Harry Domela

Who was Harry Domela?

Harry Domela was a Latvian-born impostor who pretended to be a deposed German crown prince.

Harry Domela was born to German parents in 1905 in Kurland, Latvia. At the age of fifteen he fought in the first Freikorps against Baltic rebels. He moved to Germany after the World War I. His brothers and his father had died in the war.

Domela was too young to join the army corp after the war and thus held numerous menial jobs. At this same time he was imprisoned several times for his experimenting with impostures of various titles including Baron Korff.

His big break came when he went to Heidelberg and impressed himself on the members of German nobility who had been stripped of their official titles by the Weimar Republic. He presented himself as "Prince Lieven of Latvia" but managed to create an impression that this was only part of the truth. Aristocrats noticed his resemblance to Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern, grandson of deposed Kaiser. In no time, upper class circles were rife with rumors that he was in fact the heir of the German throne who was traveling incognito.

As a result when he traveled in Thuringia and Prussia local pro-monarchy dignitaries and businessmen entertained him at their own expense. He never asked for or received money from them. Soon however he began to attract the attention of the press and thus suspected that his imposture would soon be over. Eventually he decided to leave for France to try to join the French Foreign Legion. He was arrested when he was boarding the train.