The plot of Warmelo Castle in Diepenheim, 1956 By Peter Weij Princess Armgard, mother of prince Bernhard, who had a short-lived marriage with Bodo, Count of Oeynhaussen, was known as 'Tolle Lola' in Berlin. Berlin had a reputation, in the days of the Empire and later too, during the Weimar-period, of frivolity. No other capital, except for Paris, could measure up to the German one. Our prince was there often too and he later worked in Paris, for the intelligence service of chemistry-concern IG Farben. His later tutor, colonel Pantchoulidzew, nicknamed 'Rasputin', a stablehand, later to be later life partner of princess Armgard, helped Bernard to get the job, and himself worked for the German Abwehr for some time. Armgard remarried to prince Bernhard sr. and took up residence at the Reckenwalde Estate in the Polish-Prussian territory. The father of Bernhard jr. travelled a lot and spent little time at home. He died at a young age. Bernhard's real tutor (and of his brother Aschwin), from day one, was the mysterious colonel Pantchoulidzew. Until her death in 1968 he remained Armgard's regular companion. 'Tschuli' (his nickname) was an utterly cynical and right-wing man. During and before the war Armgard let on that they embraced nazism. During the war Bernhard kept in contact with his brother, who was placed in a special unit of the German army, the 'Brandenburg unit', of Abwehr-chief Canaris and his mother. The British and Dutch secret services have always known and condoned this. The then queen Wilhelmina greatly disliked princess Armgard. Wilhelmina principally disapproved of divorced people. Also, Wilhelmina found her very decadent. She smoked a lot of cigarettes from an eccentric pipe and she had a very spoilt monkey. Habits like those could not enchant Wilhelmina. It was Wilhelmina too, who for a long time managed to prevent Armgard and her life companion from settling here. In 1938 Armgard wished to permanently settle in the Netherlands - the mortgage fees for the Reckenwalde-Woynowa Estate (which had become Polish territory after the war) were too much of a load for the couple. Wilhelmina supplied money to lighten the housing expenses, so that Armgard could keep living there and would not come to the Netherlands. At the end of the war, on the approach of the Red Army, princess Armgard received permission to move to Bad Driburg, the region of origin of the Von Lippes. Most coincidentally, in the footsteps of the American 1st army under the leadership of General Courtney Hodges, prince Bernhard met the emaciated, but otherwise healthy Armgard and her companion. Bernhard wanted to get his mother to the Netherlands, but only managed to do this after Wilhelmina's abdication. Bernhard had bought the Oersberg Estate along the 's-Gravenlandseweg on the westside of Hilversum, but Armgard did not accept her new residence. After that, the two lived in a house that Bernhard had bought in Obersdorf on the Rhine for a while. Only by the summer of 1956 did Bernhard, for Armgard and 'Tschuli', in Overijssel's Diepenheim, about halfway between Soestdijk Palace and the German border, find Warmelo Castle. This pretty castle, with its well maintained park, cost Bernhard a large sum of money. He even had to go begging with prince Philip Mountbatten, husband of the current British queen. He did so without inhibition, according to witnesses during the olympic horsegames in Stockholm. Until their death Armgard and Pantchoulidzew lived at Warmelo Castle, and the couple intensively interfered with Bernhard's family affairs. At Warmelo Castle, during the 'Greet Hofman-affair' the marital conflict between the pacifist queen Juliana and the atlanticist and extreme right Bernhard, a plot was hatched, a conspiracy against the monarch, the current princess Juliana. Armgard and 'the colonel' were the spider in the web during this conflict. In the period before the 'Greet Hofman-affair' the mysterious 'Raspoetin', Armgard's companion, made the headlines. 'Colonel' Pantchoulidzew was said to have worked for the German secret service, the 'Abwehr' of Canaris, for a long time. This was a sensational event, so shortly after the war in 1956. Luckily, in the critical phase of the investigation into his Abwehr-past, the court's conflict came as a blessing for Armgard and her colonel. The Abwehr cooperated intensely with 'Berlin NW7', the espionage-service of IG Farben, Bernhard's employer in Paris. During the Hofman-affair, in which the marital problems between Juliana and Bernhard were blamed on the faith healer, who had nota bene been introduced to Soestdijk by prince Bernhard, at the advice of the extreme right general Koot (a former resistance mate of Bernhard's, after whom a barracks in Stroe on the Veluwe was named), many matters relating to this affair were discussed at Warmelo Castle. Even politicians like the faction leader of the Catholic People's Party or KVP (Romme, who was renowned as a staunch anti-parliamentarian and authoritarian) and the weak polderboy Drees (PvdA, the Dutch equivalent of Labour) were always running in and out with Armgard and confederates, and discussed matters concerning the monarchy with Armgard, Bernhard, the 'colonel', Beatrix and Irene. Armgard and her colonel had, in those days, a lot of influence over both the oldest princesses, to the great dismay of queen Juliana and princess Wilhelmina. Warmelo was not an appropriate environment for the princesses. The clique of Warmelo was also influential with respect to the marriage of Irene with the catholic, carlistic, right-wing prince Karel Hugo. After the committee of three, the Orange-lackeys Gerbrandy (old ARP-prime minister of the war cabinet in London, who had had many a rift with the self-willed Wilhelmina) Prof. Beel (the viceroy of the Netherlands in later days, vice-president of the Raad van State, a post now held by Tjeenk Willink of the PvdA, who by the way is a paladin of the House of Orange too) and Van Starkenborg Stachouer, the last governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, called into existance as a committee in order to do research into Greet Hofman's influence on Juliana and a possible solution to the marital crises between both royal Highnesses, had shown both Greet Hofmans and half of Juliana's royal household the door, with the help of Van Maasland who was on Juliana's side, messages from the special steward Baron van Heeckeren Molenschat explaining that at Warmelo Castle, by princess Armgard, the colonel, prince Bernhard and our current queen Beatrix a plot was hatched, with the knowledge of Drees and Romme, to depose queen Juliana and lock her up in the Ursula-clinic in Wassenaar. Prince Bernhard would then have been regent for Beatrix, until she became 18. And so Bernhard had almost become viceroy of Holland (which he had already once proposed, in a letter dated april 24th, 1942, to the national-socialist dictator and mass murderer Adolf Hitler). Warmelo Castle was sold for a million guilders, in 1971, via a very shady bank of Rosenbaum's, a Jewish banker, who had ties to Meyer Lansky, one of the mafia bosses of New York. Bernhard sold it at the same moment that he endeavoured to buy back the old estate of Reckenwalde-Woynowo. If that place, of Warmelo Castle, could speak about all that has happened within the walls of this beautiful castle, then we should be filled with at least some dread. Yet queen Beatrix and 'the king of Holland', as Margarita calls her grandpa prince Bernhard, have managed to cleanly tuck Juliana away in the current Soester wing of the Soestdijk royal palace. According to sources and allegations by, among others, Willem Oltmans, who has good contacts within the palace walls, our beloved old queen is having a very hard time. Sources: 'Prins Bernhard - een politieke biografie', 1979, Wim Klinkenberg ISBN 90 6265042 2 'Crisis op Soestdijk - Nederland als bananenmonarchie', J.G. Kikkert, 1996, ISBN 90 6728079 8 'Politieke geschiedenis van Nederland - oorlog en herstel', Jac. S. Hoek, 1970 ISBN 90 218 4020 0 'Beel van vazal tot onderkoning', Lambert J. Giebels, gewijzigde uitgave 2001, ISBN 90 12 09264 7 '50 miljoen euro voor Margarita', Willem Oltmans, from 'Spits' d.d. March 11th, 2003 Back