FATE OF HUGE FORTUNE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 January 1931, Page 9

FATE OF HUGE FORTUNE

DISAPPOINTED RELATIVES

ECCENTRIC BACHELOR’S WILL The fate of the huge fortune—variously estimated at from £5,000,000 to £10,000,0(KL-of the late Albert Loeske, the Gorman financier, jeweller, and art dealer, has been decided (says the “Daily Telegraph”). The Berlin Court awarded the fortune to Loeske’s manager, Herr Oppenheimer, Frau Oppenheimer, and his lifelong friend, Frau Rosa Blaustein, while his 300 blood relations, who contested the will, went empty away. . The kindred of the eccentric, bachelor who refused to have anything to do with them during his lieftune put forward tho alternative pleas, that the will was a forgery; that the testator was of unsound mind and under undue influence when he executed it. and that the beneficiaries were unworthy to succeed. The court, however, made very short work of all thse allegations, for its judgment was tho result of a retirement of barelv five minutes. Defending counsel made the statement that the moving spirit behind the disappointed relatives was a Russiaii livigfi in Paris, who described liimseli I on his letter paper as a specialist in inheritance cases,” and that a handwritiiig expert, who declared the will to be a forgery, had been promised a fee equivalent to £2500 if his . opinion was accepted by the court. Albert Loeske, who died last October, dined daily in a modest pothouso for 7'd. despite his great wealth. Re owned valuable property in Berlin and other German towns, oil wells in Galicia and Rumania, clock factories in Switzerland, half a dozen art dealing firms, each with its own anc * three shops of Margraf and Co., tle best-known jewellers in Berlin. Loeske’s neglected relatives, who had hoped that he would remember them in his will, found that nothing had been left them. His manager, Oppenheimer, was authorised to pick out pictures worth £15,000 from his galleries. The clock business was to bo divided among certain members of the stall, and all employees were left a year s pay The residue of the vast estate went to the wife of Loeske s manager and to Frau Blaustein. _ Loeske was for some time the biggest taxpayer in Berlin. It was said of him that lie was the only millionaire m Germany who filled up his income tax return with scrupulous precision.