novel
Glockauer, Jutta (2010):Das verbotene Land. Sehnsüchte und Rätsel zwischen Thüringen und Kalifornien.
Frieling-Verlag - Berlin
Content:
Eva lives in San Francisco and begins a search for
her old friend from childhood in Hildburghausen. After a long search she
finds Georg and together they remember the old days when they played
"Dark Countess". Now they starts a research for the true
identity of the strange lady.
Glockauer describes a new theory. At the base of a dairy, which contains messages from Margarethe Sillmann (the "Teichgrethe") who cared for the servant of the Count and Countess (Squarre) until his death, she believes, the Dark Countess came not from the French royal family, but from the Prussian high-level nobility.
The woman could have been an illegitimate daughter of the crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia (later king Wilhelm II) and his lover Wilhelmine Enke (later Countess Lichtenau). The daughter was born in 1771 and has been married in early years with a Dutchman, but her husband left her very soon and she went to Spain, where she met the former recruit from the Swiss Guard Squarre. This man contacted his old friend from the French revolution Leonardus Cornelius van der Valck and they went to Ingelfingen and later with help from queen Luise of Prussia to Hildburghausen. They lived a seclusive life there to hide from the pursuit of the Dutch husband.
It is doubtful whether this theory is correct. The topical research assumes from the fact that crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm and Wilhelmine Enke (so the correct writing of her surname) really had a liaison from which several children arose. But there are no information about a daughter born in 1771 who has survived the infancy. Besides, the year of birth of the daughter (about 1771) does not correspond with the assumed year of birth of the Dark Countess. She had passed away in 1837 at the age of 58 years and had been born in 1778 or in 1779.
Text of the publishing house (German):
"Hals über Kopf mußte Eva 1935 zusammen mit ihrer jüdischen
Familie Hildburghausen verlassen. Inzwischen lebt sie in Kalifornien, hat
einen vermögenden Mann, eine erwachsene Tochter und ein schönes Haus,
doch immer wieder wird sie von Heimweh nach der Thüringer Heimat gepackt.
Dort hatte sie mit dem Nachbarsjungen Georg regelmäßig 'Dunkelgräfin'
gespielt. Ob der Jugendfreund noch lebt? Und ob das Geheimnis der Dunkelgräfin
inzwischen gelöst ist, jener schönen Fremden, die ab 1810 zurückgezogen
auf Schloß Eishausen lebte? Insgeheim war sie für eine Tochter des
guillotinierten französischen Königspaares gehalten worden, andere
wiederum hatten in ihr eine preußische Prinzessin gesehen. Eva schreibt
viele Briefe nach Deutschland, und eines Tages kommt ein Lebenszeichen von
Georg …"