fact a fraud, but invents a colourful post-Revolution history for the Grand Duchess herself.

See also

• Romanov claimants

References

98.http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004838

Books, Letters and Articles

• Romanov, Alexander Mikhailovich, Grand Duke (1933). Always A Grand Duke. Cassell. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

• Greece, Christopher, Prince (1938). Memoirs of HRH Prince Christopher of Greece. London: The Right Book Club. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Hall, Coryne (1999). Little Mother of Russia - A Biography of Empress Marie Feodorovna. London: Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd. ISBN 0 85683 177 8. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Van der Kiste, John (2002). Once A Grand Duchess: Xiena, Sister of Nicholas II. Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0 7509 2749 6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• King, Greg (2003). The Fate of the Romanovs. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Kurth, Peter (1995). Anastasia: The Life of Anna Anderson. Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-5954-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Kurth, Peter (1997?). Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson. Back Bay. ISBN 0-316-50717-2. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Kurth, Peter (1995). Tsar. Toronto: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-50787-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Lovell, James Blair (1998). Anastasia: The Lost Princess. Robson. ISBN 0-86051-807-8. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Lerche, Anna (2003). A Royal Family : The Story Of Christian IX And His European Descendants. Egmont Lademann A/S Denmark. ISBN 87-15-10957-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Klier, John (1999). The Quest for Anastasia: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Romanovs. Citadel. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Massie, Robert K. (1971). Nicholas and Alexandra. London: Pan Books. ISBN 0 330 02213 X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Massie, Robert K. (1995). The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. Secaucus, NJ: Carol. ISBN 0-8065-2064-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Godl, John (1998). Remembering Anna Anderson. "The European Royal History Journal", Issue VI: August 1998., Arturo Beeche, Publisher, Oakland,. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
• Von Rahl, Frau (19 June-4 July 1925). The Notes of Frau Von Rahl. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Yussopov, Felix, Prince (19 September 1927). Letter of Prince Felix Yussopov to Grand Duke Andrei,. Hamburg. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Knodt, Manfred (1997). Ernst Ludwig: Grossherzog von Hessen und bei Rhein. Sein Leben und seine Zeit,. Darmstadt: Schlapp. ISBN 3-87704-006-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• von Hessen und bei Rhein, Ernst Ludwig, Grossherzog (1916). Ernst Ludwig, Grossherzog von Hessen und bei Rhein - Tagebuch,. Homburg: Hessiche Hausstiftung. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Vorres, Ian (2001 revised edition). The Last Grand Duchess. Key Porter Books. ISBN 13 978-1552633021. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Vorres, Ian (1985 3rd edition). The Last Grand Duchess. London: Finedawn Publishers. p. 256. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

• Anastasia: The Unmasking Of Anna Anderson - An online article on why Anna Anderson was not Grand Duchess Anastasia.
• Anna Anderson Exposed: Fact Fiction and Fantasy - a site challenging the identity of Anna Anderson
• Jack & Anna: Remembering the czar of Charlottesville eccentrics - an article on Jack and Anna Manahan and their eccentric life in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA after their marriage.
• Anastasia and Anna Anderson — A narrative of Anastasia’s death.
• Article by Peter Kurth — Peter Kurth, tells why he doesn't believe Anna Anderson was Franziska Schanzkowska.
• Greg King replying to Bob Atchison on the Ekaterinburg Romanov bones - A site where Greg King tries to refute Bob Atchison's explanation of the Ekaterinburg Romanov bones.
• Article by Rey Barry — Journalist Rey Barry — friend of Anna Anderson and Jack Manahan, and a supporter of her claims.
• Anastasia: Duchess in Disguise — another website trying to argue that photographs of Anna Anderson look like Anastasia.
• Anna Anderson/ Anastasia Manahan — A paper written by a supporter with a list of reasons why they surmise that Anna Anderson was Anastasia.
• Anastasia: The Truth - A website by Andrew W. Hartsook, giving his opinions about Anastasia and Anna Anderson.
• Anastasia vs. Anna Anderson- A web site with a number of articles on Anastasia vs. Anna Anderson.